quote:

Originally posted by just1tym:
I didn't want to start another thread while this one has so much information as it has posters. I've finally had my fill with AT&T and especially my recent price negotiations. As so often, they say one thing (after handing off to several reps') and do another. My actual bill was even higher than what was negotiated by almost $70. This is business as usual with them, and I've been doing these negotiations and re-negotiations for many years now.

I've finally decided to cut the chord. After reading thru this thread a couple of times and reviewing Youtube topics for several days, I've pretty much settled on ROKU and HULU to get me within my normal interests and a plan that allows me similar flexibility as I had before with U-Verse.

My question that remains is, for those who have been cutter's for a few years now, have you noticed any pricing increases like AT&T historically does when their current price negotiations term expires? With keeping my current internet AT&T which I'm good with, speed and modem have just recently been upgraded, with adding the ROKU/HULU puts me price wise just where I need to be. I have read that there are no hidden monthly fee's and costs, but I just want to confirm that high price creeps like AT&T won't occur.

Of course, it's only natural that over the years the price packages will change and get a little more expensive, and I see that without contracts I'll have that flexibility to alter packages or swap streaming services if needed. But I just don't want to go back to the AT&T pricing mentality, and certainly have had my full of calling and speaking to their rep's and that merry-go-round. Thanks.

I tried all of the major 'cable' streaming services about 3 years ago when I cut the cord, and I ended up with Sony PlayStation Vue. A long time went by before they upped their price about $5.00 per month. I wasn't happy, but I really liked PS VUE.

PS Vue was ended in January so I tried Youtube TV for a month. That just ended yesterday so now I'm going back to Hulu for a paid month like I did with Youtube TV. I will then do a paid month with Sling after that.

So what I'm saying here is that with streaming, since you don't have to worry about lengthy contracts and renegotiations of those contracts, you can bounce around. Who knows, you may get those e-mails from a past Service with offers of lower prices or extra channels. That's what I'm hoping for.

Also, right off the bat, even though Youtube TV is lower price than HULU, I just don't want to fund Google/Youtube. I'll pay $5.00 more a month for that.

quote:

Originally posted by ftttu:

quote:

Originally posted by just1tym:
I didn't want to start another thread while this one has so much information as it has posters. I've finally had my fill with AT&T and especially my recent price negotiations. As so often, they say one thing (after handing off to several reps') and do another. My actual bill was even higher than what was negotiated by almost $70. This is business as usual with them, and I've been doing these negotiations and re-negotiations for many years now.

I've finally decided to cut the chord. After reading thru this thread a couple of times and reviewing Youtube topics for several days, I've pretty much settled on ROKU and HULU to get me within my normal interests and a plan that allows me similar flexibility as I had before with U-Verse.

My question that remains is, for those who have been cutter's for a few years now, have you noticed any pricing increases like AT&T historically does when their current price negotiations term expires? With keeping my current internet AT&T which I'm good with, speed and modem have just recently been upgraded, with adding the ROKU/HULU puts me price wise just where I need to be. I have read that there are no hidden monthly fee's and costs, but I just want to confirm that high price creeps like AT&T won't occur.

Of course, it's only natural that over the years the price packages will change and get a little more expensive, and I see that without contracts I'll have that flexibility to alter packages or swap streaming services if needed. But I just don't want to go back to the AT&T pricing mentality, and certainly have had my full of calling and speaking to their rep's and that merry-go-round. Thanks.

I tried all of the major 'cable' streaming services about 3 years ago when I cut the cord, and I ended up with Sony PlayStation Vue. A long time went by before they upped their price about $5.00 per month. I wasn't happy, but I really liked PS VUE.

PS Vue was ended in January so I tried Youtube TV for a month. That just ended yesterday so now I'm going back to Hulu for a paid month like I did with Youtube TV. I will then do a paid month with Sling after that.

So what I'm saying here is that with streaming, since you don't have to worry about lengthy contracts and renegotiations of those contracts, you can bounce around. Who knows, you may get those e-mails from a past Service with offers of lower prices or extra channels. That's what I'm hoping for.

Also, right off the bat, even though Youtube TV is lower price than HULU, I just don't want to fund Google/Youtube. I'll pay $5.00 more a month for that.

This is my experience. I had PSVUE and really liked it, it did go up $5 after 2.5-3 years of having PSVUE, but it went from $55 to $60 (all in). Keep in mind the streaming ones, do not have all of the BS fees and taxes Comcrap or AT+T pack into their bills, $55 IS $55 out the door. Sadly they discontinued PSVUE in January.

I switched to YouTube and have noticed the stream is even more HD than PSVUE in your/my area. So far I have been happy with it and no issues. The fast forwarding is wonky, each time you hit the FF button it's 15 seconds so you have to keep hitting the button. Other than that all good and I'll stay with it.

