OT - Any Canadian Get Rid of Cable?

[Gigi22]

I've seen this question on the general Budget board where most of the info. applies only in the US. I wanted to know if there are savings for Canadians if we cut the cable cord? We can't go to a dish, because of condo corporation rules. We are not tech-savvy, but can manage to connect our own WiFi box, so anything really difficult is out. We are familiar with Apple products, no Microsoft, if that helps.

Thanks!

 

[xlxo]

I wanted to know if there are savings for Canadians if we cut the cable cord? We can't go to a dish, because of condo corporation rules.

Besides cost....

• do you want to watch more TV now?
• do you want more movies?
• are you looking at more sports?
• what do you watch now?

I went off cable for a few years and recently reconnected to a different provider...

• OTA local stations is great on an ATSC antenna.... having more stations is better
• biggest reason for reconnecting was getting an HD TV. One family member loves ethnic content and that station recently started broadcasting in HD.
• you have a great HD TV.... are you happy with streaming low resolution and choppy content?
• I can stream movies for free.... however streaming means possibly hitting your monthly internet cap
• video quality is much better on cable, compared to video streaming
• cable PVR boxes allows you to record 4 to 6 channels at the same time. Great for the Olympics or a news junkie.
• having a movie package allows me to watch so many movies without needing to pay for movies at the electronic store.... saving me money. I just set my PVR to record to watch at my convenience
• video on demand is cheaper than buying movies
• cable can be free if you bundle with other services like your phone, internet and cellphone
• today's cable boxes allows for 5.1 surround for many evening prime time shows
• cable shows closed captioning, often missing with streamed internet content

I guess it depends on where you are and who is your provider with what amenities it offers.

• my provider offers wireless cable boxes that allows me to connect and move TV's wherever I want it. I can have three wireless boxes around the house. A great idea when relocating/recycling an older TV to another part of the house.
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dd4BnoAq2Qg
• my provider also broadcasts to my phone, tablet, or laptop if need additional screens around the house
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=460VYrdgnE8
• my provider allows me to control and record content when away from the house with my smartphone.
• I can bundle my landline, internet, cellphone as well as my cable for more savings
• weather can impact dish reception

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xa04jPzBtQc

 

[Gigi22]

Besides cost....

• do you want to watch more TV now?
• do you want more movies?
• are you looking at more sports?
• what do you watch now?

I went off cable for a few years and recently reconnected to a different provider...

• OTA local stations is great on an ATSC antenna.... having more stations is better
• biggest reason for reconnecting was getting an HD TV. One family member loves ethnic content and that station recently started broadcasting in HD.
• you have a great HD TV.... are you happy with streaming low resolution and choppy content?
• I can stream movies for free.... however streaming means possibly hitting your monthly internet cap
• video quality is much better on cable, compared to video streaming
• cable PVR boxes allows you to record 4 to 6 channels at the same time. Great for the Olympics or a news junkie.
• having a movie package allows me to watch so many movies without needing to pay for movies at the electronic store.... saving me money. I just set my PVR to record to watch at my convenience
• video on demand is cheaper than buying movies
• cable can be free if you bundle with other services like your phone, internet and cellphone
• today's cable boxes allows for 5.1 surround for many evening prime time shows
• cable shows closed captioning, often missing with streamed internet content

I guess it depends on where you are and who is your provider with what amenities it offers.

• my provider offers wireless cable boxes that allows me to connect and move TV's wherever I want it. I can have three wireless boxes around the house. A great idea when relocating/recycling an older TV to another part of the house.
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dd4BnoAq2Qg
• my provider also broadcasts to my phone, tablet, or laptop if need additional screens around the house
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=460VYrdgnE8
• my provider allows me to control and record content when away from the house with my smartphone.
• I can bundle my landline, internet, cellphone as well as my cable for more savings
• weather can impact dish reception

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xa04jPzBtQc

We don't stream anything on our TV, largely because we have a very basic Internet package and I refuse to pay extra. I guess the question is, can we cut our monthly costs by subscribing to something like Netflix? Right now we get over 200 channels on our cable package, and I usually watch only about 5 of them. If it were only me, I would be tempted to cut out cable altogether, but DH likes to watch sports occasionally. I really, really like the radio!

