Here’s what you’ll save by ditching cable TV (MarketWatch cord-cutting calculator)

Market Watch ^ | 06/24/2014 | Quentin Fottrell

[Kid Shelleen]

Stop paying the electric bill and they’ll turn off the lights. Cable TV, however, is no longer quite so essential. It’s now possible to stop paying the cable bill and enjoy much, if not all of your favorite programming — at great savings.

But is cutting the cord right for you? To help answer that question we’ve created a new interactive cord-cutting calculator .

Here’s how it works: Answer a few questions about your TV watching needs, including your favorite shows and sports leagues, and the tool will crunch the numbers and give you several options to best approximate your cable TV experience.

[Mad Dawgg]

"I watched it legally"

I did to. Its not against the law to watch streaming content on the internet. It may be against the law for people to upload and stream it but it is not for the people who watch it.

BTW the second Amazon makes it available we buy it. The Walking Dead does this without delay. Game of Thrones could as well they just haven't figured out that we live in the 21st century and the old HBO Business model is done.

There is a reason The Walking Dead is the number one show on Cable TV and its not all to do with Zombies and good writing. They figured out that if you make the show available to everyone who has internet, people will buy it and/or watch it on Netflix.

[GOPsterinMA]

The GF has a $5 OTA antenna connected to a TV on the upper floor of her place and gets ~50 stations, many in HD. There’s even a old movie channel that doesn’t come with Comcast (called GET) that’s pretty good.

If you have more than one TV, maybe get cable for the “main” one, but hook an antenna up to any other ones. For local crap and occasional good movies, I can live with OTA.

The SCOTUS effectively shut Aereo down yesterday I see. That sucks.

Planet of the Apes: the originals, period. Estella Warren was the only reason I watched the ~8 minutes of the first remake. GIGITTY! Comparing the originals (even as they diminished in quality) to the new versions is like comparing Coke with sugar to the crap they call “Coke” with corn syrup - YUCK.

Yes, I know you can buy “Mexican” Coke made with sugar, but the bread and butter version sold here is swill.

[Las Vegas Dave]

HDTV pings!

Interested in the HDTV ping list?
Please Freepmail me (freepmail works best) if you would like your name added to the HDTV ping list,
(approximately 375+ freepers are currently on the HDTV ping list).
The pinged subjects can be HDTV technology, satellite, cable, OTA HD reception (Over The Air with roof top or indoor antennas), Broadcast specials, Sports, Blu Ray/HDDVD, and any and all subjects relating to HDTV.

Note: if you search Freerepublic using the keyword HDTV, you will find most of the past HDTV postings.

LasVegasDave.

[ELS]

Now I pay only for Netflix and Hulu at $8 per month each. I’m saving quite a bit.

I did the same thing except with Verizon FIOS. I kept the internet access and use a Roku box now.

[ELS]

I have a Roku box and there’s no going back to overpriced cable TV for me.

[csvset]

I have Roku as well and for the most part enjoy it. However I was looking for the an channel (watchespn) it didn’t appear in the channel store. FAIL. Go to roku’s website, ah there it is. Go through hoops to add the channnel and then see the disclaimer about it taking 24 hours to update. Really? FAIL X 2

[RayChuang88]

I would consider dropping cable, but wheh you lose a huge fraction of live sports by dropping cable, that’s why all I did was adjust my Comcast package to Preferred Basic and with a new deal, saved myself US$35/month.

[freekitty]

Also, if you pay for one of those package deals where you have tv, computer and phone all in one; when it rains or something; you lose it all. By separating them; you may only lose one for a short period of time.

[al_c]

Not with Uverse. Never had a connection issue ... just got tired of paying a high price for something that really wasn’t all that important anyway.

[ConservativeMan55]

bttt

[ican'tbelieveit]

I had posted earlier that Amazon has a deal with HBO to stream their shows - Prime ($99/yr). GoT isn’t up yet, but much of their content is up already (been going through Deadwood, can only take so much of the profanity, so I have to space it out).

[discostu]

You could still get GOT, just not entirely legally. The big thing you really gain with cable is simplicity, everything found on cable can be found elsewhere legally and otherwise, you just have to go find it. I’m too lazy for that, but being in tech I’ve got plenty of friends and co-workers that have setup all kinds of bots to go get their shows without cable.

[Fresh Wind]

I fired the wire late in 2012, savings are now close to $2K, not including any rate increases which I never found out about.

[harwood]

Get PlayOn (One time fee of $50); runs as a server on a Windows PC. It has a large assortment of user-developed scripts. You can easily create your own. You can watch pretty much any live feed.

[csvset]

For today I downloaded the Watchespn app to the wife’s Kindle and connected that to the TV via HDMI. Kindle 1 Roku 0

[leapfrog0202]

Thanks for the information! I really think that’s the way we’re going as soon as our Sept. freedom date rolls around. We wanted a DVR and so got a contract that ends in Sept.
I can totally get into saving most of the $90+ I’m paying DTV now!

[itsahoot]

It bothers me, also, that I would be paying for soft porn, which is another reason why I have antenna TV for free.

You get soft porn for free from the networks in case you haven't noticed. Almost every network show now includes blatant sex scenes, all three genders.

[itsahoot]

plus another 100 spanish channels

My provider just added about 50 of those.

[Impy]

I love Coke, but I didn’t grow up with good ole fashioned sugar cane coke like you guys.

I guess I’m fortunate to be burdened by fewer memories of ‘the way things used to be’. Real sugar, movies with good scripts!

I remember as a kid I used to like 7-up, then they changed the formula and I thought it tasted like shite.

[Mears]

I go way back to Moxie.

It would make your hair stand on end.

.