No more cable. Hulu or Amazon Prime?

[DaystarPrincess]

I'm tired of being over charged and paying outrageous prices for cable. It's time to get rid of cable, plus summer is coming and my family doesn't watch much tv anyways. We have Netflix already but i'm also looking into Hulu plus and Amazon Prime. Does anyone have either of these services? And what was or is your experience. The only tv show my family likes to watch is The Walking Dead.

 

[tamerbelles]

We cut the cord last year and have Netflix and Hulu. Best. Decision. Ever.

For us, Amazon Prime didn't have a lot of the shows we watch. I will warn you it's hard to find the Walking Dead online ... We ended up paying $40 for a season pass through our Xbox - still cheaper than paying for cable all year!

 

[5kidsmommy]

We cut the cable cord two years ago. We have a roku box (and a couple smart tvs). On the roku box I have amazon prime, netflix, and hulu. We had amazon and netflix before we got rid of cable so I don't count them as additional purchases. The roku box was about $70, it is a one time charge, no monthly fees. On our roku box we also have Sling TV, we pay for a package that is $25 a month. With that we get HGTV, AMC, A&E, Food Network, ESPN, Disney and a bunch of other channels. So now we pay about $50 a month and we get more tv than we could possible need.

 

[katmatry]

I'd love to cut the cord on cable, it's my husband that is attached to it. If you have cut cable, how much are you paying for internet?

 

[Fabnsab]

We have Hulu, amazon(always have it for shipping), and Netflix. It'll be three years in June and we don't miss anything. Hulu is a must for current shows and Netflix for bingeing.

We pay $25 for Internet.

 

[Narnia_girl]

I have Amazon Prime and honestly would not pay for it just for the TVs/movies, but as part of the whole package I think it's a great feature. For that yearly price we get the TV, two day shipping and access to the music library (thousands of songs). We don't watch much on Prime because it seems to duplicate Netflix a lot in what is offered. We did enjoy their original "Man in the High Castle".
We also have Hulu but I don't watch that much, our teen daughter does.
Oh, and we just got a Roku, which enables viewing of all the above.

 

[magik]

I'd probably go with Hulu as it will get you access to many current network TV shows, so if you like shows on ABC, NBC, Fox, and CW, Hulu will get you access to many of those popular shows the day after they air (out of luck for CBS shows unless you subscribe to their own streaming service). Hulu also currently has season 1 of Fear the Walking Dead, so I imagine that sometime after season 2 is over, it will get season 2 of that if you don't mind waiting.

For the Walking Dead, you'd probably be best served just buying a season pass through Amazon Instant Video or VUDU or some other service. When I looked, one season runs about $40 for HD everywhere, but you own that season and can watch it again and again. Only downside is that it can be 24-48 hours for the episodes to be available after they air. This is what I do for shows I really want to watch as they air. I've found I don't really mind being a season behind for most of the shows I like, so I'm OK waiting for them to show up on Netflix or Hulu.

There's also the option of subscribing to SlingTV. It's $20 a month and includes AMC, so you can stream Walking Dead live. It also has the last two episodes of Walking Dead on demand, but o ly the last two so you can't binge watch. It's also a relatively new service so it's pretty glitchy, so sometimes it crashes or messes up, especially during high demand shows like Walking Dead or Game of Thrones. I wanted to like this service, but it's not there yet.

 

[niffer5150]

we have hulu, amazon prime, and netflix. amazon prime's show selection is meh, but i save a lot using the free shipping. i've found many things are cheaper to just order than to try to find around town. hulu is pretty awesome and we use it quite a bit since new shows are added to your queue. netflix is a must. they have the most expansive collection of shows and movies. the only thing anyone here misses is watching hockey but the husband manages using the internet.

 

[lost*in*cyberspace]

I would go for Hulu+ over Amazon. They have a much better selection if you are interested in tv shows.

 

[GAN]

We have Hulu, amazon(always have it for shipping), and Netflix. It'll be three years in June and we don't miss anything. Hulu is a must for current shows and Netflix for bingeing.

We pay $25 for Internet.

Wow ...$25 and you're able to stream? I'm thinking it would be around $60 where we live, but I haven't actually checked. Is it through your local cable provider?

