Cutting the Cord

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TorMag said:
That's what I am not sure of. So, say for a Sports event that I want to watch. Is it live? Or is it stored and I can watch when I want to? So if it is streamed can I "Pause" it?
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Sports are live, no replays. Movies, TV shows are all on demand. You view them like with a DVR.

Edit: sometimes sporting events are replayed on sports specific sites. But not every event is guaranteed.
 
An app called PlayOn also has a companion app called PlayLater which is a DVR function. I have it but never use it. IIRC, it has a built in auto-delete feature. Or used to, as a way to circumvent some of legal issues.

I cut the cord 7 or 8 years ago in favor of Roku dvp's, PlayOn, and Netflix. Have tried Hulu a time or two but have not been impressed enough to keep it going. With the savings from dropping cable and phone (switched to vonage VOIP) I bolstered my internet service. 150/20 isp and gigabit wired LAN throughout the house. Most all of my devices are wired but I am also well covered with Wi-Fi via Linksys ac router and a pair of AC ap's. Our ISP also has a non-enforced bandwidth limit of 1TB for the tier I currently use. i usually come in at 800gb/mo but have frequently gone well over. Once even doubled my limit via Steam and Xbox downloads.

We are not a sports house, and not having cable/sattelite has only been a minor issue with some shows/series being an exclusive to certain networks. Most recent is the FX series Taboo. Wife wants to see this but we don't have access to FX or BBC One. And it has not made it's way to Hulu or Netflix.
 
I have not moved the asus router as it is my office, next to my switches, firewall and servers and it keeps it simple. and the house is not a large house, was originally a summer cottage, then added on, then added on. The visio's are really actually good at working with plex, but I'm not running 4k, but the ease of use. of course the size of the files I run through plex vary, 1GB to 50GB, (but figure the average is around 4 to 9 GB) and I am happy with how it works, go on vacation, just run it through the roku etc, ease of use is excellent.

also, the kids can use it, I have some coworkers that are connected to it, my nephew at college, etc and it works easily.

I think of plex as an easy way to have your stuff organized and accessible without issues. I can connect using pretty much any device, from xbox to cell phone.. amazon tablet, etc. And it's quick, quality wise, it is either 1080p, or close enough that I can't tell the difference, and am happy.

for music I just use windows. It's simple and it works. I have a netbook on the porch that connects to my media, a windows tablet it the Living room that does the same, and each person can create their own playlist, or stream from you tube, etc. and anyone can access it and I don't have to worry about them deleting, or renaming, or messing up other playlists...
 
I'd cut the cable tomorrow, but I'm addicted to hockey. The NHL package is OK for the regular season, but not the playoffs. I don't think it's possible to follow the post season without cable. (sad face here)
 
arturo7 said:
I'd cut the cable tomorrow, but I'm addicted to hockey. The NHL package is OK for the regular season, but not the playoffs. I don't think it's possible to follow the post season without cable. (sad face here)
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Pretty much. I had that for two years and aside from the playoffs not being included there were tons of blackout restrictions, not to mention amazingly sh1tty tech and customer support. Would not bang again.
 
It seems that almost everything will be streaming in the next 5 years or so. I test a few devices for recording OTA and cable cards for a few companies and they are all expecting major shifts in the next 5-10 years. Millennials and many others are not going to stay home on a Wednesday night at 8pm just to watch a 30 minute tv show. They are already adjusting to streaming and I can't see that changing.
 
Beer-lord said:
It seems that almost everything will be streaming in the next 5 years or so. I test a few devices for recording OTA and cable cards for a few companies and they are all expecting major shifts in the next 5-10 years. Millennials and many others are not going to stay home on a Wednesday night at 8pm just to watch a 30 minute tv show. They are already adjusting to streaming and I can't see that changing.
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Just like satellite radio in cars. They were doing great until that damn Bluetooth showed up and ruined the party.

