I've Just Cut The Cord

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by ALAN SICHERMAN, Mar 17, 2020.

  1. leemelone

    leemelone Forum Resident

    Location:
    ATL
    A much cheaper alternative to cable and YouTube TV is Philo. No sports channels but you get 60 channels for only $20 a month.
     
    Matt Richardson likes this.
  2. Carrman

    Carrman Forum Resident

    Location:
    Toronto
  3. zeppage2

    zeppage2 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Oakland, CA
    Co-mingling your internet bill with streaming services is simply improper. I will always have an internet connection regardless of my viewing preferences. Unless I choose to go strictly OTA, something has to bring that signal to me. I cancelled DirecTv as the bill was approaching $160 with no letup in sight. I am trialing YouTube TV.
     
    chili555 likes this.
  4. audiomixer

    audiomixer As Bald As The Beatles

    Crappy channel lineup. Most of the channels I skip while surfing. Way too many commercials.
     
  5. CraigVC

    CraigVC Senior Member

    Location:
    Portland, OR
    We finally dropped Cable TV about 4 months ago, as the best promo deal we could negotiate with Comcast kept getting higher and higher each year.

    What we were spending every month:
    • $180 for Comcast (200Mbps internet + around 150 channels, most of which we never watched, of course + DVR)
    • $6 for Hulu with ads
    • $13 for Netflix
    • (also annual fee for Amazon Prime but we rarely watch it; most of the value is from the shipping benefit)
    TOTAL: $199/month

    What we are spending now every month:
    • $70 for Comcast (1000Mbps internet <-- 5x faster internet speed than before)
    • $6 for Hulu with ads
    • $13 for Netflix
    • $8.33 for CBS All Access (ad-free, annual fee)
    TOTAL: $97.33

    We also recently got 1 free year of Apple TV+ (viewable through our Roku) with purchase of a new Macbook, but there's very little to watch on it that is more appealing than what we already have on Netflix and Hulu.

    We considered adding YouTubeTV for more live TV channels (e.g., we already get free local and international live news via Roku apps, and live local CBS affiliate via CBS All Access), but that would bring our total back up to nearly $170/month, and at that point might as well go back to the relative convenience of having all live channels + DVR with Comcast Cable TV!

    Craig.
     
    Tim Lookingbill likes this.
  6. leemelone

    leemelone Forum Resident

    Location:
    ATL
    Philo has most of the same channels as basic cable with the exception of news and sports. And the commercials are coming from the individual channels and not Philo. It's far from perfect but like I said it's only $20 a month for 60 live TV channels.
     
  7. audiomixer

    audiomixer As Bald As The Beatles

    It’s not enough to satisfy my television watching habits. I’ll pay the extra money.
     
  8. misterjones

    misterjones Smarter than the average bear.

    Location:
    New York, NY
    I'm getting there. Down to the Verizon five-channel plan. All I've watched in two weeks is a few Dr. Pol and Property Brothers episodes (two channels). When you don't need sports, you really don't need much of a cable package.
     
    ALAN SICHERMAN likes this.
  9. audiomixer

    audiomixer As Bald As The Beatles

    Ah, but there is so much more. PBS, HBO, SHOWTIME, TURNER CLASSIC MOVIES.
    With you basic cable, you get just that. Basic crap.
     
  10. Dillydipper

    Dillydipper Space-Age luddite

    Location:
    Central PA
    W-wha...?! Wait, where do you get your religion, shopping and Law & Order channels...?!
     
    ALAN SICHERMAN likes this.
  11. paulewalnutz

    paulewalnutz Forum Resident

    Location:
    NJ
    I cut the cord for a few years but was missing my sports too much and went back to cable 2 years ago. My antenna's picture quality was way better than my set top box's.
     
  12. misterjones

    misterjones Smarter than the average bear.

    Location:
    New York, NY
    TCM is one of my five channels, and two PBS stations are included. I’d rather have basic crap than premium crap.
     