 

[lizabu]

My sister is cable free. She has an Apple TV. You can watch Netflix and crackle and you can stream anything online. You will have to bump up your internet package if you lose the cable. Especially if you're watching in HD. It uses a lot of bandwidth. I have Apple TV too but I kept my cable just because I'm used to watching certain shows at certain times. Every tv show you could ever want is online but you often have to wait until the next day. I've been watching Downton abbey series 5 all fall. It airs in the UK but not in the US or canada until January and I didn't want to wait until January to see it.

ETA- I just read the previous post and wanted to add that when I stream there is absolutely no difference in the look of the shows than when I'm watching cable. No one would ever know. Not sure if it's the Internet provider or the Apple TV.

 

[bankr63]

We don't stream anything on our TV, largely because we have a very basic Internet package and I refuse to pay extra. I guess the question is, can we cut our monthly costs by subscribing to something like Netflix? Right now we get over 200 channels on our cable package, and I usually watch only about 5 of them. If it were only me, I would be tempted to cut out cable altogether, but DH likes to watch sports occasionally. I really, really like the radio!

Depends a bit on where you live as well. We tried to cut the cable a few months ago for roughly the same reason. I would call it a partial success, and we did reduce costs. I still have a very basic cable package - fully cutting the cable would have been MORE expensive per month than keeping basic cable with a multi-service discount.

I very quickly had to upgrade to unlimited download internet service because of the amount used by Netflix and Hulu. But we are still saving considerable money. We are really enjoying the content from Netflix and discovered a bunch of new series we hadn't seen before.

I also setup an HDTV antenna and get great service for half the local channels in my area. There are two main transmitters in our area, and unfortunately I live on a hillside that shelters me from one, so I don't get all the available channels. If you live in a major metro area and get good signal for HD, you may find you have all the content you need. I use a fairly basic but good quality in-home antennae that cost about $30, so it was worth the experiment.

What we miss most is the content from HGTV/History/A&E. These are tied up pretty tight by Shaw/Rogers in Canada - need to try the new Shomi service (run by Shaw/Rogers) to see if they carry any of our fav's from those channels.

For the sports, will your DH be satisfied with the sports carried on Canadian networks only? If Global/CTV/CBC carry what he watches then basic cable or HD antenna should be fine. Basic cable also throws in the major US networks, but many of those games overlap with Canadian carriers anyway.

 

[formill]

We have not had satellite for about a year and a half now- don't miss it at all. We live rural southern Ontario and do have an over the air antenna-it is currently on a pole on the roof but even when it sat in the window hooked up to a tv it got several Canadian channels-on the roof we now get 14-16 channels and reliably get NBC and ABC as well as CHCH, Global, CITY, TVO, CTV and more. We use the internet to watch a lot of tv- our internet is unlimited with no caps so speed is our only issue out here-we don't have many options to get highspeed internet. All the networks have websites and you can watch just about any show online- we use chromecasts the most to watch online content on tv. There are some channels that now will stream live online- the weather network does when it is in stormwatch- CH tv out of Hamilton ON streams the news live all day- and CITY tv in Toronto streams breakfast television live too- I love being on vacation now and still being able to live watch some news from Canada. The internet is far more important to us than cable, satellite or even phone- we have not had a land line in years- we all have cell phones. We find online streaming to be very clear when watching on the tv and with the over the air antenna the picture is very clear HD. We also have a little box that records onto a USB stick any shows we want- can set up just like a PVR for daily/weekly shows we get via the antenna.

 

[bdoyledimou]

We don't stream anything on our TV, largely because we have a very basic Internet package and I refuse to pay extra. I guess the question is, can we cut our monthly costs by subscribing to something like Netflix? Right now we get over 200 channels on our cable package, and I usually watch only about 5 of them. If it were only me, I would be tempted to cut out cable altogether, but DH likes to watch sports occasionally. I really, really like the radio!

if you cut your cable and intend to stream, you need to raise your internet usage cap -- to unlimited.

My family typically uses 500 GB of data a month.

 

[bankr63]

Quick update to say that I tried the 30 day Shomi trial. What a pile of garbage. Almost no content compared to the comparably priced Netflix, what is there is quite old, and no, none of the shows that Rogers/Shaw have a lock on in Canada are available.

