People who "cut the cord"- Do you regret it?

[soulcougher73]

Nope. Love not having hundreds of crappy stations to flip through.

 

[RearAdmiral]

Now that I own a house, and never got cable when I moved....No. I have way too many other fun things to do. I can pick any number of things to improve / fix instead. When I do have downtime netflix more than covers it. The more money....control....in my hands the better.

 

[Newell Steamer]

I never looked back.

Also, for $2,520 (or even 1/2 of that) a year, you can pick up quite a nice Blu Ray / DVD collection - and watch whatever you want, whenever. I would frankly prefer to own the shows I enjoy, than just rent them and be subject to when they do eventually get aired/played.

Fuck cable TV.

And, for phone - just use your mobile service, IMO.

Also, I've been back logged in video games since 2012. So, there is no shortage of entertainment.

 

[z1ggy]

comcast charges more if you don't have tv with them. you just call them and tell them you want to downgrade to the basic plan. or actually it might be easier if you speak directly to the retention department. just tell them you dont watch tv and your internet bill is too high.

Im thinking about trying this first. However, I do notice I really don't watch tons of TV anymore. And everything I do watch, I can either download via torrent, or watch it the next day on the network's website (24, The Daily Show, Etc etc).

Wonder if there's a package where I can get just NHL Ice and high speed internet? Guess I'll find out. Where I live, they don't play my hockey team OTA, but they will broadcast my football team.

I regardless of what services they give me, I'm not really willing to pay them more than like $70 a month. If that includes cable, great.. If not, I at least want internet.

Any people with experience on dealing with being in contract with these crooks? I agreed to a 2 yr deal I guess last October that I'd pay that $168 for the package I have now. I think it's $15 a month per month left on the contract to cancel. Any chance I can get it waived?

 

[TridenT]

I cut the cord because I never really had it to begin with! (But my parents did) When I lived with my parents, they had TV and internet. I used both when I was a kid, but then websites like eztv started appearing and bittorrent got really popular... I pretty much stopped watching TV immediately after that happened. I was probably 16 when I had stopped permanently using a TV.

Outside of that, I don't really care for almost any television programming. I don't own a TV now either. I just have a couple computer monitors and a laptop. I watch some shows or movies on those sometimes. I don't like giving money grubbing cable companies any money that I can avoid.

 

[desura]

eh, well at work lots of people have cable tv and they talk about shows on there...so if you care at all...

cutting the cord does mean more work overall to get entertainment.

though OTA receivers are a fun engineering thing to play with.

after cutting the cord for a while, it is hard putting up with commercials or the god-awful cable tv interfaces.

in regards to sports...i probably watched more sports when i lived with ota tv. plenty of sports on the broadcast networks, and for what they dont have, just go to a bar or something once in a while.

 

[squarecut1]

If you are not into sports, there is no reason to pay for cable TV.

As for sports, don't really know any other decent alternative.

 

[desura]

Nope. Love not having hundreds of crappy stations to flip through.

that too. its just too much. when the channels go up to 972 --ugh.

and you can just get season passes for watching mlb baseball. espn is now like cnn...dudes shouting about petty politics of sports.

 

[z1ggy]

Good replies thus far. Quick question though- Can I use Hulu Plus & Amazon Prime through my ps3? If so that would be excellent as I have a large plasma TV and a 5.1 speaker system set up that I use to generally watch movies/shows with.

I'd be a bit depressed if I was restricted to watching shows on my 23" computer monitor. Unless you can point me to a program I could use to stream it to my ps3 (Windows media player..?).

 

[poofyhairguy]

Good replies thus far. Quick question though- Can I use Hulu Plus & Amazon Prime through my ps3?

Yup.

 

[z1ggy]

Yup.

Sweeeet. Looks like I'll be ditching cable then once the Stanley Cup is over.

Also if anybody can shed light on the whole media server thing, that would be helpful. I've used PS3 Media Server before, with limited success... And also Windows Media Player with limited success as well. I know you can stream with VLC player, but it was more complex and for some reason didn't work even though I followed the steps in the tutorial online...

Specifically talking about streaming TV from a website like fox.com for say, Family Guy, to my TV in my living room, via my ps3.

 

[preslove]

Spend the money you're saving without cable to build a cheap htpc. I'm using this board/processor combo and it works great: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813138368

 

[Scarpozzi]

I've got a DirecTV Genie with 3 mini receivers to cover my 4 televisions.

I can't imagine not having it for a couple of things. My daughter likes Disney shows that we have recorded on the Genie...in addition to that, I queue up new movies and content all the time off AMC, FX, Comedy Central, sports and football games off NFL Sunday ticket. I currently pay $65 a month for my service, but will soon lose out on my introductory rate and get bumped back up to the $100-110 range....where I may eventually cut out some of the packages to drop the rate until I sign another 2 year agreement with them. Having the same content on all TVs is priceless.

As for cable internet, I had a thread in the Networking area...I'm with Charter for that. They offer decent service but are at $58/month now for service. That's the highest I've ever paid for Internet. They're on thin ice and about to be dropped if I can come up with a better solution for the money...

