Update on Cord Cutting (Cable TV) 2017 - 2020

[retiredunder50]

We've been using OTA antenna, Roku, Amazon Prime (via our college kids), & recent movie DVDs from the library for our video watching. I haven't read through this thread in awhile (so please forgive me if this has been mentioned before), but for many who do not live close enough for antenna reception for live shows/news/sports, I believe most providers have to offer a basic antenna type service set of channels. These service offerings usually have 15 to 30 stations that include your local major network affiliates (ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, PBS), and some mix of shopping, government, lower tier cable stations,... This service typically ranges from around $12 to $20 a month depending on provider. Each provider may have other requirements & fees & charges. Optimum called it Broadcast Basic, Comcast named it Limited Basic, Verizon FIOS TV local, ... The names of the service may have changed.

 

[Chuckanut]

For all those folks who live to far away for OTA TV, and don't want to pay high cable bills, some bright person should start a business that rents DVDs and sends them to you in the mail. Or maybe uses some type of vending machine to rent them at the store.

All the ordering and billing can be handled online to minimize costs.

Of course, sports fans may still be out of luck.

 

[jim584672]

I got one of those OTA converter boxes in 2008 with a $40 Fed coupon, so for $10. One good thing about it, it finds all channels with regular rabbit ears. Not hi res, but it serves in a pinch.

 

[Z3Dreamer]

I have the best of both worlds. I have a cable box attached to one TV with the lowest possible cable service possible. So, I can get all the live sports on this TV. This TV also has a Roku. The other 6 TVs have Roku's and antennae (OTA) attached to them. I can watch the Spectrum app on Roku. I have 2 antennae in the attic that feed this. I also have a Tablo that is connected to my network and feeds all 7 TVs.

 

[RunningBum]

I got one of those OTA converter boxes in 2008 with a $40 Fed coupon, so for $10. One good thing about it, it finds all channels with regular rabbit ears. Not hi res, but it serves in a pinch.

Those converter boxes were only for old non-HD TVs with the old tuners. If you've got an HD TV with a tuner (apparently not all TVs have one anymore), you no longer need the converter box. Just hook your rabbit ears up directly to the TV, and you'll get the locals in HD.

 

[jim584672]

Those converter boxes were only for old non-HD TVs with the old tuners. If you've got an HD TV with a tuner (apparently not all TVs have one anymore), you no longer need the converter box. Just hook your rabbit ears up directly to the TV, and you'll get the locals in HD.

Yes, but the TV doesn't work well with just rabbit ears, it needs a better antenna.

 

[retiredunder50]

There is a lot of live sports via OTA antenna or via the lowest cost antenna cable/telco service offering; I think Verizon offers it for $12.99 in my area. The Roku ESPN channel offers quite a bit of free live & replay programming although not for all of their events. Of course, for almost unlimited live sports and other programming, there is always the Kodi route, or Openelec on a Rasberry Pi, or casting from some internet sites, but that gets sketchy. I can receive Philly & NY channels with my antenna, preamp and rotor. Most of the live games I care about are broadcast OTA.

 

[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.

 

[RunningBum]

There is a lot of live sports via OTA antenna or via the lowest cost antenna cable/telco service offering; I think Verizon offers it for $12.99 in my area. The Roku ESPN channel offers quite a bit of free live & replay programming although not for all of their events. Of course, for almost unlimited live sports and other programming, there is always the Kodi route, or Openelec on a Rasberry Pi, or casting from some internet sites, but that gets sketchy. I can receive Philly & NY channels with my antenna, preamp and rotor. Most of the live games I care about are broadcast OTA.

Most of the live sports I care about are not broadcast OTA, so what works for you doesn't satisfy me at all. I'm not at all interested in pirated, unreliable streaming sites. Let's just say the unreliability kills it and we'll steer clear of ethics and legality. PS Vue seems to be the best solution to get what I want and have now, but that's not a huge cost savings.

 

[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

 

[RunningBum]

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]

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]

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?

...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]

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.

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]

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]

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]

Went to YouTubeTV - excellent

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]

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.