Posted on 01/02/2016 12:29:51 PM PST by aMorePerfectUnion
Like millions of other consumers, Evan Hartstein was fed up with pay TV.
The 40-year-old father of two was paying nearly $250 a month for a bundle of phone, high-speed Internet and hundreds of cable channels that he and his family barely watched.
So Hartstein and his wife recently ditched their standard cable TV subscription and instead signed up for Sling TV, Netflix and a few other streaming services. Their monthly bill was cut in half.
"I got to the end of my rope," said Hartstein, of Scottsdale, Ariz. "I just wasn't getting the value out of it. We'd watch maybe 10 channels total. Why do that when there's this whole world out there where you can pick and choose just the stuff you want?"
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
A Roku stick simply transforms a TV that cannot access the internet to a TV that does. So that you can stream content to that TV like Netflix. Plugs into the back of your TV into an HDMI port.
As for the DVD's that's a result of a couple of things. If you live in a house with multiple TV's it does do away with the need for having DVD players in every room. Does away with the aggravation of hunting down DVD's. Does away with storage issues, especially if you have hundreds of DVDs.
Of course this is all predicated on a family dynamic where you might have multi-generational tastes. Gone are the days where everyone sat around the TV on a Sunday night and watched the same TV program. At least that's the case in my household. The old man wants to watch episodes of Combat? That's fine. I'll go watch something else.
Netflix + Roku + Usenet + Plex= more money for beer
Even an indoor antenna with an amplifier built-in?
Thanks for the TVPC link!
DH ‘must’ have the Golf Channel - it’s there!
Yeap. I can pick up about 3 channels, one of which is 24/7 religious with amplified antenna.
At first I bought a Clearstream HD antenna from Costco, near $100. It was crap and hardly brought in any viewable broadcasts. Stay away from that product.
Then I bought an amplified rotational HD antenna on eBay, about $24. It works great! It comes with a small console and remote control. The remote turns the antenna on the roof, up to 360 degrees either direction, and works through the ordinary antenna coax cable. I mounted the antenna to an external vent pipe on the roof. Then used the remote to turn it to the best reception for the most channels. I forgot the name of it, but a search on eBay should show comparable models for under $30.
I cut the cable completely and saved $120 a month. Bought an antenna and get about 60 channels here in DFW. My Metro PCS phone has a hotspot for my laptop plus unlimited data for the phone itself.
In a rural area, forget it. You're better off with cable.
True. In my rural area we get zero reception from an antenna. Nearest TV station is over 200 miles away.
Exactly what I’ve done. Sling TV and Roku plus a local antenna and Kodi. You have to invest money in hardware in the beginning and Sling TV plus the sports pac (more ESPN channels) is $27/mo tax included. I was pay $200 monthly for cable. Now I’ve increased my streaming to the $60/mo plan, add $27/ mo for Sling and I’ll probably get the NFL Game Pass for $99/yr next August. Still works out to a substantial savings.
I find watching hi-speed police chases on YouTube far more exciting then Nasshat and it’s totally free. For 10-70 minutes, some dude who doesn’t realize he’s on tv is being followed by choppers while the cops are on his tail. There are exciting crashes and there’s almost always a happy ending. Plus it’s “reality” so you never know what could happen other than someone is going to be taken into custody when it’s over. Most of these crooks are probably Nasshat fans judging by the way they drive on the freeways.
Check this one out:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8P81fX28qSI
Here is a site to get many new and old shows. It is in Lithuania....
I got my season 3 of Marvels Agents of SHIELD there. It is quicker to do a search at google such as The Big Bang Theory, watchseries then search the site itself. http://watchseries.lt
Example: The Big Bang Theory
http://watchseries.lt/serie/big_bang_theory
Use in Firefox the add-on called “Flash Video Downloader YouTube HD Download [4K] 8.4.0” at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox
Direct link: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/flash-video-downloader/?src=search
Firefox> right click on Toolbar then click on Customize. Drag the icon to the toolbar above or at bottom of screen (Add-On Bar). It may already be on your toolbar during the install. It is labeled FVD and it shows a blue arrow when there is a video to download.
I also use it at Youtube for music and video. Example of both.
The Rat Pack,Dean Martin,Sammy Davis Jr & Frank Sinatra, Live And Swingin´On Stage 1965
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHKprqCNUmc
After saving the tv or movie show to your desktop then copy over to a external hard drive that you plug into your tv. Use the tv remote to switch inputs such as HDMI1 or HDMI2 etc. I have also bought some old tv series and put them on the external drive. I have Netflix ($9/month), I use my pc to go to setup favorites then use a ROKU3 box to watch on the tv set. I also use SLING TV for $20/month. Then I have the MOHU tv antenna (looks like a square of linoleum). The over the air antenna will show a far better picture then the compressed one the cable company shows you.
Acrok Video Converter is what I use to convert the dvds to mp4. Inexpensive and it works fast. http://www.acrok.com/video-converter
I use the tv remote and the Roku remote. I save about $68/month from the past cable bill of $138
Cut cable a couple of years ago. No-brainer, you can’t watch a million channels nor should you. Amazon Prime has a great deal of content and it costs me nothing as I find it a worthwhile expense just on saved shipping fees. High speed internet is something that I can’t do without at this point, regardless of whether I use it for television. The only thing I miss is live sports, and really, it pushes me to find my own thrills and spills and/or connect with friends/family to watch big games. I’m good.
I check out DVDs for free via my county library system. I can usually find anything current I want to see, including popular TV series.
We cut the cord 4 years ago. At first I thought I’d hate it, but the family loves it. We primarily rely on the following:
Netflix
Hulu
Amazon Prime
Vudu
Plex (to access our 1,000 movie digital library on our sever)
Epix
Google Play
Over Air Local HD
Today I added the Sling TV trial, mostly because I wanted to watch the Liberty Bowl on ESPN and Sling streams the channels we most watched when we had cable/satellite (ESPN, ESPN2, AMC, History, A&E, HGTV, TNT, Food Network, etc.); it’s $20/month, but we are going to give it a try. That would raise us to just under $40 a month for everything we ever used when we had either satellite or cable.
When watching the game on ESPN this afternoon, my kids kept asking me to pause, fast forward, or rewind it. I had to explain the foreign concept of live streamed TV to them...imagine the blank faces. TV for most of them has always been this way. We’ll never go back to over-priced cable/satellite.
That ain’t just ‘rural’, that’s downright ‘country’.
“live sports”...
If you’re desperate, everyone knows of this site:
http://www.vipleague.se/
Choose the stuff you want, then click the “Close or Hide This Message”.
Pick your game and just wait 30 seconds and the ads will go away and your game will start.
They’ve been around forever, pretty safe and easy, don’t know how they keep going.
I was disappointed with BBCA, too. It needs to be more British. An occasional real commercial from England would be interesting to see. As it is, I only watch BBCA for the X-Factor UK and Graham Norton. It’s a waste.
Plenty fast enough to grab torrents overnight though.......
How long of a deal does Directv have with the NFL?
You’re right! Works great, thanks!
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