Posted on 12/10/2013 4:48:49 PM PST by Extremely Extreme Extremist
Ditto what usconservative said - I did the same thing. Only I had Comcast cable, which I actually liked, it was just too pricey. Even with a higher h/s internet bill I still came out way ahead using Netflix/Hulu Plus/antenna.
Thanks for the links. Some I already had (I’ve nearly memorized the Fawlty Towers episodes :-). I expect to find other shows I like, though, in the links I haven’t checked yet.
Yes.
Cable is to TV as dial-up is to Interweb access.
Cable tv is so 80’s.
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We have Cable One.
I dropped the cable TV part of my service but kept the high speed Internet portion of the service a few years back.
Since we live close to the cable office, I drove over to their office to make the request to drop service.
The lady behind the counter went apoplectic and started accusing me of trying to defraud them because, apparently, Cable One had no real way of letting you keep your high speed Internet and cutting off basic cable access at the same time plus they had NO way to monitor if you were using the basic cable.
The solution that we agreed upon was for them to send a tech person home with me to crawl up into my attic and disconnect the cable TV cord from the splitter.
He showed me what he did, simply unscrewed the cable cord from the splitter and left the computer cord connected.
If I wanted basic cable, I would simply have to reconnect the cord to the splitter but I have not bothered.
Of course, I am not a cable TV expert and do not know how all systems work for all companies but assume that they all basically work the same way.
In any case, I currently use Apple TV with NetFlix and have been saving between 100 to 200 dollars a month for several years (more like 400 a month if you include dropping the phone service for Internet Phone. My wife's family lives in Japan and she needed a land line to make international calls). I just got a chromecast for $35 and will probably be using that more than Apple TV from now on since it is easier to use my computer to type in the search menu. Also the Apple TV will not let you watch all programs on YouTube and Chromecast will. Apparently, YouTube recognizes Apple TV as a TV and will not let you watch programs that have TV licensing issues. Only problem with chromecast is that it does not support Android yet despite what it says on the box. It would be nice to control it via my Smart Phone or Android Table rather than lugging my laptop around.
Best of luck and Merry Christmas!
Our household did last summer and we haven’t looked back. Right now we have Netflix, Amazon and Hulu. We’ll probably cancel Hulu, tho their Criterion movie section is nice.
We also got an over-the-air antenna. The picture’s nice and we pick up quite a few local channels. I’ve since learned just how horrible daytime network TV is, but it’s fine for background noise.
Yeah, there’s a couple networks and shows we miss, but that hasn’t and won’t kill us. And we’re finding other things we enjoy.
I am good at finding stuff online to read and view and listen to. It can be time consuming to do so I am also good at finding sites to help me out too. Some of it can be bootleg and that usually means the sites move around a bit.
But I noticed that the web keeps improving as more needs arise. One need for me arose during the Olympics to see some of the events live. NBC did ok, but withheld things to air taped on prime time. Yeah, actually, NBC failed at times.
So I was lucky to learn about how to use VPN to see live events from other countries streams. Ended up paying for a VPN service. Now I see some stuff in other nations. And I have a ton of news channels to see.
Some of what I like doing is really never going to be sanctioned by Roku, Chromecast or the rest. Maybe a few things like The Blaze TV or C-Span or things like that.
But having said that I also legit sites too. Namely Hulu Plus and the Rhapsody Service. But I can say that because of this I was unhappy to learn those services like Chromecast, Roku and the others are not for me. Though I am glad to see Roku improving and about to sell a Dongle stick like Chromecast.
So instead I sometimes connect my desktop tower to my tv. I also invested in doing the opposite and getting a tuner card and a capture card to see tv on my tower. Yes, I have cable without a DVR. But I do it because not everything is reliable online.
The day pay tv is online by a major company then the game changes. There is no guarantee of anything remaining online as it stands unless you pay for the big boys like Netflix and even then they delete or lose rights to content.
Youtube bans videos from time to time, Hulu loses rights as well, sites move, feeds die or get blocked, and so on it happens. But I do the best I can.
They just announced they are coming to two adjacent towns. I figure they expand to us in 3-5 years.
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