Thinking about ditching the dish....Update in first post

[tonilea]

Anyone get rid of their cable/satellite and get their news/tv/movies from Hulu and Netflix?

Care to share your experience and how much you saved?

**UPDATE**

We did it! And we love it! Since we aren't sports fans, it was a great decision for us. BTW, NCIS and NCIS L.A. are available on Hulu.

 

[TriMom]

I really want to do this, and the only thing that is stopping us is Food Network. DH and I love to watch Dinner Impossible before we go to bed. It's our together thing at least 3 nights per week (love my DVR). I can get every single other show I watch via Hulu/ websites/ etc. But I just don't want to give up Dinner Impossible

 

[mtemm]

my friend has done this for years. they use netflix 3/at a time out and pay $17 a month. much cheaper than cable and works great for them! I would love to do the same but dh loves sports/sports center and just won't do it.

 

[tonilea]

DH isn't much of a sports fan, so that is one issue we don't have to worry about. The main shows he loves are NCIS, American Pickers and Pawn Stars and all of those are available on Hulu.

I will have to upgrade our internet speed. But still, I think the savings will be pretty significant.

 

[threecrazykids]

We currently subscribe to Netflix and plan on (hopefully) ditching the dish this fall. I just want to make sure we can get our local channels before we drop it completely. Can't miss my IOWA HAWKEYE football games! Any that aren't on regular local channels I'm sure we'll be able to go to a friends house for a party.

 

[Muushka]

We tried to ditch the satellite, but they made it financially worth our while to stay with them. But in the meantime, we did cancel it (or suspend) for 6 months. During that time this is what I learned.

We saved $93 a month
We paid $9 a month for Netflix
We paid about $60 for 3 different TV antennas. 1 of which worked great.
I stopped watching cable news, a good thing
We started enjoying watching TV together (hubby not a fan of news)
We LOVE Netflix streaming.
Netflix streaming comes in much better on BluRay players with wifi because it has the HDMI hook up
Netflix streaming is not that wonderful through the Wii. It is alright on our smaller TV in the den though.

You can do it! (and we will again when NASCAR season is over!)

PS as far as news, I was not crazy about the sources on TV so I found myself relying on the internet for clips.

 

[stevenpensacola]

I've got several tech savvy relatives who've ditched their cable and dish tv service and use roku

http://www.roku.com/

They absolutely rave about it. Your only cost is a one time fee for the box $120 max. NO monthly fee, unless you subscribe to netflix.

Roku is a little box that allows you to instantly stream tons of entertainment on your TV. Watch movies and TV shows on Netflix or Amazon Video On Demand, listen to Pandora or access your music library with MP3Tunes, catch the latest ballgame, and more — it's all available whenever you want it.

 

[NotUrsula]

DH isn't much of a sports fan, so that is one issue we don't have to worry about. The main shows he loves are NCIS, American Pickers and Pawn Stars and all of those are available on Hulu.

Just FYI, NCIS is not on Hulu -- none of the CBS shows are. The only place you can stream it is on CBS's website, and they are very stingy about it, only one episode at a time and for a very limited time. Of course, he CAN always watch CBS with the bunny ears, provided you live somewhere with decent reception.

Dan Frommer did an article on this for Business Insider a while back -- he tried it for two years and concluded that streaming was not really a viable alternative just yet. http://adage.com/digitalnext/article?article_id=141941

 

[Muushka]

I've got several tech savvy relatives who've ditched their cable and dish tv service and use roku

http://www.roku.com/

They absolutely rave about it. Your only cost is a one time fee for the box $120 max. NO monthly fee, unless you subscribe to netflix.

Roku is a little box that allows you to instantly stream tons of entertainment on your TV. Watch movies and TV shows on Netflix or Amazon Video On Demand, listen to Pandora or access your music library with MP3Tunes, catch the latest ballgame, and more — it's all available whenever you want it.

Roku makes a hi def model. If I bought one, that is the one I would choose.

 

[tvguy]

Wish I could find a way to shave my dish bill, but nothing I watch is on Netflix or Hulu.

 

[jme829]

So how does Hulu work?? I can't seem to find any info about prices, equipment etc...is it strictly for your computer or can you stream to your TV?? We already have Netflix (thru our Wii) and use it to supplement our DishTV .

 

[usnuzuloose]

We used to have comcast and ditched it was paying 160.00 a month. So I am saving 100.00 a month as I still need internet. Hulu, all you need is an HDMI cable and hook it up to your computer and the tv. Thats all I do to watch it from the t.v. Jo

 

[pixiewings71]

We used to have comcast and ditched it was paying 160.00 a month. So I am saving 100.00 a month as I still need internet. Hulu, all you need is an HDMI cable and hook it up to your computer and the tv. Thats all I do to watch it from the t.v. Jo

We just did this. We had comcast at about $160 a month, we went in Friday with the box and told them to shut it down, she tried to keep us by offering a rate of $99 a month but we decided against it. We now have the lowest speed of Comcast high speed internet and basic cable. We will save $100 a month. We will watch our TV shows either by viewing them thru the broadcasters site or by Hulu or Netflix. We stream movies thru Netflix to our Wii, we have a 50 inch TV or something (DBF bought it, I really don't know how big it is lol) and it works great to stream thru our Wii. We also have the 1 dvd out at a time deal so we currently have a movie to watch and anything we can stream. We also have a really great laptop that is also our Blu Ray player and we can hook that to our TV and use it for watching Netflix. I don't know how it's going to work long term but until I can find work again it's what we will do. I'll miss the Food Network like crazy but I can deal for a good cause.

 

[tonilea]

Updated in 1st post.