Anyone eliminated push programming TV and gone internet access only?

[stephenson]

Hi All,

Cox has continued to increase the bill for TV (no movie channels) and internet ...65% increase in 20 months - caused us to start thinking about what we want and actually use.

We have analyzed our entertainment usage - we found that we only access the push TV programming when we sit down for quick lunches after working on the house or in the yard - sort of mindless entertainment. One major exception is PBS for news and some programming. We don’t watch sports, either.

When we want to be entertained, rather than looking through 150 channels of the duck bubbas, wives of fill-in-the-blank, season 42 of zombies, etc, we go to our Netflix or Amazon Prime subscriptions.

We previously had a second home and I installed an Over The Air and antenna and had 30 plus channels of local and network material.

So, we were thinking of pulling the TV programming plug, thus lowering the bill by 50%, then buying back programming with an OTA antenna, and a couple other subscription services like Rocks, Hulu, etc.

Has anyone done this? Did it take long to forget about the trolling through the channels?

 

[Exrook]

Migth want to review any of these:

http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f28/update-on-cord-cutting-cable-tv-87375.html

http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f29/first-move-toward-cutting-the-cord-78851.html

http://www.early-retirement.org/for...y-favorite-channels-apps-and-yours-92509.html

http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f27/how-to-watch-tv-without-cable-85109.html

http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f27/cord-cutters-data-usage-84362.html

http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f27/cable-cutters-how-do-you-get-internet-92326.html

 

[stephenson]

Thanks Exrook! Zactly what I needed!

 

[bingybear]

not sure of the def for "push tv". We use the good old antenna and streaming and have done so for well over a decade.

 

[sengsational]

I have never bought cable TV...always been an OTA guy. I have a bunch of tuners (in the attic to be near the antennas) and I run code to record various things. Except for the occasional NFL game, I just don't watch "live tv" (I just can't stand the ads). Those links listed earlier probably contain references to my now rather old and creaky solution (HDHomerun and CWEpg), but there are people using it on Win10.

 

[Walt34]

I don't watch TV anymore at all except for at the gym, where thankfully the sound is turned off. Just too much advertising and banal, inane content. DW still wants cable TV so for the sake of household harmony I reluctantly write a check to Comcast every month.

 

[Scrapr]

I don't watch TV anymore at all except for at the gym, where thankfully the sound is turned off. Just too much advertising and banal, inane content. DW still wants cable TV so for the sake of household harmony I reluctantly write a check to Comcast every month.

LOL @ household harmony. I watch very little cable. A bit of local news in the morning to see what is going on in our burg. I have Sling to get Pac 12 channel and games. Sling just bumped rates to $25/mo.

But Mrs Scrapr likes her Food Channel network stuff so we have Direct. And she DVR the View, Ellen & other shows. She is a night owl & will watch them at 2 in the am.

So we are ready to cut the cord....but not....yet

 

[rwdflynavy]

We moved to tv.youtube.com. Unlimited online "DVR" and 98% of the channels we want. Also have Netflix and Amazon Prime. Plenty of content.

Cable bill for internet is now $59.

 

[Totoro]

No fixed line internet or TV, just my 35 euros unlimited 4G connection.

Since 10 years, not feeling like I miss anything. If sometimes I look at TV elsewhere it feels unwatchable: all the interruptions, no ability to pause/fast forward or play at slower/faster speeds.

 

[Which Roger]

not sure of the def for "push tv". We use the good old antenna and streaming and have done so for well over a decade.

"Push" means watching what they broadcast to you (i.e., cable and OTA) whereas "pull" means going to get what you want to watch (i.e., streaming).

 

[happy2bretired]

No fixed line internet or TV, just my 35 euros unlimited 4G connection.

Since 10 years, not feeling like I miss anything. If sometimes I look at TV elsewhere it feels unwatchable: all the interruptions, no ability to pause/fast forward or play at slower/faster speeds.

How does that work? I have a feeling you guys are much more advanced than we are.

 

[Totoro]

I watch content on my laptop, typically with VLC. My phone has an unlimited 4G subscription. There's an option in Android to enable tethering, which creates a wireless hotspot my laptop can connect to.

The 'unlimited part' of the subscription means a no-fuss 5 GB daily allowance. More than that requires an 'are you human' confirmation every 1 GB. I've gone up to 15 GB a day, no complaints from my provider. That's several hours of HD video.

For 'special' bulk downloads there's plenty of coffee shops and such around, but I hardly use them (no need).

 

[happy2bretired]

I see but that won’t work for me. But I see Apple does have a VLC app.

 

[Offgrid Organic Farmer]

Anyone eliminated push programming TV and gone internet access only?

... Has anyone done this? Did it take long to forget about the trolling through the channels?

Our town has no cable company. For OTA there is one channel that we could try to get.

We view stuff online.

 

[target2019]

So, we were thinking of pulling the TV programming plug, thus lowering the bill by 50%, then buying back programming with an OTA antenna, and a couple other subscription services like Rocks, Hulu, etc.

Has anyone done this? Did it take long to forget about the trolling through the channels?

I isolated the end of your post as my comment addresses those two questions. We never subscribed to additional cable TV content, so didn't miss much when we went basic cable w/internet. Added a Roku box, Netflix and Prime content, and not much else.

Beginning of August we wanted to watched USWNT soccer matches, and tried 1-week subscription to Hulu. Actually missed the unsubscribe opportunity to keep it free, and were billed $40 for this month.

I've been looking through the content, thinking there'd be something really interesting for me. I'm not impressed. Hulu is ok, but for us not enough value for $40 per month.

So you still end up trolling through channels looking for content with the added service(s). What can help is to have another source that lists content for you - call it a "whats on" type of guide. For example, on twitter you could follow @iw_popular, and know top ten trends on Amazon and Netflix, once a day.

 

[ER Eddie]

Yup. I'm all Youtube at this point.

 

[JustCurious]

So, we were thinking of pulling the TV programming plug, thus lowering the bill by 50%, then buying back programming with an OTA antenna, and a couple other subscription services like Rocks, Hulu, etc.

Has anyone done this? Did it take long to forget about the trolling through the channels?

Yes, I've done this and I don't miss cable TV at all.

 

[stephenson]

Thanks, All!

The further I get into it, the clearer the end of push TV programming seems ...

Apparently, the key to streaming content is a device like Apple TV, or a Roku/etc - depending on how integrated you want the system to be. If you can live with separate HDMI selections keep the OTA data on one HDMI and the Apple on the other ...if you want full integration just plug everything into a Roku type box ...?

I've got an Apple TV box now ... tried skipping the TV based internet apps a few nights - works transparently ... so, a Roku box should all everything, including OTA and streaming to be through one box, one HDMI, etc .... right? And, it would have an automatic channel guide based on all the inputs?

 

[Sirka]

Yup. I'm all Youtube at this point.

YouTube for us most every night. Yahoo has some good business videos. Don't miss DishTV.