Update on Cord Cutting (Cable TV) 2017 - 2020

[RunningBum]

Quote:

Originally Posted by retiredunder50 There seems to be a new streaming service offering geared mostly for sport fans --> fuboTV. 85 live channels of which at least half seem to be sports. 7 day free trial, $20 first month, $45/month thereafter but no contract and looks like one can hop in and out. It has a 30 hour cloud DVR and a 72 hour lookback if you forgot to record. It runs on the usual popular streaming boxes/sticks and tablets. https://www.fubo.tv/welcome/channels

I was pretty impressed with their lineup for sports until I noticed one set missing: ESPN. That's a gaping hole for anyone interested in the major US sports.

[ndlex]

I recently switched from Spectrum Cable TV to YouTube TV and I couldn't be happier. The DVR function is excellent as is the picture quality. I got in while it was still $35/month. This will cut $50/month off my cable TV/Internet bill per month.

[RunningBum]

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Originally Posted by RunningBum So I sat down and figured out what I have now, and what I could get with the Tablo + PS Vue which seems to have the best sports package, especially for the college football I like to watch. With a few non-critical additions and subtractions, it'd give me the same programming. Long story short, I'd save about $150/yr by switching, partly because of the upgraded internet speed, which I'm not even certain is available to me. I'd also have ~$400 in upfront costs. I started typing in all the details, but I doubt anyone else really cares. It's a mindset change to go from the mode of set top box directly connected to a TV, to streaming anywhere. I'm getting more on board with it. I need to start using DishAnywhere more to get used to it, but it doesn't have access to my recorded shows with my Dish setup. That would be a big plus for the Tablo/PS Vue combo, though moving off a proven setup is hard to do.

Turns out I can just plug a wifi adapter in the USB port of my VIP722 receiver and access my Dish recordings elsewhere. I think I might do that since that was a big attraction for me of the Tablo/PS Vue.

[timo2]

I recently convinced the household members to do the following: keep dish but drop to the flex pack, which is a slim package similar to the content of the old cable systems of the 1990's (still has the channels most watched in the house), drop HBO (we have netflix on Roku) and return the two remote joey's (dish anywhere & antenna will be used instead). This all resulted in a 50% reduction in TV bill. The only negative is the flex package lacks sports packages needed for baseball and the redzone.....possibly can replace redzone on roku with seasonal NFL package, but baseball has priced itself out of the market.

[Cobra9777]

Quote:

Originally Posted by RunningBum So I sat down and figured out what I have now, and what I could get with the Tablo + PS Vue which seems to have the best sports package...

Why do you need the Tablo when PSV has unlimited cloud DVR?

Quote:

Originally Posted by RunningBum ...I'd also have ~$400 in upfront costs. I started typing in all the details, but I doubt anyone else really cares.

I'm curious how you got to that figure. Strikes me as high.

[RunningBum]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cobra9777 Why do you need the Tablo when PSV has unlimited cloud DVR?

I would very likely use the PSV just during FB and hoops season, and go with the Tablo and OTA for the other 5 months. If I stayed with the PSV year round, I'd break even with Dish, but not have as much upfront costs as I need with the Tablo.

Quote:

I'm curious how you got to that figure ($400). Strikes me as high.

$250 for the Tablo. $100 for the required hard drive--I didn't research this well as to whether I'd want to pay more for an SSD, or less for a standard drive. They recommend against one of those little USB thumb drives or an enclosure, saying the write time is not fast enough and inconsistent. I could get the $200 Tablo dual tuner with 64GB drive instead, so it could be cheaper, but I mentioned that right now I sometimes record 3 shows at once.

Add $50 for 2 more Fire or Roku sticks needed for Tablo or PSVue. Plus I may have to upgrade my router for the faster internet. I know my son had to when he went from something like 10MB to 100MB. So $400 could be low, it could be over $500, though it could be as low as $250.

[audreyh1]

Currently we watch Amazon, Netflix, PBS and I think we are paying around $20 a month for 4K streaming not including Amazon Prime cost which we would buy anyway. No ads on anything.

We might turn on STARZ for a month or two to catch up on some shows, then turn it back off.

