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Nullus Anxietas |
I know there's often a lot of interest in cord-cutting, here, so I wanted to share this. A company called Silicon Dust makes a series of Over The Air (OTA) network tuners. How these work is you hook one to a TV antenna and watch TV via streaming boxes, mobile devices, your TV, etc. SD has an open API, so they have a partner, Channels, that makes a set of compatible apps, and the HDHR tuners work with Plex, Kodi and other stuff. Optionally, you can add a networked DVR, which allows you to watch DVR'd content throughout your home, too. What's really cool is Silicon Dust just added a Premium TV package that, for $35/mo., gives you a bunch of cable channels--including Fox News, ESPN, the Disney Channel and everybody's favourite: CNN  (There's a current lineup at that link.)A couple of really cool points are that, according to SD, you can DVR these channels the same as you can OTA content and, if you have an app that'll do remote viewing, such as Plex or, my favourite, Channels, you can watch them on your mobile devices wherever you are. Cool as it is, we won't be subscribing to that, here at the ensigmatic household. We're already spending $25/mo., what with Netflix, Amazon Prime and OAN, but I thought many here would find it interesting. Especially as I know there's some content there that lack of has been a show-stopper for some prospective cord-cutters. Here's a video about SD's Premium TV offering: Note: I have no interest in any of these companies, products or services, other than being a happy customer of Silicon Dust's tuner and Channels' applications. "America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within the system,,,, but too early to shoot the bastards." -- Claire Wolfe "If we let things terrify us, life will not be worth living." -- Seneca the Younger, Roman Stoic philosopher | ||
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Member |
I'm with you, ensigmatic. With as little actual TV that I watch, I can't justify the cost either. 8.5-9 months out of the year, I'm watching hockey (from my NHL.TV subscription), so I think I can fill the other 3-3.5 months with Netflix or Amazon Prime. Good info, though...thanks for sharing!! "If you’re a leader, you lead the way. Not just on the easy ones; you take the tough ones too…” – MAJ Richard D. Winters (1918-2011), E Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne "Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil... Therefore, as tongues of fire lick up straw and as dry grass sinks down in the flames, so their roots will decay and their flowers blow away like dust; for they have rejected the law of the Lord Almighty and spurned the word of the Holy One of Israel." - Isaiah 5:20,24 | |||
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| Nullus Anxietas |
With us it's more a case of there being only so much money. If they offered a smaller package, with a better ratio of content in which we'd be interested vs. that we're not, for about half the price, then maybe we'd go for it. But the same thing applies to these packages as to regular subscription TV. Everybody thinks they want à la carte, but they wouldn't once they saw the à la carte prices. These packages, like traditional subscription TV, allow everybody to subsidize everybody else's content.
Thanks and you're welcome. I'm kind of surprised there hasn't been more interest, what with the regular cord-cutting threads I've seen here. "America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within the system,,,, but too early to shoot the bastards." -- Claire Wolfe "If we let things terrify us, life will not be worth living." -- Seneca the Younger, Roman Stoic philosopher | |||
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| Shit don't mean shit |
Grrr, no One America News (The only cable news worth watching)...  | |||
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| Get my pies outta the oven!  |
That's because this thing isn't accessing any cable content, only free OTA stuff. I don't see it really taking off because of this. | |||
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| Member |
Interesting. But maybe it is just me: I don't see the real advantage over a Roku box. I can already get OTA channels with s cheap antenna. $35/mo would be a lot to pay for just more OTA channels. (And I do get OAN over Roku) "Crom is strong! If I die, I have to go before him, and he will ask me, 'What is the riddle of steel?' If I don't know it, he will cast me out of Valhalla and laugh at me." | |||
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| Shit don't mean shit |
Huh? This is OTA content?  | |||
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| Thank you Very little  |
