I cut the cord 18 months ago. Haven’t looked back since. This is what I did:
1.) Replaced TV’s in the house with Smart TV’s with Wi-fi. If you don’t want to do this then you can purchase a Roku stick ($50) which transforms your non-smart TV into a Wi-fi TV capable of using apps like Netflix, Amazon Prime, etc. All that is required is an HDMI port.
2.) Transferred my entire DVD collection to the cloud using the VUDU service. They are owned by Walmart and for $5 ($2.50 if they are still running their special which cuts the price in half for every 10 DVDs you transfer) I purchased a digital copy, and upgraded to HDX quality (their version of Blu-Ray).
3.) Got Netflix, Amazon Prime (already had it for the shipping) and VUDU.
After about $1,500 in initial expenditures for TV and transferring DVD’s I cut out DirecTV. So it’s paid for itself. DirecTV at $150/month was $1,800/year.
My recurring costs are $60/month for internet from Charter, and Netflix. $99/year for Amazon prime. You can do this cheaper by foregoing the VUDU portion if you want to physically hold on to your DVD’s.
Heck there’s plenty of stuff on YouTube for free.
I need to be better educated about all of this. I don’t know what a Roku stick is or what to do with it. I have heard of the cloud but don’t understand why you want your DVD collection there if you have the actual DVDs to stick in the DVD player.
I guess I’m just behind the times........