Almost everyone I have met in the past 10 years has a cell phone too. Why keep a house line then, especially when most plans have free cell to cell? The main argument I've heard is if there's a disaster and all cell phones go down, what are you going to do? Um.... yeah. I doubt I'll be worried about my cell phone. I'll be too busy killing zombies.

:mug:
 
Rockn_M said:
Ya. I wouldn't do that unless you had a vpn.
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FYI, anyone using PIA, beware, there's a bug that make you think you're proxied, but you are absolutely not. Confirmed with their tech support and across the webz. AFAIK it's been going on for over a year. It's not a big deal if you dbl check your IP remotely, but don't believe the system tray icon.
 
passedpawn said:
FYI, anyone using PIA, beware, there's a bug that make you think you're proxied, but you are absolutely not. Confirmed with their tech support and across the webz. AFAIK it's been going on for over a year. It's not a big deal if you dbl check your IP remotely, but don't believe the system tray icon.
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And they're based in the US, so I don't trust it. The government can push them around at any time.



Huh. That's sad to reread. Land of the Free-ish... :ban:
 
k1ngl1ves said:
Just like satellite radio in cars. They were doing great until that damn Bluetooth showed up and ruined the party.

Almost everyone I have met in the past 10 years has a cell phone too. Why keep a house line then, especially when most plans have free cell to cell? The main argument I've heard is if there's a disaster and all cell phones go down, what are you going to do? Um.... yeah. I doubt I'll be worried about my cell phone. I'll be too busy killing zombies.

:mug:
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I'll tell you why I keep a house line.......because it's cheaper for me. Cox offers a huge discount when you have cable, internet and telephone. Each year I ask to remove my phone, which only costs $27 a month and I get nothing but junk calls, and they then tell me my bill will go up $40! Really?
So, then I tell them if they are going to make me keep my phone, give me a discount. 4 years ago I was paying $212 for all three and each year I talk them down a bit and am now paying $180. It's only a matter of time before I ditch phone and cable and just go to internet. I have all the devices in place in the house to do just that but the 'boss' isn't ready yet. :)
 
Beer-lord said:
I'll tell you why I keep a house line.......because it's cheaper for me. Cox offers a huge discount when you have cable, internet and telephone. Each year I ask to remove my phone, which only costs $27 a month and I get nothing but junk calls, and they then tell me my bill will go up $40! Really?
So, then I tell them if they are going to make me keep my phone, give me a discount. 4 years ago I was paying $212 for all three and each year I talk them down a bit and am now paying $180. It's only a matter of time before I ditch phone and cable and just go to internet. I have all the devices in place in the house to do just that but the 'boss' isn't ready yet. :)
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The same thing with me. Its cheaper to get a bundle with the phone than with cable and internet only...I never even hooked up the phone and only use my cell
 
Beer-lord said:
I'll tell you why I keep a house line.......because it's cheaper for me. Cox offers a huge discount when you have cable, internet and telephone. Each year I ask to remove my phone, which only costs $27 a month and I get nothing but junk calls, and they then tell me my bill will go up $40! Really?
So, then I tell them if they are going to make me keep my phone, give me a discount. 4 years ago I was paying $212 for all three and each year I talk them down a bit and am now paying $180. It's only a matter of time before I ditch phone and cable and just go to internet. I have all the devices in place in the house to do just that but the 'boss' isn't ready yet. :)
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Same thing happened to me, then I got tired of waiting for the boss and just did it. She hardly noticed.
 
I'm seriously going to cancel my Directv now that I have fiber-optic internet and a smart TV. I'm leaning towards ROKU. Can anyone fill me in on how it works and what kind of channels are available?
 
arturo7 said:
I'd cut the cable tomorrow, but I'm addicted to hockey. The NHL package is OK for the regular season, but not the playoffs. I don't think it's possible to follow the post season without cable. (sad face here)
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Time to start hanging out in the closest sports bar? :mug:
 
JONNYROTTEN said:
The same thing with me. Its cheaper to get a bundle with the phone than with cable and internet only...I never even hooked up the phone and only use my cell
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It was like that for us for a while. We kept checking and finally found a plan that fixed that.

