I know there have been a few threads on the subject of cutting the cable/satellite cord, but I thought one thread with tips, info, places to stream channels and anything else important to know would be helpful. Frankly, the whole process seemed so confusing I put off doing it for nearly a year. Now I have all the channels and movies I want while saving close to $90 a month and telling Charter to take a hike. I’ll start with my setup I’ve been using for just the last two weeks: My tv, cable and fax line bill with Charter here in DFW was $185 per month. Internet speeds are 100 down and just 5 up. I cut off the tv and fax line (I’m playing with an e-fax setup for business faxes). I kept the internet and have the following equipment for content:
TiVo Bolt, Apple TV, Roku and an over the air hd antenna in the attic. For streaming services I have signed up (no contracts) with Netflix and PlayStation Vue to get just a few more channels I couldn’t find elsewhere. Like I mentioned, it’s only been a couple of weeks, but every time I turn on the tv I’m proud of myself for doing this. Getting all the channels I wanted AND more for less money is sweet. I’m no expert here so please chime in with your tips and favorite channels!

I did the same thing well over a year ago. My Comcast basic cable had worked it's way up to $119 a month for 1 cable box. I pay for internet and only 1 tv with a Roku. (The sucky thing about Vue, is you don't get the guide on Roku but you do with the apple tv or firestick). I have the app on my ipad mini and 12.9" pro and can use them to look at the guide, also use them to watch or listen to tv if I'm outside grilling......(vue allows you up to 5 devices/TV's for the same price). I pay $55 for PlayStation Vue (all in taxes and everything) for ALL of the channels except hbo and showtime. Then pay the $11 a month for Netflix and am very happy. Then for the few months Homeland and Billions are on Showtime I pay the $10 a month for 2-3 months.......So for $65 per month I get the same as I had with Comcast at $119 per month.

I am in the process of cutting the cord with Spectrum now. Monthly Spectrum bill is $221 for three HD boxes including one DVR box, phone service and 100MB internet.

Looks like I will end up with:

- HD Antenna for primary TV for local channels
- Apple TV for primary TV
- Amazon Fire sticks for two other TVs
- Direct TV Now Streaming app/service running on Apple TV and fire sticks, $35/month
- Spectrum internet only $69/month

This gets me all the channels I wanted, keeps high speed internet and cuts a $100 per month off my cable bill. I setup a fire stick and Direct TV Now 7 day trial yesterday and it seams to work well. No lag or delays and all channels as advertised.

Cable free for several years. The only broadcast we watch is off the air for the Thanksgiving Day Parade and the Superbowl. When I first watched an HD broadcast, I was beside myself at the picture quality. I had assumed my $110 a month cable was the best picture available. Not -even -CloSe!

http://store.gomohu.com/antennas.html

The Mohu Leaf is the antenna I got. I've been very happy. I may shift to the attic install version soon, to see how many more channels I can get.

We use AppleTV to watch mostly YouTube and NetFlix. We buy a few series a year. We rent some RedBox. Maybe one a month on average.

That's about it. Very happy. Particularly that I don't get bombarded with ads anymore. Downside is my kids don't know what they want for Christmas because the TV hasn't told them what they want for Christmas.

Just to show what is possible:

I have 4mbit D / .75mbit up internet. Yes, it's that slow, I live on the unpopulated end of the lowest population density county in the state....
Was paying DTV 140$ a month + 35$ for 1.5mbps-down DSL.
Now I have the 4mbps wireless internet (literally wifi) & slingTV.
25$ for tv, $42 for internet. it's BARELY fast enough & sometimes lags/blacks out during peak usage hours and/or storms.
Firesticks & FireTVs at all the TVs, I also have a plex server with just under 1500 movies, so there's always something to watch. having only 1 input is nice.
I have an antenna outside, but it's not working & living 50mi from any broadcast means I don't get that much anyway. I've cut my TV watching to almost nill & I'm fine with that. Wife watches an hour or 2 everyday & I only get screamed at once a week or so because her show won't work. I'll take that for 100$/month.

Cord Cutters what are you using/paying for internet service? DSL, LTE Cell, cable?

