Who's cut the (cable) cord?

[Birdie dog]

I'm inching closer to giving up cable. (DirectTV to be exact at around $140 a month).

I'm looking at the Amazon fire box set up with an antenna for local channels, HBO to go ( cause I'm NOT giving up GOT) and I'll keep Amazon Prime (I use it all the time for shipping so the TV portion is a plus) and Netflix.

I'd like some real life experience and what gizmos you use to get the most out of TV with the least amount of bill.

 

[Moomduck1]

We haven't had cable for almost 2 years now. We use a $15 antenna I picked up on clearance at Target. We have refurbished Roku boxes for our TVs. We pay for Netflix and we have Amazon Prime. That's it. There are some shows we wish we could watch that are currently airing, but it's just a matter of time before we will be able to stream them. You just have to be patient. It saves a ton of money.

 

[supersnoop]

Hulu is a great option for current shows. They tend to be available for streaming the day after they air, as opposed to Netflix where they show up after the whole season wraps ups.

We have an appleTV that works well for most anything. With it, you'll have to plug your antenna into the TV and switch inputs to watch live shows, and you don't have the benefit of a DVR. Also, there's no Amazon app on the AppleTV, but you can run the app on your iPhone or iPad and "throw" the video to the AppleTV. The AppleTV also has an HBO NOW app.

At our other home, we have a TiVo OTA. That will tune live television, record shows, and has all the benefits of a TiVo DVR. The TiVo has many of the apps built in, but not nearly as many as the AppleTV. The TiVo has Amazon, but does not have HBO NOW. It does have HBO GO, which requires an HBO subscription from somewhere else.

The TiVo is certainly the best all-in-one box, but the AppleTV has many additional apps. I can't compare it to an Amazon device or Roku, but these work well for us.

 

[dakotix]

We did it a few years ago. We have roku on each TV. You must keep your cable-internet though. DSL doesn't cut it with video streaming apps. It's a different way of watching TV. You dont have to endlessly flip channels to see whats on. You basically choose shows you want to watch through a variety of entertainment apps. We primarily use Hulu, Netflix and Amazon Prime. All three of these are subscription services which all together cost maybe $30-40 a month (that's a guess) Anyway, we love it. The only thing with Roku is that it has no parental controls really. You can password protect the ability to add new apps but that's about it.

 

[Miffy]

We cut the cable last year, and don't miss the TV at all. Ever. We have streaming Netflix (and 2 DVDs at a time), Amazon Prime, and a Roku 3. We get the PBS app through the Roku 3, which is good.

Of course, we still have Internet service ($65/month--far more than its supposed price on the cable package we had), but we also cut out the cable phone service, which was bundled with our package. We have an Ooma now for the "landline," and it works just fine. Costs about $4/month (just the taxes). I think at this point, we're saving close to $100/month, since we had Netflix and Amazon Prime anyway, so I don't consider them an added expense.

We don't have an antenna and don't miss broadcast television.

If you have someone in your household who watches local sports, think twice about your decision to cut the cable. At least in my market (NYC), there's no other way to watch the local teams except on cable and broadcast TV. Also, if you have a phone bundled in a cable TV/Internet/phone package and you want to keep your phone number, be very careful about how you divest yourself of the service. IIRC, the phone still had to be active on the cable in order for us to transfer our number to the Ooma service.

Also, if you really want to keep all your cable services, you can always try to see if your cable company will lower your rates. Perhaps ask to speak to someone in the retention department. This didn't work for us, but it does work for many people in other markets.

 

[havaneselover]

I'm toying with the idea. Got a roku stick from my sister. Looking at Play Station Vue (but they don't have Nickelodeon), sling, and direct tv now. I like that play station vue allows you to record to the cloud dvr.

 

[LinderInWonderland]

We cut the cord 4 years ago. My cable bill was $120ish with HBO and the high speed internet that we had to have for my online classes was an additional $90/month.

We bought a Roku 3 ($100, one time purchase) and a digital antenna ($15-$20) for local news and Seahawks games. We have Hulu, Netflix, Prime (which I also had for shipping), WWE network and HBO Now. All the streaming runs us about $53/month including tax. Do we NEED all that streaming? Probably not. We're still saving more than half of what we were previously spending on cable.

 

[DeezKnee]

We cut the cord about a year ago and it has worked out really well. We've been using the amazon fire stick and it's pretty good but has some problems connecting with our router from time to time. If you are going to have multiple tvs all using netflix, hulu etc at the same time then you might want to use some of the money you are saving cutting the cord and increase the speed of the internet you are getting.

 

[ImDMous]

We also did it about a year ago. We use a Chromecast and have Prime, Hulu and Netflix. We tried out Sling but it didn't do it for us. We've had Vue for about a month and it seems pretty good. I think it's $30 a month and there are a lot of channels. We'll probably drop Hulu if we continue liking Vue.

 

[brymolmom]

We did it (mostly from the advice on DIS Budget Board) about 5 years ago. We have an antenna on our roof (DH got an expensive one - not sure if it has made a difference over what a cheap would would be like - I think he spent $125 or so)...And we bought a computer to hook up to our TV and a wireless keyboard and mouse (at the time - maybe $500 - $600 total) - plus a couple of media 'cards' for the computer. Using Windows Media - we can record 'DVR' our shows on the stations we get - this is absolutely the BEST thing we did.