I've never experienced at my house Hulu but have noticed the quality is not as HD as the others. If you want HULU on the cheap, Disney TV has a special for around $12 a month that has Hulu, Disney, and ESPN + included.
https://www.disneyplus.com/wel...ney-hulu-espn-bundle

The beauty of the streaming is the fact that there is no contract, so they tend not to screw you around because you can literally switch and cancel one service to another in about 5 minutes without talking to a single person. I don't miss Comcast at all, I have it at a 4 plex I own for my tenants and it's a constant nightmare. Also, all of the streaming services have a 5 day or longer free trial period.

Thanks for the replies. Yes, thats in a large part why I'm cutting the chord, the streaming services are very easy to swap and try another without any cancellation fee's associated with jumping ship early. Another is flexibility to just try another service, and like Jimmy mentioned there are free trial periods to make it even easier. Additionally $5 per mo increase isn't so bad in light of AT&T's price jumps.

I'm anxious to give it a go. I'm sure that it will keep me busy with the learning curve however, I'm gathering as much info as I can before my next AT&T billing cycle starts.

I guess too that AT&T will request that I send back the equipment like the DVR. I had to do this once before many years back with them when I signed up for their U-Verse Direct TV.

quote:

Originally posted by just1tym:
Thanks for the replies. Yes, thats in a large part why I'm cutting the chord, the streaming services are very easy to swap and try another without any cancellation fee's associated with jumping ship early. Another is flexibility to just try another service, and like Jimmy mentioned there are free trial periods to make it even easier. Additionally $5 per mo increase isn't so bad in light of AT&T's price jumps.

I'm anxious to give it a go. I'm sure that it will keep me busy with the learning curve however, I'm gathering as much info as I can before my next AT&T billing cycle starts.

I guess too that AT&T will request that I send back the equipment like the DVR. I had to do this once before many years back with them when I signed up for their U-Verse Direct TV.

YouTube comes with free DVR. You could buy the Roku, they're cheap and try a few streaming services on the trial period before cancelling AT+T. They're pretty similar to what you have now...….much easier because you're not scrolling through a bunch of channels that you do not get, on the guide.

quote:

Originally posted by just1tym:
Thanks for the replies. Yes, thats in a large part why I'm cutting the chord, the streaming services are very easy to swap and try another without any cancellation fee's associated with jumping ship early.

The notable exception being Amazon Prime, which you sign up for a year-at-a-time.

We never had a "cord" to cut. My wife and I always felt subscription TV too costly for what it provided. Used to be OTA TV + local rentals. Then OTA TV + Netflix + local rentals. Now it's OTA TV with a DVR subscription service + Netflix + Amazon Prime + PBS Passport (PBS Video on Apple). All told they're about $35/mo. Between them we have more content than we can possibly consume.

We just swapped-out one of our Amazon Fire TVs for an Apple TV 4K purchased with CC reward points. Very nice boxes, though somewhat spendy.

I like sports and old commercial free movies. Youtubetv hits me about perfect. SEC network, acc nw, big 10 nw, several feeds of fox sports, same w/ Indiana sports and Cbs sports, along with about 60 channels I'll never watch plus all networks and pbs. $49 per month no tax. Add Starz/Encore for $9 month and that get 15 commercial free movies stations. no taxes or fees either.

Thanks all for the great replies, I appreciate the info. I did examine YouTubeTV and it looks great except the only channel that I really enjoy is HIST channel, as I'm following some of their shows. I did see that thru ROKU that I can add this channel at a monthly subscription fee, but I don't think I could use the YouTubeTV DVR to record it from ROKU.

Thats a feature thats a must as I can't deal with commercials, especially the new saturation of political ads. So DVR is a must. Because of this I'd lean towards HULU/live TV, it does state it's largely ad free, but you can also add-on enhanced cloud DVR feature.

I'm good to go as my AT&T new billing cycle starts 3/15 so I want to cancel it before then. So I have time to check into these different options. I'll also check into the OTA TV w/subscription, thanks enigmatic.

...Ton's of options. The only thing that is getting solid at this point is the ROKU device.


***UPDATE*** Just checked out SLING TV using a ROKU and that streaming service has all the channels I browse along with an additional $5 mo for the 50hrs Cloud DVR that you can fast forward thru commercials and this combo comes in at about $50 mo. It also has a free trial and no contracts, thats a good thing!

Does anyone know how to get METV on a ROKU box?

Thanks for the info.

I have Hulu but it pisses me off that you cant FF through commercials...WTF AM I PAYING FOR!!!

Ditched YouTubeTV as the service was glitchy and channels selection not to my liking once I got it.