Some of our younger friends were over one day, and thought we were quaint for having a land line.
 
imasickboy said:
For those looking to cut the home phone cost, look into ooma. It's VOIP, good quality, and cheap as all hell. Our cell numbers are given to friends and family. Businesses or anything else gets the home number. I pay $4.23 a month. Worth every penny.
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I haven't cut the cable cord yet only because the wife loves her reality cooking and home makeover shows but in 2009 I bought an OOMA box which we are still using. Because I got in at the beginning of OOMA and haven't upgraded my box (why should I, it works fine?) I pay nothing per month, not even taxes or 911 fees.

Actually AT&T have only themselves to blame as they allowed my land line to be slammed with additional costly features back in 2009 and refused to remove all of them when I contacted their customer service. They claim a salesperson came to my door, met with me, and I agreed to the services which is complete and total bullcrap. Therefore, bye bye forever you lying thieving monsters.

My wife telecommutes and uses that OOMA line many hours a day and we've never had a problem except of course when Comcast internet goes down which is a rare occurrence.

I have a Roku stick and an old Apple TV I loaded with Crystalbuntu and Kodi plus a Netflix account and Amazon Prime video. I put an HD antenna on our backup TV so although I rarely watch cable there's never a time when I don't have something to watch.
 
arturo7 said:
I'd cut the cable tomorrow, but I'm addicted to hockey. The NHL package is OK for the regular season, but not the playoffs. I don't think it's possible to follow the post season without cable. (sad face here)
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Have you checked Sling.com. I think they offer the NHL package. I'm not a hockey fan so I don't know who broadcasts the playoffs.

Im not super tech savvy.

I have antennae in attic to get local channels. Use a channel master box to convert the HD signal. Channel master also supports sling so I can access sling through the box. I like sling because I pretty much only watch college football. I activate sling in September and then cancel in January. No contract so it is easy to start and stop service.

I use magic jack for a land line. Only reason I keep a land line is for 911. If they ever figure out how to use the gps feature of cell phones for 911, I'll ditch the land line.

Use amazon prime for movies.

Since magic jack is voip. I have converted phone lines to Ethernet so I can hardware my devices
 
I just dropped cable last month, so far so good! Anyone else using PSVue? I'm liking it so far, lots of the same cable channels, and sports have been solid. Haven't looked at NHL packs yet, but their NFL pack looks good.
My setup:
Samsung SmartTV (for 4K Netflix and Amazon Prime TV)
AppleTV (gen4? Latest one) running PSVue, Netflix, and Hulu
Eventually, the plan is to set up a NAS and rip all of our DVDs for playback from the AppleTV.
 
I cut the cord about 5-6 years ago and its been great for the most part. There are some channels like AMC and HGTV that we miss sometimes and I haven't found good solutions for them yet.

We're a Roku house; I have 3 attached to TV's plus another TCL Roku TV in the shop. I use TabloTV for OTA DVR and LOVE IT!

I've been tinkering with PlayOn but it doesn't seem to live up to whats advertised so far. At best I think it could be a good way to avoid additional costs from things like Hulu for the AdSkip features.

When I tried Sling, I found it limited and expensive for the constraints they apply. The 20 bucks a month only covers a single stream; that means only a single device can watch per stream. You can pay for more streams but even then I wasn't impressed with the content offering.

PSVue looks interesting and I might have to take a look to see how it stacks up to Sling...
 
It's great to see others cutting the cord. We cut cable out in 07. We kept Netflix and had an antenna for the networks. In 2012 we moved from the city to the country and unfortunately there is no legitimate internet option so no Netflix anymore and we miss that but we have learned to get by. We rely a lot on the library's DVD section. We will never go back to cable.
 
Nagorg said:
I cut the cord about 5-6 years ago and its been great for the most part. There are some channels like AMC and HGTV that we miss sometimes and I haven't found good solutions for them yet.

