We're cutting Cable/I hate comcast

[nuke]

Back in June we decided that we just watch too much TV. We cancelled cable bought a digital antenna and we make do. I honestly don't miss it at all. I barely watch TV anymore and when I do it's PBS. That and Amazing Race. Even my son doesn't care.
The one thing I miss is the watching hockey but I"m able to catch a game about once every 2 weeks when it's on WGN.

 

[Holly324]

Just have to post b/c of the thread title - "I hate comcast" is said at least once a day in our household when watching our dvr......

 

[Muushka]

We have both a Wii and a Roku box. Both are great. But the Roku you can get for around $60' which is much less than the Wii.

I wonder if the cable companies will even be around in five years?

Here you go:

Viewers pull plug on US cable television


http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a3986a1c-f28c-11df-a2f3-00144feab49a.html#axzz15aEt7xMa

 

[Trixiezzz]

Just a FYI~

If you decide to sign up for Netflix (which I am going to), some of the reward sites offer rewards for membership!

QR is offering $7.50 right now if you sign up and stay on past the free trial. Haven't checked SR but they probably do, too.

 

[pixiewings71]

my points offers rewards too.

 

[ExPirateShopGirl]

You can also get airline miles for signing up for Netflix through the frequent flyer site of your choice.

 

[LuLuO]

If you dont want to buy a gaming system there is a roku box which has net flix,mlb and some other stuff. There are the blue ray disc that have netflix as well

We are considering cutting cable also and just got a roku box. So far we love it. We are going to experiment with this for a few months but hope to get rid of cable all together or at the very least go to a bundle of basic + Internet + phone. I'm just tired of paying for 150 channels when we only watch 8 of them at best.

Oh with the Roku you can also watch amazon on demand too and Hulu Plus will be coming soon for $9.99 a month.

 

[Jonny_Duck]

We have both a Wii and a Roku box. Both are great. But the Roku you can get for around $60' which is much less than the Wii.

I wonder if the cable companies will even be around in five years?

Since they are the best source for the internet I would say they will be fine for the coming years and likely even longer. Wireless networks coming up with 4g maybe in 5 years but it will be limited to certain areas also. Generally won't be as stable as hard-wiring either.

Networks also make a great deal less on internet advertising...Which is unfortunately why they block this content from boxes. They may lighten up in the near future but I am not holding my breath for it. Very unfortunate that you can simply hook your laptop to your TV via hdmi yet they won't allow an easy one box setup that does the exact same thing.

We are considering cutting cable also and just got a roku box. So far we love it. We are going to experiment with this for a few months but hope to get rid of cable all together or at the very least go to a bundle of basic + Internet + phone. I'm just tired of paying for 150 channels when we only watch 8 of them at best.

Oh with the Roku you can also watch amazon on demand too and Hulu Plus will be coming soon for $9.99 a month.

Hulu Plus changed pricing to $7.99, unfortunately the $4.99 rumor was not true.

They are also offering iirc a free month of Hulu Plus if you buy roku and something like 8 weeks for a Sony Blu Ray player. Getting a blu ray on black friday and looking forward to checking it out to see if its worth it and does anything better then what the normal version does except stream via boxes.

 

[Evi]

I have both and honestly I'm cutting netflix. I think the selection is outdated most of the time. I do recommend getting a faster internet connection if you intend to watch online tv. Many of the local tv channels show there shows online like abc, nbc etc

 

[cwasil]

We've got Netflix and the Wii and it is pretty nice for catching up on old movies or tv shows that you missed. Netflix seems to be adding movies all the time and we are pretty happy with it. We still have full cable and I think I'll keep it for the winter as my kids favorite shows (Little Bear and Franklin) aren't available to watch instantly. Winter is just too long here in Wisconsin to mess with this entertainment. I'd rather spend the extra $30-$50 a month in January so everyone is occupied. However, when April and May come I'll drop down to basic cable.

The hardest part seems to be cutting the cord, so to speak. I'm pretty positive that as soon as I let the 200 channels go none of us will miss it and we'll all wonder why we didn't do it sooner. Seems like the vast majority of us on the boards are between late 20's and early 40's and when were were kids there was only 20-30 channels and we survived. How many of us actually watch Bolivian Soccer? I enjoy these auction, pickers, pawn shop shows as much as anyone but there must be 20 of them now...is the demand for this really that high?

 

[pixiewings71]

I do not find that netflix has an outdated selection, but maybe that's because I'm enjoying catching up on older stuff. lol We have over 100 movies in our queue right now for DVD's, most are current or not even out yet. Nightmare on Elm Street (the new one) is ready to ship to me now, we have Get Him to the Greek sitting on our TV stand waiting to be watched, we got Toy Story the day after it was released.......we don't go to movies at the theater so much right now (I am out of work and have been since June) so we are just adding anything to our DVD queue. In our instant queue we have older stuff (I've got Angel, Buffy, I even found 21 Jump Street!) but it's still fun to watch some of the older movies I haven't seen in a while.