ATT TV Now had no DVR and also was doing what ATT is famous for...raising the price whenever they feel like it.

Will do some more channel comparisons but Sling looks like the next contestant when I width Hulu

JB

quote:

Originally posted by just1tym:
Thanks all for the great replies, I appreciate the info. I did examine YouTubeTV and it looks great except the only channel that I really enjoy is HIST channel, as I'm following some of their shows. I did see that thru ROKU that I can add this channel at a monthly subscription fee, but I don't think I could use the YouTubeTV DVR to record it from ROKU.

Thats a feature thats a must as I can't deal with commercials, especially the new saturation of political ads. So DVR is a must. Because of this I'd lean towards HULU/live TV, it does state it's largely ad free, but you can also add-on enhanced cloud DVR feature.

I'm good to go as my AT&T new billing cycle starts 3/15 so I want to cancel it before then. So I have time to check into these different options. I'll also check into the OTA TV w/subscription, thanks enigmatic.

...Ton's of options. The only thing that is getting solid at this point is the ROKU device.


***UPDATE*** Just checked out SLING TV using a ROKU and that streaming service has all the channels I browse along with an additional $5 mo for the 50hrs Cloud DVR that you can fast forward thru commercials and this combo comes in at about $50 mo. It also has a free trial and no contracts, thats a good thing!

quote:

Originally posted by Marlin Fan:
Does anyone know how to get METV on a ROKU box?

I don't think you can. Put up an antenna, it's available over the air.

quote:

Originally posted by Jimbo Jones:
Thanks for the info.

I have Hulu but it pisses me off that you cant FF through commercials...WTF AM I PAYING FOR!!!

That's because you have the cheap, advert-supported version. If you want no adverts you have to pay for the more expensive package.

That's one of the reasons we don't subscribe to Hulu. We can get everything we want that Hulu provides OTA. True, the DVR service to which we subscribe costs $6.67/mo., but that gives us unlimited DVRing, as many clients as we want, and the ability to view live and what we record, not only from every TV in the house, but from anywhere in the world we can obtain a decent Internet connection.

And we can skip adverts

One of my most appreciated features of youtube tv is unlimited free cloud storage and the worlds easiest recording system. There is a circle with a cross in it in the synopsis. Click the cross and it turns into a check mark and you are set to record. Way too easy and there is no limit on how much you use. If I think there's a chance I want to watch it, I record it.

One of the reasons I went with ytube over the others is one of the reasons I don't like it. Google owns it. Fuck Google but I guess I'm a whore, or at least a hypocrite, because I give them money but I feel like I'm getting more than I pay for. Google has the deep pockets to push the competition around. History channel isn't on my usual watchlist but I'm surprised yt doesn't have it?

I've been streaming both Netflix and Amazon Prime for a few years now and been pretty happy with that + an OTA antenna for the local stations. I also subscribe to something else for the duration of football season (to get ESPN) and then cancel it. First it was Sling TV but I didn't like that because the ESPN feed tended to get really broken up and digital-noisey during games. This year I went to Hulu Live and that was better, albeit almost twice as expensive as Sling. I did get annoyed by the inability to FF too. I'll be looking for a 3rd ESPN option for this year's season.

quote:

Originally posted by just1tym:
Thanks for the replies. Yes, thats in a large part why I'm cutting the chord, the streaming services are very easy to swap and try another without any cancellation fee's associated with jumping ship early. Another is flexibility to just try another service, and like Jimmy mentioned there are free trial periods to make it even easier. Additionally $5 per mo increase isn't so bad in light of AT&T's price jumps.

I'm anxious to give it a go. I'm sure that it will keep me busy with the learning curve however, I'm gathering as much info as I can before my next AT&T billing cycle starts.

I guess too that AT&T will request that I send back the equipment like the DVR. I had to do this once before many years back with them when I signed up for their U-Verse Direct TV.

I loved my U-Verse...until the bill went up. One of the things I liked about it was that it came into the through the phone system so there was no roof antennas or holes cut into the wall for a coax.

I was surprised how easy it was to send back the equipment which was just handing it over to the UPS Store clerk in a bag I brought it in - they do the rest.

Happy with YouTube TV. Have had it around a year. We use Amazon Fire Sticks on two TV's, Google Chromecast on one, and one has built-in SmartTV apps. The Chromecast is my least favorite because you have to use the YouTube TV app on your phone as the remote control, which runs down the phone battery faster. Amazon Fire Sticks come with remote controls (as do Roku I think).

My take on streaming devices, in the chronological order we've used them.

