Ditching cable TV

[Gino]

Out where we live, we only had an antenna for years.... and the reception was fantastic. Then a development moved in a few miles down the road which made it profitable for the cable company to come through. We hooked up and liked it until the rates kept going up and the programming sucked more and more. So, due to high costs and not watching much television to begin with, we stopped the cable about 15 years ago and went with the satellite. Same thing, we still don't watch much television and I only have a few channels which I really wanna see, but I can do without. We have the roku and the other stuff, but really, don't need it. For the most part, we're not couch potatoes.

We still have the dish, but are thinking about getting rid of it, too. Just haven't decided, yet. It's only about $130 a month, but we watch netflix and roku more than anything.

Probably make a decision come the first of the year.

 

[dlndesign]

We stopped all together 6+ years now. We've been loyal Netflix users since then and more recently added Hulu. We also partner up with family members and we tag on to others accounts for the occasional program/ movie we can't find. We just stream what we want when we want and YouTube is available through roku now so we have that access to what's a available there as well. It's great and i will never go back to cable again. Cant beat $16 a month!

cmykthis.com

 

[reQ]

Never ever had cable. Was using torrents before to watch shows (i am not a sports guy) and now using XBMC, but anyways, don't have much time for any kind of tv, spending 12-18 hours a day at work :/

 

[Bly]

Roku, Netflix and a MotoGP.com subscription sees me entertained.

How good is that new Marco Polo series?

 

[Pat Whatley]

Cutting loose February 1. We were talking about our budget one night and I jokingly mentioned dropping cable. That led to the conversation about what we actually watch and quickly realized that other than me watching football nobody in the house actually watched television. We've been paying for cable for years just because we thought we needed it.

We're going to save about $70 a month. We're taking $15 of that and upgrading our internet service so we'll have two dedicated high speed fiber optic lines. Streaming and downloading are gonna be lightning fast!

 

[HDvinyl]

Directv is about to lose my $130/month. This thread has shown me the light.

We stream about 90%, so the other 10% is just not worth it.

 

[milchad]

I have DirecTV and would be happy to get rid of them if it weren't for all the sports I watch. I have a computer attached to every TV in the house along with XBMC plus torrents and a sever in my closet basement. Tons of free content out there except for live sports. There are ways to watch live sports for free (sports devil) plugin for XBMC but they aren't HD and the most reliable streams.

 

[k.a.s.]

Family of cord cutters here as well, decided to get rid of Direct TV about 5 years ago. We have 2 roku boxes and Netflix, Hulu Plus, & Amazon & an antenna for through the air channels. I do miss some things like monday night football and a few other shows, but between the roku and shows that I can keep up with on the internet we wouldn't go back. The price of cable is just unreasonable in my opinion.

Kevin

 

[phototec]

I have been with DirecTV since 1996, and like everyone is saying, I only watch a few stations, Discovery, TLC, History, DIY, CNN and two ESPN channels to watch SEC football.

So, after reading this post, I to may drop DTV, but being older I know nothing about streaming, Hulu, Netflex, etc. How does this stuff work and what does it cots?

Can you get Discovery, TLC, History, DIY, CNN and ESPN on the Hulu and Netflex?

I do have a TV antenna on the roof and I get 5 local stations in HD for FREE.

Sorry to be so dumb about this, but I just never was exposed to it....

 

[kheebl]

I have been thinking about doing this for awhile now, I don't watch any sports so that part is not an issue. But the 2 networks I watch the most are History and Discovery, are those available on Hulu. I already have amazon and netflix, but I would like to be able to watch the current episode that just played that week, say "Gold Rush" for instance. I think i am currently paying $180 a month for comcast cable/internet.

 

[CanuckSigns]

Family of cord cutters here as well, decided to get rid of Direct TV about 5 years ago. We have 2 roku boxes and Netflix, Hulu Plus, & Amazon & an antenna for through the air channels. I do miss some things like monday night football and a few other shows, but between the roku and shows that I can keep up with on the internet we wouldn't go back. The price of cable is just unreasonable in my opinion.

Kevin

most of the major sports leagues offer an online viewing package such as NFL GamePass or NHL Centre Ice, they are not free, but much less than paying for cable all year round to watch football for a few months a year

 

[Bill Modzel]

We went to antenna from basic cable when Charter went digital. Our only problem was recording recording the antenna signals because we watch competing network shows quite often. I finally found a non-fee DVR box offered by Channel Master for $250.00. It has a bit of memory in it but you can plug in a USB hard drive for unlmited storage. The DVR comes with it's own TV guide and it's a click of a button to set up recording future shows. It has two tuners so you can record one station while watching another or record two if you are not watching.
I did pick up a Google Chrome and a netfilx subscription which is my only repetitive cost other than ATT Uverse which has plenty of speed compared to the DSL we had before hand. THat and our landling are $50 a month which is less than half of what our old ATT bill was.

 

[TheSnowman]

We do Dish Network w/ the Hopper & Netflix. Netflix is good for watching stuff that doesn't need to be current as far as TV series go, but doesn't do much for me for keeping up with my shows. I'm a Discovery junkie, and some of that stuff I can access "on demand" through my Apple TV, but I have to be a dish or some cable network subscriber to get that option, so it doesn't work for me. Love my hopper though. It records all of the primetime stuff, and I can go back and watch it anytime the next day w/o any commercials. BOOM.

Tried Hulu, didn't stick with it. It's basically paying for everything that you can already get for free with a regular air antenna in my opinion. They didn't have any of the stuff I normally watched on cable channels.

Other nice thing is I have the sling player, which allows me to stream anything from my DVR, or Live TV to my phone, or to any tablet or computer I want. It's nice when we travel, or to even have on here at work instead of paying for another cable connection here. I have 2meg upload, and 10 download, and it streams just fine in HD. Pretty sweet setup.

 

[FireSprint.com]

We cut cable about 8 months ago. Have not looked back. I don't watch alot of sports so it wasn't hard to go without ESPN. We have a roku, netflix, amazon and hulu. We would have amazon anyway for prime, so it's under $20 a month for just about anything we would want to watch.

Hulu has most of the newest shows the day after they appear on TV.

Honestly since we got rid of cable it's been easier. You feel like you're missing alot more when you're getting bombarded with ads for the upcoming shows while watching another on cable. Ignorance is bliss sometimes.

 

[Just Me]

We've been on DirecTV for years now. It's great except if there are heavy clouds to the southwest. Costs keep creeping up but don't they all. We also subscribe to NetFlix to pick up whatever they may have that DirecTV doesn't.

We upgraded to DirecTV "Whole Home" service a while back which allows us to record up to six shows at the same time and play them at any of three stations. So except for live sporting events, everything we watch is recorded first automatically. This is our favorite feature and great for time control. Quality is very good as most channels are now in 1080 HD from DirecTV.

i couldnt agree more!!