I am still going to use Spectrum cable internet service for $69/month, it is fast and good. Because I work at home my work will pay most of that monthly fee. I just could not make the jump to LTE cell or DSL. I have FIOS fiber optic in front of my house in a utility box but the Verizon website says it is unavailable in my zip code.

I was paying $235/month for cable and internet.

I now am paying $40/month for PS Vue and $60/month for 60 Mbps internet (still from my old cable provider).

I use AppleTV to access Vue. I have been extremely happy with Vue for the year plus I've been using it. They recently added ABC in my market, but I still don't have NBC or CBS for live sports.

To fix the live sports issue, I bought an app on the AppleTV called "Channels." This was a one time purchase of $25, but once you buy it on one ATV, you can download it on all your other ones for free.

Then I got a little box called a Dust HD HomeRun. Basically you plug your over the air antenna into this box and then plug your box into your wireless router and it sends your over the air stuff to the Channels app on your ATV.

It works really well and makes it so that you don't have to switch inputs on your TV/Receiver to go between Vue and over the air. It also means you don't have to have an antenna on every TV.

My antenna is really a "can-tenna" that I made out of two Arizona cans and some speaker wire that I built with an article from the internet.

It's a few hundred bucks in startup hardware, but I'm saving about $125/month and I feel like I'm heading in the right direction now.

My cable provider (Buckeye) kept raising my rates a couple times a year and I didn't see that trend ending anytime soon. Now I feel like I'm an early adopter on what is clearly the future of TV. Once my city gets Google Fiber, then we'll really be in business.

Now that I've cut the cord, I don't see why I'd possibly go back.

for me, cutting the cord means cutting the cord. no tv. no antennaes, no sat dishes, no tv programs. one half of our household is already there.

quote:

Originally posted by f2:
for me, cutting the cord means cutting the cord. no tv. no antennaes, no sat dishes, no tv programs. one half of our household is already there.

Why? No need to cut yourself off from the world.

I can tell you that you are in a tiny minority of people willing to do that, "cord cutting" refers to getting away from ridiculously high cable TV bills, not cutting out ALL media.

quote:

Originally posted by bigeinkcmo:
We axed Comcast this last month after 14 years. They basically told me to pound sand when I called inquiring about the 20%+ rate increase they put on my bill without any notice. Went from $123 to $155 for the same service. I literally watch about 3-4 channels, mostly sports. My kids stream most of their content. So we got $65 a month for life with Centurylink at 100MB down / 50MB up. Upgradable to 1GB down. Brand new Fiber. Old service was slower too...around 75MB best case, and really slow upload.

With the new internet ready TV we got we have hundreds of channels plus about 50 OTA channels with rabbit ears. I can't imagine needing more but even if we did, it wouldn't cost the difference of $90 a month to add some individual channels or maybe something like Sling.

Ironically, the day I called back to cancel, Comcast was willing to offer me what I wanted. I declined. I hope to never use Comcast again!

Check out the PSVUE tv, they blow sling away and have packages starting at $30 per month (all in). Up to 5 devices, free DVR. I hear the DTV streaming TV is good too. I have the $55 per month and it includes ALL channels Comcast had in HD, $75 gets you all channels and HBO and Showtime. Can also purchase the NFL ticket for it for like $35.

- Dumped Comcast cable years ago...trimmed about $105/month off my total bill right there.
- Still have Xfinity high-speed internet at $77/month...it's REALLY fast.
- Built a "Media Server" to access programming straight from network web sites and NHL.TV.
- Mounted an HD UHF/VHF OTA antenna on my roof this year for local programming, but it's RARELY used...been anti-NFL for 15-ish years now.
- Subscribe to NetFlix and Amazon Prime...my SONY TV has built-in interfaces for these plus Crackle, Hulu, and a couple of others.
- Friend just showed me Kodi/Covenant.

I have access to more TV and movies at which I can possibly shake a stick for the low cost of my monthly internet charges. With Kodi/Covenant, I could probably get rid of NetFlix, but it's only $10.81/month...can't beat that.