Roku

Don't have much, and what I have is way out-of-date. The last, and only, Roku device we had was a 2nd Generation. It worked ok, but I never liked it much. Cannot say exactly why. When we went to a networked TV tuner, and it wasn't supported on Roku, I happily bid it adieu.

Android TV

We've a couple of Xiaomi MiBox'. They're economical, but their 1st Generation devices had a host of problems Xiaomi could never seem to straighten-out. To their credit: If your 1st Generation MiBox eventually bricked itself beyond recovery, you could send it into them and they'd send you back a 2nd Generation box free of charge--shipping label and all.

The 2nd Generation boxes have been fairly stable for us, only occasionally failing to wake up, but, due to Google's ongoing spat with Amazon, they still don't support Amazon Prime Video. That and Alphabet's/Google's/Android's treatment of users being the product, rather than the customer, is what's doomed that platform for us.

Google doesn't seem very serious about the Android TV platform, honestly.

Amazon Fire TV

We've two 2nd Generation boxes and a recent-generation Fire TV Stick (non-4K). I haven't done more than play a little with the Fire Stick, because the intent is to use it for travel. It seemed to work well. Both the 2nd Gen. boxes have been what we've primarily used in the home.

The 2nd Gen. boxes have been somewhat unstable. They'll occasionally fail to wake up when the TV's turned on. Un-plugging/re-plugging either the power or the HDMI cable wakes them back up. We've pretty much come to expect the Netflix app to lose its connection with Netflix at least once per evening. The people that make the app that works with our networked OTA TV tuner and DVR claim this device gives them a lot of grief working around the OS' anomalies. It, too, has been a bit glitchy on those Fire TVs.

One really annoying thing about Amazon's Fire TV devices is the adverts.

They are economical, and they work. That's about the best I can say for them.

Apple TV 4K

This one we've only had a couple weeks. Getting it on the network and running was a typical Apple experience: Smooth. My wife swears the video quality is better than it was with the 2nd Gen. Fire TV, and the sound quality as well. I believe she's not imagining it. Amazon Prime Video offers several things in 4K at no extra charge (unlike Netflix), and it looks simply amazing.

The Apple TV box hasn't once, so far, failed to come up, lost a connection to Netflix, or glitched with the OTA TV network tuner and DVR app.

If you've Apple mobile devices, the Apple TV integrates with them nearly seamlessly. Remote control and casting work nearly flawlessly. I've even used my Apple Watch for remote control. Ours has detected my Apple AirPods. I haven't tried that, yet.

The Apple TV remote is the best of all the streamers we've owned, IMO. For your IR remote they take an interesting approach: You teach the streamer what IR commands to use from the remote you have.

You get a free year of Apple TV+ (their streaming service) with an Apple TV purchase. After that it's an economical $6/mo. or so. Thing is: I haven't really seen that much of interest, there.

An upside, to me, is Apple's privacy policies. (I've made my views on this well-known, here, so I won't go there again here.)

Biggest downside: They're expensive. The base, non-4K model starts at $150.

The two winners, in my view, are Apple TV and Amazon Fire TV, in that order. Apple TV if you can afford the coin. Amazon Fire TV if you want to go economical.

Thanks ensigmatic! I never really checked into the Apple TV, not really sure why as it's a good option for me. After looking over product spec's and prices, I looked at a few youtube videos about setup and operation. Seeing that I have an iPhone and MacBook in the house. I see that setup and integration with my iPhone would be a breeze and after checking the remote operation and integration with Apple products, it opens up other beneficial doors. Additionally, I really like the remote operation with the similar touchpad operation as my MacBook. It also seems to be a well built remote device too.

At this time of my process, the last step is thinking about an OTA antenna for getting some of the locals that I have interests in some of their shows, so I'm trying to get that worked out. I need a indoor OTA that I can easily place on a shelf or a fast wall mount. I can no longer climb a ladder for any kind of outdoor work involving installation. And just a quick coaxial and power cord installation.

Though the Apple TV is a bit more expensive, in the long run I'd probably be more satisfied with it. I was thinking of purchasing the ROKU Ultra anyway which is at about $100, so the Apple TV is only slightly more.

Thanks for the tip!
**UPDATE** I purchased the Apple TV yesterday and as for the OTA indoor antenna, Sling TV has an offer to purchase one thru them for $39 by paying your Sling plan 2 mo in advance. I'll be checking that today. Feels good to be on my way finally.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: just1tym,

Almost completed..

After subscribing to DTV for almost 21 years, we went over to YouTube TV a couple of weeks ago. It won’t be as convenient as DTV. We knew the channel numbers and were intimately familiar with the controls, and there are are a couple of channels that I hate to lose, especially access to the National Finals Rodeo. Still, this will be half the cost and offer us everything we really need, especially in combination with a couple of subscription services.