 

[z1ggy]

Spend the money you're saving without cable to build a cheap htpc. I'm using this board/processor combo and it works great: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813138368

Not bad, not bad. How much memory would I need? And does that board support wireless so I could access my main desktop's files on it? Then no need for streaming

 

[Kaido]

Nope. I think the only thing I really miss is channel surfing until I find something interesting to watch, but Ghost Hunters was on Syfy seemingly 24/7, so meh. I still surf, just in Netflix. I use Netflix, Vudu, and Amazon primarily on my Roku players, plus local content streamed from Plex on our desktop computer.

 

[Rakehellion]

I regret cutting the cord. If I could go back, I'd have forced her to have the abortion.

 

[twinrider1]

I have notice my Amazon Prime is fine on the computer but pretty sluggish over the PS3. Netflix app runs just fine over the same connection/PS3.

 

[MrPickins]

Yep that's what we do.

And sometimes I'll, *gasp*, turn on the radio to catch the event.

I do this quite often when I want to get some work done on a weekend during football season.

I love the casual sports watchers chiming in. "Oh, you can watch the game OTA or go to a bar!" Sorry, but I watch every game. Even if I only watched one per airing, that is Thursday night, Sunday morning, mid day, night, and Monday night. Sure, let me just head on over to the local bar for 12 hours. Plus, even if I go to a bar, if the Bears aren't playing the Cowboys, I miss the Cowboys. They always have the local teams on.

Basketball? Yeah. Enjoy spending every night of the week at the bar if you want to watch the playoffs.

That's a valid point, but it just means that you're not a good candidate for "cutting the cord".

Pretty much every discussion about this topic recognizes that this is the case for big-time sports fans.

 

[poofyhairguy]

Not bad, not bad. How much memory would I need?

Depends what OS you plan to run, if you want to do streaming via the box and if you plan to use a OTA tuner for DVR functionality.

For pure local playback of files you torrent, XBMC at 2GB and you get the best experience possible. If you want to stream things like ESPN3 and Netflix properly it is best to use Windows which means going to 4GB or more.

Heck XBMC on something like a FireTV would give you everything you want in a single cheap box.

 

[Virge_]

10 years with only internet. Currently paying $59.99/m for 150/50 of which I typically get closer to 200/100 due to being the only heavy internet user in my subdivision (everyone else is ancient and likely doesn't know what those newfangled Netflix and Hulu's are, let alone uses the internet for anything more than AOL e-mail).

I've never regretted it for an instant. I supplement my library with Netflix's DVD's when necessary bringing my total cost to roughly $80/m, but the stark reality of the situation is I don't really feel the need to see shows the moment they're released, which I feel is the primary allure to paying for TV. ANY show I'd want to watch will eventually be on Netflix or Amazon - and I've already got years worth of content queued for the small spare time I have. Additionally, since I don't give a rats ass about sports, that's a null-issue completely.

The biggest bonus? I haven't paid to watch a commercial in 10 years minus being forced to at a friends and/or out in public. It's fucking fantastic.

 

[mizzou]

Nope....except for college football/basketball season.

 

[squarecut1]

ANY show I'd want to watch will eventually be on Netflix or Amazon - and I've already got years worth of content queued for the small spare time I have.

I think you meant Netflix dvds. Because streaming does not have the best shows...Hbo. Like Boardwalk Empire or Rome.

 

[JBT]

PS3 has built in Apps, for Netflix, Hulu plus, Amazon Prime, and RedBox. A few more as well. Really no need to build another system...

I have Comcast with Blast! at 100 mbps and their Digital Economy Teir + HBO. I'm paying $70 right now for this.

 

[Virge_]

I think you meant Netflix dvds. Because streaming does not have the best shows...Hbo. Like Boardwalk Empire or Rome.

..nope, I meant Netflix. I can neither confirm nor deny the 64TB RAID6 array in my media server and/or the existance of AnyDVD HD + MakeMKV + PS3Media server. And since it's all on a 64-bit entropy non-boot mounted TrueCrypt container, neither can anyone else.

DVD comes in, DVD goes out - how does it work?

1 PS3 and 3 Roku's in the house with 3 LED panels and a 120" Diagonal projector screen in the basement with reclining home theater seating and 2500w of 7.2 awesome.

Amazon Prime + HBOGo + Netflix + internet connection is all I will realistically ever need.

 

[z1ggy]

Depends what OS you plan to run, if you want to do streaming via the box and if you plan to use a OTA tuner for DVR functionality.

For pure local playback of files you torrent, XBMC at 2GB and you get the best experience possible. If you want to stream things like ESPN3 and Netflix properly it is best to use Windows which means going to 4GB or more.

Heck XBMC on something like a FireTV would give you everything you want in a single cheap box.

Never heard of FireTV.

I would want to be able to playback files I torrent, and have the ability to go on fox.com and play shows that they have up from nights before. I just checked Tv Fool to see what stations I could get OTA. With just a regular indoor ant. I'd probably only get 3 maybe 4 channels. I'd need to get something beefier if I want others. So.. Not sure if I want to go that route or not.

I've generally been okay with going on comedycentral or fox's website to catch old episodes I've missed. Yes I generally have to watch the commercials and BS too, but it's free.