Just FYI...Fox Sports Midwest (Blues and Cardinals) is now only available on ATT and Spectrum in the St. Louis area. YoutubeTV used to have it, but not anymore. Rumor is that Fox Sports Midwest (and all of the other Fox regional sports channels) may become available as a stand alone streaming service,

This message has been edited. Last edited by: ice1811,

I started streaming sometime last year and as of late my final tweaks are:
-OTA outside antenna with Tablo DVR with commercial auto-skip
-Amazon Prime streaming
-Disney Ch for Mandalorian

Saved about $100 a month. I mainly use Amazon Prime mostly for the movies and such.

The problem is with all these suggestions "to cut everything but internet" and stream/OTA it all, is that these players like Comcast are ON TO YOU and have jacked up their internet-only plans really high and by the time you pay for that and a couple streaming services, you're right back in the same boat you tried to escape from. And they just jacked up their fees (some basically doubled for me) and are now capping their bandwidth. It's almost like they are TOO DUMB to realize that everyone in the world who can work from home IS working from home right now and needs that bandwidth.

I had Hulu live for a year. Wasn’t impressed & jumped to YouTubeTV. Can watch it on multiple devices and it’s very intuitive. No regrets. Would never go back to cable at this point.

The biggest problem cutting the cord is with internet providers. Many areas only have one viable internet provider. I would like to see competition between internet providers.

I have three options for internet where I live. Cable (spectrum), dsl (wind stream), Verizon (cell). Only spectrum cable has good download speed and capacity. My current internet only runs $75 per month for 100 mb.

SpaceX starlink sounds good but I bet it will cost as much as cable internet when it fully rolls out.

quote:

Originally posted by Vanwall:
The biggest problem cutting the cord is with internet providers. Many areas only have one viable internet provider. I would like to see competition between internet providers.

I have three options for internet where I live. Cable (spectrum), dsl (wind stream), Verizon (cell). Only spectrum cable has good download speed and capacity. My current internet only runs $75 per month for 100 mb.

SpaceX starlink sounds good but I bet it will cost as much as cable internet when it fully rolls out.

Out of your 3 options you selected the best one. Windstream is garbage. I have to deal with them in one of my geographic footprints (work) and they are idiots.

Netflix + Hulu + Prime + Disney gets it done, assuming you source local news and sports elsewhere.

OTA is ok, depending on where you are.

quote:

Originally posted by PASig:
The problem is with all these suggestions "to cut everything but internet" and stream/OTA it all, is that these players like Comcast are ON TO YOU and have jacked up their internet-only plans really high and by the time you pay for that and a couple streaming services, you're right back in the same boat you tried to escape from. And they just jacked up their fees (some basically doubled for me) and are now capping their bandwidth. It's almost like they are TOO DUMB to realize that everyone in the world who can work from home IS working from home right now and needs that bandwidth.

100% correct. From a Layer 1 transport perspective, everyone cutting the cord is putting more bandwidth demand, down the pipe, to your ISP. So said ISP sees a flurry of new sustained traffic. In turn they will jack up the price on their internet, or cap your bandwidth, or both. This was going to happen no matter what pre-pandemic. Far too many were doing it. So you can cut the cord if you wish, but it's not sustainable. All it's going to lead to, is higher ISP pricing.

The internet has never had a load on it like this. Work from home (so many), home schooling (distance learning, ie video), then you have so many streaming all their tv content, plus video games, and everything else. ISP's are overloaded. You shift your content from cable/satellite, to your ISP, your ISP will retaliate. So it's only a matter of time. Comcast and ATT have already implemented this on their coax and fiber services. Only way you don't get capped is to pay for the highest tier service.

So learning from the thread, youtube tv is $65 a month? I'm not paying much more than that will full movie stations. Guess I need to start sampling some free trials.

Data caps can be reasonable.

I'm 100% streaming. And I stream a lot. Movies, TV, music, Youtube, etc. I almost always have something going in the background anytime I'm at home, usually music, documentaries, or Youtube videos. I also play video games occasionally, which often involve 50-100 gig game update downloads.

My data is capped at 1280 gigabytes per month at this tier. Even with all my streaming, I've never used more than 600 gigs in a month. Most months is more like 300.

Even when I was married previously, and there were 3 people including a teenager who streamed constantly, I still never hit the monthly data cap.

My outside OTA gets 45 channels clear as a bell up to 70mi without any powered kind of booster. But it is flat here in the suburbs and most of Florida. Not much to block a signal. I still prefer the DVR for any locals because of all the commercial breaks. My Tablo DVR has an excellent auto-commercial-skip feature that allows you to quickly skip thru the commercials, so far excellent!

I hate the fact that Google owns YouTube. I don't like either company, since they can track and sell your every move.

quote:

Originally posted by PASig:
... by the time you pay for [Internet access] and a couple streaming services, you're right back in the same boat you tried to escape from.

Nope. Not even close, if what I've recently learned about subscription TV is any guide.

Internet: $88
NetFlix: $14
Amazon Prime: $10
PBS Passport: $5
OAN: $5
DVR (guide) $7

That's $41/mo. for entertainment alone, $130/mo. total.

This, btw, gives us access to everything above on every TV in the house (currently three, ultimately five), and on our tablets or phones when we're out of the house--anywhere in the world we can obtain an Internet connection.

Plus: That's business class Internet. Includes a static IP address, no bandwidth caps, and superior support. I'd have that with or without the rest of it. Same for AP. So we're really spending a mere $32/mo. we would not otherwise spend, anyway.

quote:

Originally posted by coloradohunter44:
I hate the fact that Google owns YouTube.

That's why I have no YouTube login.

Btw: If anybody's interested I've a couple economical Android TV streaming devices I had up for sale in the Classifieds, not long ago. Didn't seem to be any interest, so I deleted the listing in preparation for putting them up on eBay. Haven't gotten around to that yet, so I can relist them.

I cut the chord in November. I switched to YouTube TV, also have Prime and Netflix. I save about $100 per month. I am currently contemplating canceling Netflix though. So far, I am happy with my descision.