Help me get rid of my cable

[Nick R]

Originally Posted By: Pop_Rivit
$200 a month? Yikes.

Ditch the cable TV, find an inexpensive Internet solution and toss up an antenna to catch the local news. Spend quality time with the family doing something other than pretending to be entertained. Go for a family walk (get yourself and the family in shape), take up a hobby the entire family can work on, do volunteer work (great family experience). Start a side business in which the entire family can participate (it'll teach the kids how to be entrepreneurs).

You'll be amazed at how much better life is without the idiot box, not to mention the $2,000 or so you'll save every year.

$200 a month? Wow.


No wonder we don't get along. My job is to convince people that they NEED to spend $200/mo on service and why it benefits them to do so.

 

[Hokiefyd]

Originally Posted By: Nick R
No wonder we don't get along. My job is to convince people that they NEED to spend $200/mo on service and why it benefits them to do so.


I think the reason some people don't get along with others is often not because of poor advice, but because of poor tact. Being told that the choices you have made are wrong simply because they're different than choices someone else has made is rarely going to be taken in a positive way. I don't need to be told that I'm fooling myself into thinking that I'm entertained by watching television. Attitudes like that are toxic to an organization, and usually do more harm than good.

I do appreciate the constructive suggestions in this thread. I think we are going to get a couple of Roku boxes and try that for a while. Our risk is low; if we really don't like it, we can sell the boxes on Craigslist and go back to something like cable. I will need an antenna and do plan to purchase one. I very much enjoy having the golf match on on Saturday or Sunday afternoons when I'm out in the garage. We all watch the Hokies play football on Saturdays in the fall. I'll need an antenna for this for sure.

I do think the cable TV market model is changing, though. Time Warner Cable already has a Roku channel. It's free to TWC customers who already subscribe to some video service (basic or extended cable). I think this is a step in the right direction for TWC; they realize they must stay relevant. However, folks who are buying Roku boxes are most likely also turning video services OFF. The next logical step for TWC would be to make their channel a subscription channel on Roku, say for $20/month. I'd buy it. In fact, that's all I'd need. A Roku box, broadband service, and the TWC Roku channel. We'd get the sports we enjoy watching, we'd get the HGTV stuff we enjoy watching, and it'd be available in a very modular and portable format. In fact, I could stay a TWC customer no matter WHERE I lived, even if TWC is not in the area. For example, Comcast is the cable provider where my in-laws live in Virginia. If we moved there, we wouldn't necessarily have to leave TWC, if we liked the programming lineup. We'd buy broadband from whomever the local provider is, and we'd buy "cable TV" from TWC via their Roku channel.

I think the industry is quickly moving in that direction, and I'm pleased to see that TWC has at least made baby steps in that area.

 

[Hokiefyd]

I have learned also that you can get Netflix and Hulu Plus on both the Wii and Xbox. We have a Wii in the cabinet with a broken sensor bar that we don't use, and we have an Xbox 360 in the living room that we never use for games, but it's hooked up to the TV and we use it as our DVD player. It looks like I don't even have to buy any Roku boxes. Can simply sign into Netflix and Hulu on the consoles. The Wii isn't HD, but for our bedroom TV, it won't matter.

 

[rshaw125]

It's all a compromise. I thought about getting a Roku but was less than impressed with the channels available.
I think you'll find that you watch less tv. I know I watched less after I got rid of satellite years ago.

 

[Hokiefyd]

Originally Posted By: rshaw125
I think you'll find that you watch less tv. I know I watched less after I got rid of satellite years ago.


I expect this, and would welcome it as well. So often in our house, we're doing other things, but the TV's just *on*...sitting there making noise. And for what? Just making noise, wasting electricity, creating heat, etc.

I'm excited to get rid of the DVR cable boxes. I can hear ours at night, HD chugging away, like it's defragging or something. Imagine how much power is consumed by those cable boxes being "on" all the time.

 

[kb01]

We cut the cord about 5 years ago when Roku came out with their first model (N1000), back when it was the "Netflix Player". I think it was the best $100 purchase I've ever made.

We subscribe to Netflix (2 DVD plan) and Hulu Plus and also have an antenna in the attic for local sports. I think the biggest change in our viewing habits involved getting into the mindset of waiting for seasons of TV to run their course and being perpetually a year behind, either because of streaming or DVD delays. A lot of shows are aired the next day on Hulu Plus but we tend to watch entire seasons of shows as a batch, instead of waiting a week between actual airings.

If you want a lot more flexibility, a HTPC will you give more options than any of the streaming boxes. We now have two Rokus and prefer that route out of simplicity.