 

[enyaj40]

Got rid of our satellite and our TV. We have Netflix and I've watched Hulu but I didn't pay for it? I viewed "Community" for free. Are they changing something?

 

[usnuzuloose]

Got rid of our satellite and our TV. We have Netflix and I've watched Hulu but I didn't pay for it? I viewed "Community" for free. Are they changing something?

Hulu has a pay for 10 I think it is hulu plus. Dont know the difference.

 

[usnuzuloose]

Sorry bump Hulu plus went down 2 dollars.

 

[enyaj40]

Thank you! I'll have to check out the pay version of Hulu!

 

[ExPirateShopGirl]

Hulu plus includes full back seasons of many shows and is available on devices other than a PC, like an iPad and certain internet-connected TVs and blu-ray players.

We have had Hulu plus for a couple of months and like using it to stream TV to the iPad around the house. We can use anyone's high speed wireless network (or the mobile broadband connection on the smartphone) to watch our favorite shows when we're traveling on the iPad. No need for a DVR at home.

 

[enyaj40]

Hulu plus includes full back seasons of many shows and is available on devices other than a PC, like an iPad and certain internet-connected TVs and blu-ray players.

We have had Hulu plus for a couple of months and like using it to stream TV to the iPad around the house. We can use anyone's high speed wireless network (or the mobile broadband connection on the smartphone) to watch our favorite shows when we're traveling on the iPad. No need for a DVR at home.

Thank you for this. I've been wanting an iPad.

 

[LuLuO]

We've got Netflix and the Wii and it is pretty nice for catching up on old movies or tv shows that you missed. Netflix seems to be adding movies all the time and we are pretty happy with it. We still have full cable and I think I'll keep it for the winter as my kids favorite shows (Little Bear and Franklin) aren't available to watch instantly. Winter is just too long here in Wisconsin to mess with this entertainment. I'd rather spend the extra $30-$50 a month in January so everyone is occupied. However, when April and May come I'll drop down to basic cable.

The hardest part seems to be cutting the cord, so to speak. I'm pretty positive that as soon as I let the 200 channels go none of us will miss it and we'll all wonder why we didn't do it sooner. Seems like the vast majority of us on the boards are between late 20's and early 40's and when were were kids there was only 20-30 channels and we survived. How many of us actually watch Bolivian Soccer? I enjoy these auction, pickers, pawn shop shows as much as anyone but there must be 20 of them now...is the demand for this really that high?

Cutting the cord is really the hardest part for myself and my husband. Our kids are very young so I doubt they'd miss anything. My DH on the other hand is resistant but open to the idea of getting rid of cable. With the exception of 3 cable shows, we really only watch PBS, CBS, NBC and ABC and even then there are only five shows on those networks that we care to watch and we can do that with an antenna.

I just signed up for a free trial of Hulu Plus. Looks like it may be worth $7.99/mo. I also ordered a TV tuner for my computer so I can use Windows 7 Media Center as our DVR. I hooked up my antenna last night and it works great. It was even storming outside and the picture was great. We're going to test this out over the next couple of months and see how it works for us.

The thing that worries me is bandwidth usage. Charter has a 100 GB cap per month that supposedly they just started enforcing a few days ago. Not sure weather watching streaming video + DH's gaming would make us go over or not. I guess we'll see.

I do hope to save money, that's always good, but really, I'm just annoyed with most of the television programming available. I don't mind paying for decent programming, but more often now I find that we have the TV on, just to have it on and we are rarely interested in what is airing. For us it is mostly habit and I'd love for us to develop new habits. I just have to prove to DH that it won't be the end of the world.

 

[ExPirateShopGirl]

Just so you know... regular Hulu does not work on the iPad. There's a free Hulu plus APP you need to download (and then, of course, pay for hulu plus) and then run to access the shows. The ipad does a fantastic job of streaming the shows and you'd hardly know it wasn't broadcast or cable tv. Another bonus is the fact there are only about 90 seconds of commercials TOTAL for each program... so a half hour show finishes in about 22 minutes.

Thank you for this. I've been wanting an iPad.

 

[hsmamato2]

I have both and honestly I'm cutting netflix. I think the selection is outdated most of the time. I do recommend getting a faster internet connection if you intend to watch online tv. Many of the local tv channels show there shows online like abc, nbc etc

yeah,that! Netflix is older stuff and movies, etc- nothing new or fancy- we tend to like a lot of older stuff so it's fine, but you need a faster internet speed to keep up- otherwise it constantly stops to catch up- once we switched to a faster speed we liked it a lot- I like the idea of a good antenna setup- but I'd miss DVR for shows I currently record and watch.....so we still have a very inexpensive sat dish setup too