Fastest unsubscribe I've ever done.

 

[Misha72683]

We don't have cable. We have Netflix and we stream current shows on the computer. We have an XBox 360 and can watch Hockey Night in Canada and playoff games, at least.

However, Netflix is a band-with eater, so if you don't have unlimited internet, it might not be the best solution.

 

[Skrabadoo]

We haven't had cable for over 5 years. I don't miss it at all. We pay for an American IP address and we have access to all the major networks online. We even watched the Olympics online.

Go for it! Save the money

 

[FLmummy]

Our cable has been gone for about 6 months now, and we really don't miss it. If you have a relatively new TV most of them have good built-in antennas that will pick up quite a few local channels.

We also stream Netflix, like daily. Sure our internet usage is up, but we still save money by not paying for cable as well.

 

[sheboz]

Considering dropping cable as well, can we watch Disney shows from XD and Disney Junior on any other provider?

 

[CdnCarrie]

I was trying to find the latest episode of The Middle (ABC) and it said not available outside the U.S. on their website. I really don't understand what people mean when they say stream from the internet.

 

[EastYorkDisneyFan]

I was trying to find the latest episode of The Middle (ABC) and it said not available outside the U.S. on their website. I really don't understand what people mean when they say stream from the internet.

You need to go to the Canadian channels site to view it. It has to do with the CRTC's rules about Canadian content and also the Canadian network pays for the rights to air it in canada for example Survivor is acbs show but airs on global in canada and the episodes can only be seen on global's website because they have the canadian rights to it.

 

[formill]

I was trying to find the latest episode of The Middle (ABC) and it said not available outside the U.S. on their website. I really don't understand what people mean when they say stream from the internet.

Lots of online tv watching at CTV , CITY, GLOBAL, CBC, FAMILY and youtube has a great amount of full episodes. Most have apps as well so we just use chromecasts on tvs and from any of our phones/tablets/computers we can watch any show we want on the tv.

 

[bankr63]

I was trying to find the latest episode of The Middle (ABC) and it said not available outside the U.S. on their website. I really don't understand what people mean when they say stream from the internet.

You can also use an application like Hola to have you present a US web presence to access the content. There are other ways to do this as well, but Hola is really simple to setup, and works fairly reliably for us. Anytime you hit a site with blocked content, you enable Hola in your web browser and reload the page.

 

[AineDeBruggh]

I'd like to add some info in there for the OP and anyone else who might be interested. Maybe it will help someone. We live in Southern Ontario, in a sub-urban environment (with access to lots of different options) so this may not apply to someone in a rural area or someplace with less companies to choose from.

We cut our cable about 6 months ago. Previously we were with one of the "Big Three" companies, paying aprox 110.00/month for cable + 100.00/month for cable internet (we had a promotional, unlimited bandwidth package -- needed for DH's work).

We have 2 teens who almost never watch the TV, my husband who checks the weather/traffic in the morning and watches on average 2 hours/week of TV and myself who watches only occasionally.

After some searching, we switched to an internet re-seller (that means they use infrastructure provided by one of the Big Three companies and sell discounted packages to the public). Our new internet service costs us 80.00/month for unlimited bandwidth and is still a cable-based internet service which means there is no noticeable difference in speed (especially for viewing video). We cancelled our cable package entirely which has cut the bills down significantly.

I think the decision to do this worked really well for our family, but I can see that it wouldn't be perfect for everyone. We have a Canadian Netflix account, which has plenty of children's programs (usually 1 season behind, compared to cable). And we've been using the time to catch up on seasons of old programs that we meant to watch and could never find time for. If you want to know what the Netflix service has to offer, you could try it 1 month for free. Please keep in mind that streaming TV through the internet should NOT be done unless you have unlimited internet in your current package (if you're not sure, please call your provider and ask. Overage charges are not pretty).

Personally, I think that if your family is heavily dependent on current TV shows, or watches about 5 hours per person (or more) per week that you might want to consider staying with cable/dish services, as you could be disappointed with the alternatives at this point in time. If your family only uses the TV occasionally then it's definitely worth considering.