By cutting the cord, we are definitely saving money but at the same time, I feel like we're getting significantly more value per dollar spent. A lot of people complain about the quality of the Netflix streaming library -- This has never been a problem for us.

 

[yesthatsteve]

Originally Posted By: Hokiefyd
I have learned also that you can get Netflix and Hulu Plus on both the Wii and Xbox. We have a Wii in the cabinet with a broken sensor bar that we don't use, and we have an Xbox 360 in the living room that we never use for games, but it's hooked up to the TV and we use it as our DVD player. It looks like I don't even have to buy any Roku boxes. Can simply sign into Netflix and Hulu on the consoles. The Wii isn't HD, but for our bedroom TV, it won't matter.


You won't notice the lack of HD when streaming Netflix on the Wii. We have ours hooked up to a 42" TV, and the difference between the Wii and 1080i broadcast TV is minimal.

We got rid of cable about five years ago, and haven't looked back. I can count on one hand the number of times I've actually felt like I missed seeing something I can get only on cable. For sports, ESPN360 (or whatever they call it now) allows streaming of quite a bit of ESPN content - I streamed the NCAA football national championship game a couple of years ago.

For local programming, we have an antenna running through a USB TV tuner hooked up to a PC, and my wife uses Windows Media Center to record her "cheesy reality TV," as she puts it. Fortunately for us, all broadcast stations are within a 27-degree arc, so aiming the antenna was a snap.

 

[rjundi]

The problem most folks jump on is they assume the $200/month or whatever is to deliver TV.

The question is how much does your broadband cost as a stand alone service?

It gets pretty pricey for me personally to run standalone broadband with 20mpbs/5 up(required for job). Unfortunately no decent cell service also requires me to have a cable phone also for work.

The folks who use Roku/Netflix typically need more than a base package of broadband which gets pricey as a standalone.

On the same TV our Wii looks dreadful streaming Netflix compared to our $50 Sony blue ray player that does full HD with Netflix. The same is true of broadcast TV. The color is washed out on the Wii. My youngest daughter just likes that she can control the Wii with a much easier interface via a Wii controller.

 

[Hokiefyd]

Our living room TV would have the Xbox 360 connected to it; I've seen the very same setup at a neighbor's house, and it works well, and quality is remarkable if you think of all the stops that data takes to get to the actual TV.

Stand-alone broadband for them is around $50, but I don't know what it would be for us...I don't know if that was some "introductory price" or if it came with any discounts. It would make sense though...services are typically about $50-60 apiece (broadband, TV, phone). Add all three and you're in the $180 range, plus any upgrades like DVR, etc.

(We don't actually pay quite $200/month; the total bill is about $185, and that includes all fees and taxes. I just say $200/month because it's a round number.)

 

[Hokiefyd]

Also: our TVs are 32" and 37" 720p LCDs. Both are at least 3-4 years old, and both are Sharp brand with which we're extremely happy. We're not on the cutting edge of 1080p stuff. We don't own a Blu Ray player, though any DVDs we do buy we buy the Blu Ray version bundled with the regular version, because I'm sure we'll eventually upgrade.

 

[kb01]

We pay about $40 for the mid-level internet tier from Comcast. I'm not sure if that's the currently offered rate or not. When we dumped cable, the cost did go up $5 or $10/month.

Whatever the exact amount was, it was slightly less after taxes to dump TV than to get broadband with the lowest-of-the-low TV package.

 

[sleddriver]

My story is I've never paid for TV. Never. I seriously considered it 25 yrs ago when there were no commercials, I was much younger, and had hollywood was more to my liking.

I've always had an external antenna and a great signal. I mostly watch movies I borrow from a local community library. If they don't have something I'm interested in, they'll borrow it or buy it.

No doubt I'm missing some things, but you never can watch it all. Who has the time? 200 channels? 300 channels? Give me a break...so many commercials and just stupid commercials too boot. And I get the impression the commercial breaks are all timed across multiple channels.

Home phone land line costs me about $20/month and medium speed ADSL (6M down) is another $20/month + tax. Plenty fast enough to watch shows on-line.

Have heard of ROKU, but don't use it. Many PBS shows are free for about 2 weeks or so after they premier. I have watched shows on HULU a few years back to see what it was like. I use a Panasonic HD/DVD recorder to record straight off-the-air. Works great.

Go to titanTV to see what's avail OTA in your area. Depending on where you are in relation to the transmitter will determine what type & how big your antenna is. Now you only need an UHF. If you leave between two cities you might get extra channels with an additional antenna.

Report back and let us know! Congrats on saying NO MORE to noise.

 

[Vikas]

Originally Posted By: Nick R
No wonder we don't get along. My job is to convince people that they NEED to spend $200/mo on service and why it benefits them to do so.