Basic configuration of my "Media Server" (might be time to think about some upgrades)...
Intel i7 3.20Ghz processor (ASUS motherboard)
24GB RAM
MSI GeForce GTX 560 Ti Video Card w/HDMI out, 2GB RAM
Windows 10
Two (2) Samsung 250GB internal SSD's.
Four (4) 1TB internal HDD's, configured in RAID 0 for 4TB storage space.
Two (2) external WD "My Book" 1TB HDD's.

Have Comcast for just internet...no cable tv, $50 for 50mbs/5mbs
The only streaming service I have is through Amazon Prime and don't watch OTA TV.

I've been using the Amazon Fire TVs w/Kodi installed to watch Prime & to stream stuff from my media server.

I switched late last night to Hulu Live and turned off the PlayStation Vue. Hulu Live is only available in certain areas supposedly, but netted more channels for $39 than with Playstation. I LOVE how there are no contracts with these services! I found this article on streaming services, some really good info there:

https://www.consumerreports.or...ming-video-services/

quote:

Originally posted by mrw:
Cord Cutters what are you using/paying for internet service? DSL, LTE Cell, cable?

I am still going to use Spectrum cable internet service for $69/month, it is fast and good. Because I work at home my work will pay most of that monthly fee. I just could not make the jump to LTE cell or DSL. I have FIOS fiber optic in front of my house in a utility box but the Verizon website says it is unavailable in my zip code.

I’m paying $69 to Charter for our internet. I started to switch to AT&T for internet, might have saved $5 per month, but they’re such bumbling idiots and CS is in India... I just couldn’t do it.

$75 a month for Fios 150/150 internet. We use Netflix, Hulu and Amazon prime. Haven't had cable tv in years, use an antenna for local channels but rarely watch those.

I haven't had cable since 1988.

I set up the antenna in the attic pointing in the right direction and added a pre-amp. The last owner had the antenna pointed at the end wall which is covered with foil backed insulation.
On the last scan, I got 62 channels. GET and GRIT are the main channels I watch.

Cut cord 2 years ago. I have Xfinity 75 mbps internet service ($75.) They had a deal going where I get local channels (the ones I would be getting OTA) included. Plus HBO through Xfinity ($15.) Rental of two cable boxes and a modem means my monthly bill is a steady $125. We don't watch many local channels (mainly just sports) but if I dropped that I could lose the boxes and save $20 a month. Then I'd have to buy a couple of OTA antennas and rig them up. Not worth it right now.

Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, and SlingTV round out our viewing options. Prime we would have for shipping anyways, so I don't count it. Netflix is $9 per month. Sling is $20.

quote:

Originally posted by esdunbar:
...
Then I got a little box called a Dust HD HomeRun. Basically you plug your over the air antenna into this box and then plug your box into your wireless router and it sends your over the air stuff to the Channels app on your ATV.

It works really well and makes it so that you don't have to switch inputs on your TV/Receiver to go between Vue and over the air. It also means you don't have to have an antenna on every TV.

...

Nice, I was looking for exactly this product!

IMHO, Roku is the best "first thing to buy" when cord cutting. I've gotten so much use out of the Roku. It offers so much more than the Fire-Stick or the TV's built in apps.

(I cannot compare the Roku to the apple TV, But the apple TV might be as good -- don't know)

(I never got a chrome stick, so I can't comment/compare it either)

My setup:

• OTA antenna in attic
  
• TV tuner - Silicon Dust HD Homerun
  
• DVR for OTA - HD Homerun app on BeeBox N3150 Windows 10 HTPC
  
• Internet - Uverse 23Mb (only hardline service available where I live)
  
• Streaming device - Roku 3
  
• Roku apps - Netflix, Amazon, SlingTV
  

I'm not thrilled with SlingTV, but I tried PlaystationVUE and didn't like the interface.
I just signed up for a trial of DirectTV Now as a potential replacement for Sling, but it doesn't have pause/rewind on some channels that I can pause on Sling, and it doesn't have a "Last Channel" button, unlike Sling. WTF is up with that? Major annoyance. I'll probably stick with Sling for now.