For the cord cutters, how much do you figure you're really saving, after all if streaming pay services then you'll need internet access and if you have enough devices and users you'll need a pretty high speed unlimited data plan. All the "cutter" options, other than an antenna that gets local stations, ie hulu, amazon Prime, Sling, require some form of internet connection, and you need to have a pretty decent bandwidth ie 100MB or you'll run into issues. I've seen buffering when two devices are working Netflix and Kodi at the same time. Then again I've seen buffering for no darn reason other than maybe everyone in town is streaming movies at 10pm. So you still need internet connectivity, and when you drop off the phone and/or tv and buy internet without the package the cost for the service skyrockets.. At least it does here, if you were to add Netflix and this $35 service you'd probably be paying more with it and 100MB service than a combo TV Phone Internet. For example, you can get 100mb internet, 125 channels and unlimited phone for $29 a month, new customer, internet alone, minimum cost 100 MB is $45 a month. Yes after the first year the cost will go up to $90 a month however you do have phone and TV, Cut the cord and it's $45 for internet, $25 for Sling, $10 for Netflix, so it's $80 a month, you save $120 a year. What do youse guys gno dat I don't get.... | |||
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| Get my pies outta the oven! |
I must have misunderstood the OP then. | |||
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Lighten up and laugh |
What is the advantage of that vs Direct TV now, Sling TV, or Sony Vue? They all seem to be around the same price. | |||
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| Leatherneck |
In this house all we have are Netflix and Amazon. That breaks down to 24 bucks a month if I take the entire price off Amazon Prime into account, which I shouldn't because the two day shipping I get has value to me. Your assumption that you need 100mbs is incorrect in my experience. We have had Amazon for years and only recently upgraded our internet from 30mbs. We rarely had issues with that service. I won't say never but we have had some days even with what I have now where the services seem slow and we get some interruption. The other thing you have to consider is that even if you needed 100mbs it isn't fair to include the entire price since it is doubtful that you currently have zero internet service. Most people already have some service so if they feel they need to increase speed because of cutting the cord then you should pro-rate the total cost only for the upgrade. Also it is unfair to only include teaser rates. I pay $90 a month for internet which gives me 150 mbs. That isn't a teaser rate. That is all I will ever pay on this plan. That is up from $40 a month when I had 30mbs service. So to be fair we should only include $50. So all total for the upgraded internet, Amazon and the premium Netflix I pay $74 a month. every now and then we order a premium channel from Amazon to watch GoT or something. Last year I spent 35 bucks doing that total. So lets add 3 bucks a month to break that up and I am at $77 a month. I was paying right around $135 for satellite. And I already had Amazon Prime and I would have upgraded my internet anyway. So let's sum it up. Pre-cord-cutting monthly cost: Amazon Prime: $10 DirectTV: $135 Internet: $40 Total: $185 Post cord-cutting Amazon Prime: $10 Netflix: $14 Internet: $90 Temp add=on channels: $3 Total: $117 I am saving almost $70 a month cutting the cord and I don't miss it at all. Now if I just knew where that $70 was going... “Everybody wants a Sig in the sheets but a Glock on the streets.” -bionic218 04-02-2014 | |||
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| Nullus Anxietas |
I don't think so. Initial channel list:
I don't know about anybody else, but I'm in a major market and I don't get any of those OTA. Oh, wait... QVC? That's a shopping channel thing, right? I think we get that, a couple of them, actually, on a couple sub-channels. "America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within the system,,,, but too early to shoot the bastards." -- Claire Wolfe "If we let things terrify us, life will not be worth living." -- Seneca the Younger, Roman Stoic philosopher | |||
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| Lighten up and laugh |
It's not OTA. It seems to be a streaming service like the ones I posted above. | |||
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| Member |
We just recently cut the cord. From spectrum internet (100 mb) and tv with 5 boxes needed for our tv’s. Total. $132 per month. To internet (100 mb) and direct tv now base package. $64 internet plus $35 directtv now (soon to be $40). The direct tv now includes the local network stations. We use amazon fire sticks to access directtv now. We had fire sticks and Netflix/prime prior to deleting spectrum tv. There are trade offs which I will not get into now but for the two of us it works. | |||
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eh-TEE-oh-clez |
The problem with the cost benefit analysis of cutting the cable ignores the most compelling argument: cable television programming absolutely sucks donkey balls. Even if I paid $180 a month for a premium cable package, I would still be paying for a Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, and an occasional Redbox rental. So, by my analysis, I'm saving $120 a month ($60 a month being paid to keep internet) or $1440 a year by not watching live news or sports. | |||
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| Nullus Anxietas |
How many of those channels do you get with a Roku box, w/o subscribing to either a bundle or the individual channels?