  13. TheDailyBuzzherd

    TheDailyBuzzherd Forum Resident

    Location:
    Northeast USA

    I think you're gonna bail, eventually. As the commenter above wrote,
    Google is getting ridiculous with its commercials. It's also p!ssing off
    its creator base, complaining of low residuals. I think YT is eventually
    gonna be succeeded by Something Else.
     
  14. Stereosound

    Stereosound Forum Resident

    Location:
    USA
    They recently raised their price. You may want to try Philo, FuboTV or Hulu instead if you don’t like it.
     
    spanky1 likes this.
  15. CraigVC

    CraigVC Senior Member

    Location:
    Portland, OR
    Looks like this is the pricing of the various streaming live-TV options mentioned above (please correct me if any of these are wrong):

    Each service has different channel lineups, and different features such as DVR are either included or are extra add-ons, so those prices are tough to compare without digging into the details of each service.

    Craig.
     
  16. CraigVC

    CraigVC Senior Member

    Location:
    Portland, OR
    Two more options:
    • Sling TV = $60 (for Blue + Orange packages, combined)
    • AT&T TV Now = $55 to $183 (their packages are many, and vary widely)
     
  17. Tim Lookingbill

    Tim Lookingbill Alfalfa Male

    Location:
    New Braunfels, TX
    YouTube TV is $65 a year or a month?

    So when I click on a YT video and get the YouTube prompt dialog box asking me to click to set up a subscription account or click "No Thanks"-(which I always click) that is how much it's going to cost me for a subscription?

    What's the difference between me just continuing to decline? Is there something special and different about signing up for YouTube TV subscription account?
     
  18. brownie61

    brownie61 Forum Resident

    YouTube TV is $65/month. It is not the same thing as a YouTube subscription. YouTube TV is replacement cable TV. It is a completely different entity from YouTube.
     
    CraigVC and Tim Lookingbill like this.
  19. Stereosound

    Stereosound Forum Resident

    Location:
    USA
    This video helps with comparing. Note Hulu has since updated it’s user interface so it’s different from when this video was done. One can also look into Hulu for a bundle that would include Disney+ and ESPN+ which may save you money if you want those as well as Disney owns all three of them. As well as pricing for all was as of last year so you will have to note the changes.
     
  20. TheDailyBuzzherd

    TheDailyBuzzherd Forum Resident

    Location:
    Northeast USA


    Better: Buy a Roku®, download PlutoTV. If you can't find something there ...
     
    adm62 likes this.
  21. zeppage2

    zeppage2 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Oakland, CA
    Well I only got YouTube TV to watch some golf. 95% will cancel it. I am only sad as I have a computer dedicated to capturing cable TV and now that setup is vestigial.
     
  22. misterjones

    misterjones Smarter than the average bear.

    Location:
    New York, NY
    A big issue for me is a DVR box or its equivalent. I really like recording programs to watch later, and I understand internet-based providers have limited capacity and reliability in that regard. This is why I stuck with Verizon for now. I briefly considered dusting off my old VCR, but how low-tech is that! Anyone have an inexpensive and reliable alternative to a cable company DVR box? I like a good amount of storage capacity, and anything based on The Cloud concerns me.
     
  23. RayS

    RayS A Little Bit Older and a Little Bit Slower

    Location:
    Out of My Element
    For what it's worth, the YouTubeTV DVR is the best part of the product, to me. Unlimited capacity, longer storage than I'd ever need, and some nice features like every single NBA playoff game (regardless of time, date, teams or network) with the hitting of one button.
     
    brownie61 and misterjones like this.
  24. misterjones

    misterjones Smarter than the average bear.

    Location:
    New York, NY
    Thanks, I’ll look into it (though the NBA doesn’t help sell the service to me - you’d have to go back to 1998 for that to happen).
     
  25. RayS

    RayS A Little Bit Older and a Little Bit Slower

    Location:
    Out of My Element
    There may be equivalents in things you care about, I can't say. The Sling DVR had a limit (50 hours) and was much more difficult to program. The YouTubeTV DVR is the first product I've ever dealt with that is smart enough to know when a sporting event is blacked out on a given channel, so it records it from another source.
     

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