 

[Madteaparty001]

Paying comcast $30 a month for 18mbps (though I usually average 8-10) and that was because of a long snafu that I ended up having to go to the BBB about, they want to charge me $45 for 12mbps. I pay for Netflix and Prime and share with my sister who pays for Hulu. I mainly use Prime for the kids shows (blue clues and kipper the dog being the big two), and Netflix for old TV series my DH and I want to binge on. Hulu is for any current shows we just can't wait for (of which there are few, to busy as it is to watch TV).

Whenever I go to my mom's house (she has cable), I can never find anything to watch and the commercials are more annoying then I remember. Once you get over having to watch the latest shows as soon as they come out, you really don't miss much.

 

[Vernie822]

I want to cut cable SO BADLY but my fiance watches sports enough that it would be worth it for us. We have friends who watch sports often & they either have to find a way to stream it online or go out to a bar to watch it.

I love Hulu. I've had Amazon Prime as well but Hulu had the only show I really watched on Amazon Prime (the Good Wife).

 

[Fabnsab]

Wow ...$25 and you're able to stream? I'm thinking it would be around $60 where we live, but I haven't actually checked. Is it through your local cable provider?

We stream a lot. It's not perfect or the fastest but it's definitely fine for us. It's an Internet service where we live. There are only like 2 options. When we first moved here, they capped the data so we didn't even have internet but now it's unlimited.

 

[5kidsmommy]

I want to cut cable SO BADLY but my fiance watches sports enough that it would be worth it for us. We have friends who watch sports often & they either have to find a way to stream it online or go out to a bar to watch it.

I love Hulu. I've had Amazon Prime as well but Hulu had the only show I really watched on Amazon Prime (the Good Wife).

Which channels does he watch? The only channel that is really hard to get in nbcsports but a lot of the other channels can be paid for via PlayStation vue or sling tv.

 

[rchampagne]

I canceled DirecTV a month ago, and I'm never going back. We have Netflix. And Amazon Prime, but that's mostly for the free 2-day shipping. We also paid for 3 months of SlingTV ($60) in order to get a free Roku. We use SlingTV for The Walking Dead. I also signed up for CBS All Access to watch Survivor and the NCAA tourney. The nice thing is that as soon as a season is completed (i.e The Walking Dead in a few weeks), I can cancel the service until the next season starts.

 

[Vernie822]

Which channels does he watch? The only channel that is really hard to get in nbcsports but a lot of the other channels can be paid for via PlayStation vue or sling tv.

Everything! Nascar, Golf, football, baseball, hockey. So all of the ESPNs, Root Sports (that may be local? We're in PA), CBS/NBC/FOX/ABC.

I'll have to look into our options, we don't have any gaming systems but we have an iPad and our friends have Apple TV so I'd consider something like that.

 

[5kidsmommy]

Apple TV is great for streaming from an iPad but their offerings are slim. We have one but rarely use it, we find the roku box fits most of our needs. We are a soccer family and can watch most of our games via a paid MLS app. Sports though is the hardest (and most expensive) thing to stream. It's what keeps people from cutting the cord.

 

[JessM]

Amazon prime doesn't have a great selection of shows or movies but they do have some good originals (Man in the High Castle, Mad Dogs). I have Amazon prime for the free shipping and I LOVE that you can download "rented" shows and movies to your kindle or ipad to watch when you don't have an internet connection (ie on an airplane, bus, in the car, etc). I also tend to buy the Walking Dead episodes one by one during the season the day after it airs from Amazon.

I tried Hulu but I didn't watch it enough to warrant paying for it every month. Most of the new shows I wanted to watch on there I could watch thru my antenna on the major networks anyways (ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC).

 

[disney world dreamer]

my friend ditched cable a couple years ago.
they have a subscription to netflix, hulu, and amazon and its costing them a fraction of the price of cable.
i would advise getting all 3 so you have the most options.

 

[aprilchem]

We got rid of cable 7 years ago. Right now we have an Apple TV, Netflix, and Amazon prime, as well as Sling TV. We use Netflix the most and almost never watch Amazon Prime (I have it just for the shipping). DH watches most of his sports on the Apple TV on the RedBull app. We mostly have sling because we want to support the existence of that type of service, but DH does use it to watch (or try to watch ) The Walking Dead. Sling service is pretty bad so he only gets to watch it about half the time.

And to answer an earlier question, we pay $83 a month for 150 Mbps internet service. The cheapest "bundle" we could have in our area is $179.99 a month, so we're still saving a considerable amount (Netflix + Sling costs us $30 a month). We have to have the very fast Internet service because DH needs it for his work.