We're a Roku house; I have 3 attached to TV's plus another TCL Roku TV in the shop. I use TabloTV for OTA DVR and LOVE IT!

I've been tinkering with PlayOn but it doesn't seem to live up to whats advertised so far. At best I think it could be a good way to avoid additional costs from things like Hulu for the AdSkip features.

When I tried Sling, I found it limited and expensive for the constraints they apply. The 20 bucks a month only covers a single stream; that means only a single device can watch per stream. You can pay for more streams but even then I wasn't impressed with the content offering.

PSVue looks interesting and I might have to take a look to see how it stacks up to Sling...
Click to expand...

In regards to sling, in my experience you can use on multiple devices at the same time, just not the same channel at the same time. We've had two tv's using it at the same time with no issues. May be worth revisiting, they have an impressive channel catalog
 
jjw5015 said:
In regards to sling, in my experience you can use on multiple devices at the same time, just not the same channel at the same time. We've had two tv's using it at the same time with no issues. May be worth revisiting, they have an impressive channel catalog
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http://help.sling.com/articles/en_U...ng-TV-on-multiple-devices-at-the-same-time-13

http://www.tomsguide.com/us/sling-tv-vs-playstation-vue,review-2691.html

I've been using PSVue for 1 day so far and It's way better than what I remember of SlingTV. Granted its base cost is more than SlingTV but I've got it on 3 of 4 Roku's so far with no issues watching the same channel or different channels.
 
indymedic said:
It's great to see others cutting the cord. We cut cable out in 07. We kept Netflix and had an antenna for the networks. In 2012 we moved from the city to the country and unfortunately there is no legitimate internet option so no Netflix anymore and we miss that but we have learned to get by. We rely a lot on the library's DVD section. We will never go back to cable.
Click to expand...

I've discovered some really good stuff at the library: Red Dwarf in particular.
 
So I contacted Comcast today to find out what I am paying for and what I can get away with removing. Turns out I am paying, with equipment, $149.00/month for my high speed internet. This is something I cannot get rid of because I work from home sometimes and I need it. So with some wrangling, I got them to drop my monthly down (with equipment, modem, dvr, cable boxes), to $200/month. That dropped my bill by $100/month. So basically, I am paying $50 more a month for cable with all the premiere stations (hbo, showtime, starz) and a home phone, So even if I was to get HBO and Hulu I would almost be paying the same. Don't see the benefit as I also have a DVR.
 
TorMag said:
So I contacted Comcast today to find out what I am paying for and what I can get away with removing. Turns out I am paying, with equipment, $149.00/month for my high speed internet. This is something I cannot get rid of because I work from home sometimes and I need it. So with some wrangling, I got them to drop my monthly down (with equipment, modem, dvr, cable boxes), to $200/month. That dropped my bill by $100/month. So basically, I am paying $50 more a month for cable with all the premiere stations (hbo, showtime, starz) and a home phone, So even if I was to get HBO and Hulu I would almost be paying the same. Don't see the benefit as I also have a DVR.
Click to expand...

I bought my own modem for about $60 instead of paying the $8 month rental fee they charge. Pays for itself in less than a year
 
TorMag said:
So I contacted Comcast today to find out what I am paying for and what I can get away with removing. Turns out I am paying, with equipment, $149.00/month for my high speed internet. This is something I cannot get rid of because I work from home sometimes and I need it. So with some wrangling, I got them to drop my monthly down (with equipment, modem, dvr, cable boxes), to $200/month. That dropped my bill by $100/month. So basically, I am paying $50 more a month for cable with all the premiere stations (hbo, showtime, starz) and a home phone, So even if I was to get HBO and Hulu I would almost be paying the same. Don't see the benefit as I also have a DVR.
Click to expand...

What?!!! $150 for just Internet!!! How fast? A Gig? I have 150mbps from Comcast for $64.99 a month, which is super fast. Nothing buffers, even 4k. :confused:

You can buy a modem on ebay for $30. Any modem faster than 160mbps would be more. Save that $10 a month.
 