Didn't you say that you would like to move to a place which offers FIOS? If you can not convince yourself, how do you convince others for the cable??

 

[Nick R]

Originally Posted By: Vikas
Originally Posted By: Nick R
No wonder we don't get along. My job is to convince people that they NEED to spend $200/mo on service and why it benefits them to do so.


Didn't you say that you would like to move to a place which offers FIOS? If you can not convince yourself, how do you convince others for the cable??



The only reason I'd get fios is because I want 100mbps+ internet. It' not something I _NEED_, to be honest now that I have 50mbps I'm perfectly content. It was before when I couldn't get anything higher than 20 that I cared.

 

[JHZR2]

But Fios is giving out $29.99 internet while youre trying to con people into $200 cable tv deals that they cant afford

 

[Nick R]

Originally Posted By: JHZR2
But Fios is giving out $29.99 internet while youre trying to con people into $200 cable tv deals that they cant afford

Er, we have more than ONE cable package you realize. Most internet only I sell is between $35-$50. The average for all 3 is around $130 I'd say. But it's different, you know if the person wants say 4DVR boxes, or all the premium channels it's obviously going to be more. FIOS does the same thing. The amount of times someone actually gets signaturehome right off the bat is very small indeed. But also keep in mind, we DO work on commission and that's where most of my income comes from, especially if you are at least decent at your job, and I'm quite good at my job.

 

[Hokiefyd]

Update: we downloaded Netflix, Hulu Plus, and Amazon on our Wii in the living room, just to see how they work. We are on the trial period on all three. All three have some shows that we like. Netflix has a load of children programming that the kids like. So far, it looks like this is going to work.

It's on the Wii, which is standard definition and somewhat slow. I moved the cable modem to our entertainment center, and the router sits right next to it. The Wii is directly above the router, so it has excellent signal and connectivity appears to be good. However, the CPU in the Wii is a number of generations old and it takes a while to load the Netflix app. Hulu Plus and Amazon are no different. The Wii will be fine for our bedroom, but we'd like something faster in the living room. We considered using the Xbox 360, but that would require a Gold membership to Xbox Live for an additional $45-60/year (depending on where you buy it). TV would be the only reason we'd buy it (we don't play video games online), and after only a year or two, we've paid for a Roku box with a Gold membership. And the Roku platform looks to have far and away the most channel selection, including various news and sports channels. I'm sure the Xbox wouldn't be far behind if, say, the NFL came out with a Sunday Ticket channel (maybe they already have one). But I feel confident that the Roku would be one of the first to offer the channel, so I think we're going to buy one. We considered a wi-fi Blu-Ray player as well, but I have the same hesitation about that (future channel offerings). Same with Apple TV. Looks like a nice platform, but it has a very limited channel selection, at least at this time. We have a lot of Apple stuff, but I'm not an Apple apologist; if the product is limiting to us, we won't buy it.

I understand that the new Roku 3 box ($100) is lighting fast, almost like working with one of the channel apps on a tablet or computer. It also offers an RJ-45 connection on the back (I understand that some of the Roku boxes don't), and I'd prefer that type of connectivity for the living room, since the cable modem is right there anyway.

Thanks to Nick R for offering me guidance via PM on TWC stuff. I plan on calling tomorrow to cut the cable. I already have the cable boxes unplugged and sitting on the dining room table, ready to go back.

 

[Hokiefyd]

We removed our video and telephony services, and also downgraded our internet to 3 Mb/s from 15 Mb/s. Our total bill is now about $60/month, including internet, Netflix, and Hulu Plus. We may add Amazon Prime as well, which would make it about $65/month.

If we find that 3 Mb/s just isn't enough for reliable streaming, I'll bump it back up to 15 Mb/s. Shame there isn't a tier in between, such as 8 or 10.

By the way, after watching cable in HD for many years, I can tell that the Wii is streaming video across a composite cable. It's still a very good picture, and I'm sure nobody else in the family notices, but I can tell it's different. It should be less noticeable on the 32" TV (it's on a 37" right now).

Nobody in town has a Roku 3 in stock. So I ordered from Amazon using our still-in-the-trial-period Prime account. It cost only $8.99 to upgrade to Saturday delivery. That's what I'd have paid in sales tax at Walmart or Best Buy. Free shipping would have had it here Tuesday.

 

[Nick R]

Streaming HD content via netflix you want at LEAST a 3mbps connection. It could work fine but as I said I'd normally recommend a 15mbps connection (since as you said it's the next step up) Keep me posted on how it goes

 

[yesthatsteve]

Multiple devices streaming at once will choke a 3MB connection. It's what got my lovely wife to (finally!) agree to a faster connection.