We don’t watch any OTA/broadcast TV and we already have way more to watch than we can possibly absorb.

That is a far cry from typical cable bills. I’m not worried about a proliferation of apps because a) I don’t have to watch all that much, and b) I don’t have to subscribe to all apps simultaneously.

[Cobra9777]

Quote:

Originally Posted by RunningBum I would very likely use the PSV just during FB and hoops season, and go with the Tablo and OTA for the other 5 months. If I stayed with the PSV year round, I'd break even with Dish, but not have as much upfront costs as I need with the Tablo...

I see. In our case, OTA is not an option (too far). So we use PSV (mainly the cloud DVR) on two Fire TV boxes. Very little upfront cost. Ongoing is $40/mo. Yes, we could probably get a comparable internet+TV package from FiOS (our ISP) for similar incremental cost via double-play discount. But then the deal gets killed with hardware rental and other fees.

I like the new world of streaming, minimal hardware, no input switching, growing level of integration (Fire TV...PSV...Alexa...Nest...other home automation one day). Hardware DVRs, cable modems, DVD players, and other STBs just feel so.. 1990s.

[RunningBum]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cobra9777 I see. In our case, OTA is not an option (too far). So we use PSV (mainly the cloud DVR) on two Fire TV boxes. Very little upfront cost. Ongoing is $40/mo. Yes, we could probably get a comparable internet+TV package from FiOS (our ISP) for similar incremental cost via double-play discount. But then the deal gets killed with hardware rental and other fees. I like the new world of streaming, minimal hardware, no input switching, growing level of integration (Fire TV...PSV...Alexa...Nest...other home automation one day). Hardware DVRs, cable modems, DVD players, and other STBs just feel so.. 1990s.

I know. I'm a bit of a dinosaur, but I still had dial up well into the 2000s, then spotty 2MB DSL--I was on the very edge of the physical distance limit, and in fact they had to reroute some things for me. I'm very thankful for 10MB cable internet. So I still don't like things in the cloud, and I still watch DVDs more than streaming Amazon Prime movies. I'm getting there, but only if it's really an advantage to me.

[GoGolfing]

Got rid of Direct TV, $170 per month to get the tier that has Golf Channel.
Went to YouTubeTV, $37 per month - all the channels we need (lots of sports channels) and we can watch from any device.

Great savings, although I see that Direct TV now has a $10 per month promotion for a streaming service. Not sure how long that is for or how much it goes up after the promotion. Just don't trust them not to slowly raise the rates over the years (that's what happened with our former contract with them).

[Midpack]

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Originally Posted by GoGolfing Great savings, although I see that Direct TV now has a $10 per month promotion for a streaming service. Not sure how long that is for or how much it goes up after the promotion. Just don't trust them not to slowly raise the rates over the years (that's what happened with our former contract with them).

”Get your first 3 months for $10 a month! Service renews at full price (min. $35/mo.) after three months unless you cancel. Price for “Live a Little” pkg after discount. Ltd time offer. New sub’s only. Voids 7-day trial. Restr’s apply.”

[Chuckanut]

For those who are considering an OTA experience, Tivo has some deals currently. They are on the Bolt model which is more up-to-date than the cheaper Roamio models. (note: I have the Roamio model and find it perfectly satisfactory). It also does Netflix, Amazon video, YouTube and others. Scroll down the page to see a list of features.

TiVo March Mania 2018 Sale | Only $139.99 TiVo BOLT - Buy Today!

I would recommend buying the unit with the 'All In' guide service which is for the life of the unit. (Tivo's three most likely points of failure are the disk drive, power supply, and fan. All of these are not difficult to replace thus keeping the lifetime Guide service in full operation. ) After about 2 years, the All-In fee is paid for compared to an ongoing monthly fee.

[jimbee]

The Tivo guide service is quite expensive. Schedules Direct costs $25 per year, but I doubt a Tivo will work with it. I use Schedules Direct with a MythTV server I set up. Works ok.

[explanade]

The guide service fee is basically how they amortize some of the hardware costs.