I'm in the middle of cutting the cord. I've been a DirecTV satellite subscriber for a few years now. My most recent bill was $184.99 which I just couldn't take any more.

I have one more payment to fulfill my NFL Sunday Ticket obligation, then I'll make the call to cancel. I was all set to start up with Sling when I read about a new service being offered by AT&T called DirecTV Now. It's internet based and similar to Sling and Vue.

They had a special where if you pre-paid for 3 months of the "Go Big" package (100+ channels) you get locked in at $35/month (regular $60/month), plus they send you a free 32gb 4th gen Apple TV ($150 value). As far as I know the deal ended on Jan. 9th and the same package is now full price at $60/month. It has all the channels I need - AMC, TBS, TNT, Syfy, BBC, CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, etc. etc. etc. You can even get HBO for an additional $5/month. They say Roku is releasing an app for it some time 1st quarter 2017, which is good since I have a few Roku devices that I can use on other TVs.

I received the Apple TV about a week ago, configured it, and have been watching TV with it, and it all seems good so far. Excellent picture quality, no freeze-ups or choppiness. FWIW my internet speed is around 65Mbps as measured at speedtest.net. The channel guide is somewhat kludgy, a bit slow and difficult to maneuver, but I am getting used to it.

The one glaring negative is the lack of a DVR. But for the price I think I can get used to it, especially since we seem to be watching less TV anyway. So I'll try this for a while and reassess down the road. I see this as just one more option, and it's good to have options.
 
Kodi and PlayStation vue. Both running on firestick although vue runs a little slow. I eventually broke down and got the vue because I missed watching live TV and sports. Kodi sucks for sports IMO but I have crappy centurylink so maybe that's why.
 
Cut the cord ~2 years ago now. The kicker for me was SlingTV, as I wanted to retain access to ESPN. All told I spend $20 for Sling, $12 for Netflix, $8 for Hulu. I also have Amazon Prime but I had that long before I started streaming, just for the shipping deals, so I don't count that. Also have an antenna for OTA.

I've found it to be more than worth it. The kids have responded well (in fact, they prefer "Roku TV" at my house to "stupid channel TV" at their mom's house)...

Unfortunately ESPN streaming has been going downhill of late. They don't have adequate server capacity. The college football nat'l championship game was basically worthless, and even since then I've seen their stream going haywire. If they can't fix it, I'll ditch Sling, since ESPN is 95% of the reason I have Sling anyway.
 
juggabrew said:
Kodi and PlayStation vue. Both running on firestick although vue runs a little slow. I eventually broke down and got the vue because I missed watching live TV and sports. Kodi sucks for sports IMO but I have crappy centurylink so maybe that's why.
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I've found Kodi for live sports streaming to be terrible. That was one reason I finally bit the bullet, climbed a ladder, and installed an antenna. I simply couldn't deal with the terrible NFL quality on Kodi.

I have great internet (150 Mbps down) and have both a FireTV stick via Wifi and a dedicated Linux box hard-wired able to run Kodi, and neither one has good coverage for live NFL, so I am assuming that the issue is host-side.
 
harleybug88 said:
I'm seriously going to cancel my Directv now that I have fiber-optic internet and a smart TV. I'm leaning towards ROKU. Can anyone fill me in on how it works and what kind of channels are available?
Click to expand...

You just hook the Roku up to your TV (make sure you have HDMI input) and then search for your WIFI signal. That's about it. Roku will probably ask for a credit card number since you can make purchases through them for ppvs and channels like HBO. Once in awhile the Roku remote might unsync so here's what you do. https://support.roku.com/article/20...mote-is-not-responding-or-missing-key-presses

That's the only issue I've had with it.

Channels on Roku include Amazon Prime, Netflix, Hulu, HBO NOW, PBS , Flix, and a bunch of others I never really have checked out.
 

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