I think some of you are missing the point. You add this optional add-on to something that's an OTA network tuner. It's for people that want to cut the cord, but want to keep things like Fox News and ESPN and so-on.
So do I, with my Amazon Fire TV. But it's not free.
That's a valid point. That's why we're not subscribing to this at the ensigmatic houshold. We're already at $25/mo. This would bring us to $60/mo. We don't want to pay that, which is why we never had subscription TV in the first place. I regard the Internet connection a non-issue, as I'd have that even if we had no TV in the house. Admittedly: My math does not work for others.
Nah. Before my last contract renewal we had only 15mb/s down and never had Netflix buffering issues--save when Comcast was strong-arming Netflix. A 1080P movie with DD+ needs no more than about 10mb/s. A 50mb/s connection like we have should easily handle up to three streams, simultaneously, with no problem.
I wonder: Who's your ISP? I'm at the end of the Comcast cable line for my area. I never get less than full promised bandwidth, or better, regardless of time-of-day or night.
It all depends upon where you are, who are your ISPs, and what you want out of the service. It's not for everybody. But it may be for some people. Right now, without that package, we're paying about $130/mo. for Internet + streaming services + phone. But that's Business Class Internet with a static IP, rDNS, etc. Run my own services, have no caps and get 24x7x52 competent tech. support for the 'net connection. And the phone service (Callcentric) has been rock-solid, compared to what I see ISP phone service users get. "America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within the system,,,, but too early to shoot the bastards." -- Claire Wolfe "If we let things terrify us, life will not be worth living." -- Seneca the Younger, Roman Stoic philosopher | |||
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| Member |
My total Xfinity bill with internet and cable was right at $180/month. I cut the cord and now my internet cost (200+mbps download speed...overkill) is now $76.97. With my Netflix and Prime memberships at $12 and $10 per month, respectively, I have a realized savings of $81 per month. Pretty significant... "If you’re a leader, you lead the way. Not just on the easy ones; you take the tough ones too…” – MAJ Richard D. Winters (1918-2011), E Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne "Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil... Therefore, as tongues of fire lick up straw and as dry grass sinks down in the flames, so their roots will decay and their flowers blow away like dust; for they have rejected the law of the Lord Almighty and spurned the word of the Holy One of Israel." - Isaiah 5:20,24 | |||
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| Member |
I'm not seeing the big deal here. Their main product allows you to watch over the air broadcast TV channels on other types of devices. If you get poor antenna reception watching it on a tablet does nothing to improve the situation. To get cable channels you have to pay extra for their streaming service that seems the same as existing products like Sling, Direct TV Now, Sony PlayStation Vue, YouTube TV, and Hulu. | |||
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| Nullus Anxietas |
Nobody said it would. What it does bring to the game is the ability to get OTA TV to every part of your home w/o running cables everywhere--even the bathroom  , and OTA DVR capability.
Yes. If you want them. Unlike those other services: If you don't want them, you don't have to pay for them. We don't, so we won't. "America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within the system,,,, but too early to shoot the bastards." -- Claire Wolfe "If we let things terrify us, life will not be worth living." -- Seneca the Younger, Roman Stoic philosopher | |||
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