[wmc1000]

We do OTA service through a HTPC, (Home Theater Personal Computer). I run Windows 7 with Windows Media Center so no cost for guide service, have 2 Silicon Dust Dual tuners plugged into our router so we can record up to 4 programs at the same time. Total 1 time cost for computer, extra 3 TB hard drive and the 2 dual tuners was less than $400. That has been more than 4 years ago now. We can also stream through the computer if there is something we want to watch online.

[Cobra9777]

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Originally Posted by wmc1000 We do OTA service through a HTPC, (Home Theater Personal Computer). I run Windows 7 with Windows Media Center so no cost for guide service, have 2 Silicon Dust Dual tuners plugged into our router so we can record up to 4 programs at the same time. Total 1 time cost for computer, extra 3 TB hard drive and the 2 dual tuners was less than $400. That has been more than 4 years ago now. We can also stream through the computer if there is something we want to watch online.

I had a similar setup for many years... two HDHomeRun tuners and free guide data via WMC. At first we ran WMC on a Win7 PC hooked up to the TV. Later, we ran Kodi on two Fire TV boxes and used a utility called ServerWMC to feed programming, guide data, and DVR functionality to Kodi.

Once set up, it was fairly reliable, but it did have some quirks. Guide data would go absent for no apparent reason and then come back a few days later... sometime all channels, sometimes just a few. WMC would occasionally lose the channel data, which required me to re-run the setup process and channel scan. Same would happen with the tuners from time to time. Connectivity was usually good with minimal buffering but we did have one local channel that suffered from near-constant pixelation. That channel worked fine straight into the TV so it was somehow related to the whole WMC setup and I never came up with a resolution.

Anyway, that was then. This is now with PS Vue and Cloud DVR. Much simpler, less hassle, and more reliable. But at a cost. Also, I think 2018 is the year Microsoft will drop guide support for WMC.

[aja8888]

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Originally Posted by Chuckanut If the price of various streaming services keeps going up while our choices are more limited maybe somebody will figure out a way to rent DVDs cheaply by mail.

You know, if it gets to the point where there are many different pay per use services that add up to a big number ($$), I'll be betting that many people will just give up watching most of that cr@p anyway. Most of it is a waste of valuable time as it is.

[wmc1000]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cobra9777 I had a similar setup for many years... two HDHomeRun tuners and free guide data via WMC. At first we ran WMC on a Win7 PC hooked up to the TV. Later, we ran Kodi on two Fire TV boxes and used a utility called ServerWMC to feed programming, guide data, and DVR functionality to Kodi. Once set up, it was fairly reliable, but it did have some quirks. Guide data would go absent for no apparent reason and then come back a few days later... sometime all channels, sometimes just a few. WMC would occasionally lose the channel data, which required me to re-run the setup process and channel scan. Same would happen with the tuners from time to time. Connectivity was usually good with minimal buffering but we did have one local channel that suffered from near-constant pixelation. That channel worked fine straight into the TV so it was somehow related to the whole WMC setup and I never came up with a resolution. Anyway, that was then. This is now with PS Vue and Cloud DVR. Much simpler, less hassle, and more reliable. But at a cost. Also, I think 2018 is the year Microsoft will drop guide support for WMC.

Actually, 2016 was the only time we had any hiccups with WMC. Microsoft did drop guide support they were providing that year thru Zap2it and replaced it with Rovi which is the same provider used for their XBOX Live system so there shouldn't be an issue this year.

[Chuckanut]

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Originally Posted by jimbee The Tivo guide service is quite expensive. Schedules Direct costs $25 per year, but I doubt a Tivo will work with it. I use Schedules Direct with a MythTV server I set up. Works ok.

Agreed. That's why I recommend a one time payment for the lifetime service.

[Chuckanut]

Quote:

Originally Posted by aja8888 You know, if it gets to the point where there are many different pay per use services that add up to a big number ($$), I'll be betting that many people will just give up watching most of that cr@p anyway. Most of it is a waste of valuable time as it is.

That's my take on it. The die-hard TV lovers will just return to the Cable Guys and pay what they are asking to have it all. People like me will start doing other things like - talking with my neighbors, checking books out of the library, and socializing down at the local pub.