We do have Netflix and Amazon Prime in addition to this. And we use the Fire stick to access Netflix or recorded TV shows from our 2nd TV.

To be honest, I HAVE missed having cable - maybe a couple handfuls of times. Usually sports related - not getting World Cup games or the 'extras' you can see on non-main channels when the Olympics are on...But for the thousands we have saved, it has been worth it.

 

[sluggozmom]

I am considering this too. I have a streaming device for every TV in the house.
I am trying to figure out what speed internet to get, 100 or 200 mbps ?

 

[DeezKnee]

I am considering this too. I have a streaming device for every TV in the house.
I am trying to figure out what speed internet to get, 100 or 200 mbps ?

You could try 100 and if its not enough then get 200. Most likely 100 should be more than enough to have a few hd movies going on but if someone else starts downloading games, movies or other large files on a regular basis then 200 may be worth it. Plus most internet plans I have seen wouldn't guarantee 100 mbps but rather say "up to" 100mbps. So, if you are in an area that has a higher population there might be some slow downs at peak times well below 100 mbps. It all depends.

 

[MillauFr]

I cut cable about 10 years ago. We just get DVDs from the library.

 

[Albort]

Anyone experienced with IPTV? recently bought a box that has close to 1000 channels on it for $140(comes wed). It has a ton of Asian channels which is what i am aiming for.

 

[snoodledoo]

To those of you using an antenna for local channels, how does that work if you have multiple TVs in the house?

 

[supersnoop]

To those of you using an antenna for local channels, how does that work if you have multiple TVs in the house?

It depends. Is your house wired up with coax to a central location? If you have cable, then there's likely one incoming line somewhere which is split off to each television. If everything is run together in the attic, you can put the antenna there and get the best signal, but you might need a signal amplifier if you split it into too many outlets.

As I've mentioned above, we have a TiVo OTA connected to the antenna. I then have multiple TiVo Mini's around the house connected to my home network. Each Mini can take one of the four tuners from the TiVo and acts like a DVR, the same as if you were watching on the main box. That way, you only connect one antenna to one device, but it's shared throughout the house.

 

[fifthdimensiondweller]

I have pretty much the same setup as your are considering minus hbo and I love it. Haven't missed cable at all. The savings alone from a cable bill of around 140 a month pays for most of our resort stay every year at Disney-so worth it!

 

[ravenclawtrekkie]

I can live easily without cable TV. (I have in the past, but one of my current roommates does pay for cable since she loves football and basketball. I virtually never use the cable box that's in my room.)

I subscribe to the following:
- Hulu and Netflix year-round - $7.99 for Hulu, $9.99 for Netflix (I don't pay extra for the no-commercials add-on for Hulu, but I do choose the HD option on Netflix)
- HBO Now and/or Hulu's Showtime add-on during the parts of the year when the few shows I watch on those networks are on - $8.99 for Showtime, $14.99 for HBO
- Crunchyroll to watch anime during times when there are shows airing that I care about - $6.95
- Amazon Prime for the shipping benefit, but I occasionally watch certain shows on there too

So, $50-ish a month when I have all the services (which is less than half of any given year, generally), plus the $99 a year for Amazon Prime that I'd have anyway even if it didn't do video streaming.

The one area I "cheat" in is that I use my parents' Comcast login to watch content from Disney XD, Disney Channel, and Freeform (and NBC Sports Network when the few sports I watch, mostly gymnastics and ice skating, are on). I think I could watch the Disney/Freeform stuff with my Hub login from work but I've never tried. I would miss the little bit of sports I watch but I'm sure I could find less 'authorized' livestreams of major events if I didn't mind low quality and possibly foreign language commentary.

I use an Apple TV since all my personal tech is in that ecosystem. The lack of an Amazon Video app isn't that bothersome since I can AirPlay from the iOS app and Amazon Video is such a tiny percentage of my viewing anyway.

 

[Princess Minnie321]

We cut 1 1/2 years ago and love it. We had verison fios and the price just kept going up until I said no more. At the end, we were paying $205 for the lowest cable package without premium channels, internet, and phone. We now pay $69.99 fios internet, $5.99 cbs all access, $19 for Netflix streaming and DVDs, $7.99 Hulu plus. So a savings of $100 per year and I watch everything I watched with cable. We have a roku 2 for our two tv's and an antenna for local channels on one tv. We had prime for the shipping and I am really liking a show on it right now.

We have google voice for a home phone and it works great. Paid $47 for the device and it is a free service. We pay the $15 per year to make 911 calls.

 

[Alicefan]

I just cut mine about 3 months ago and I find that sometimes I miss the cable. Scanning through the channels etc....but I do NOT miss the bill and all of those channels that repeated a million times and being stuck with channels that you don't use. I wish cable would do ala carte and my problem would be solved. Why they don't is beyond me. If I want the NHL channel, I'm stuck with 20 more sports channels. blah!