Thanks for sharing armylifer but won't work here in Canada but I should be able to find something similar that will work here.
How many are still using satellite or cable for TV?
- Thread starter Daren Todd
- Start date
armylifer
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BX1860, FEL, RCK54P MMM, BB1548 Box Scraper, Quick Hitch, Piranha Bar, BX6315
I was not sure if locast worked in Canada or not. My sister-in-law live in Vancouver, BC area and she was not able to get it. That is unfortunate for her. If you do find something similar please let me know. I want to pass it along to her if there is some cheap alternative to cable TV.
Will do and thanks for trying. Roku is very good and easy to use with a lot of free tv however not much for local tv as far as I know.
FTA we get ABC, CBS and FOX
We pay for netflix and watch amazon prime tv
We turned in our charter equipment years ago over pricing.
We pay for netflix and watch amazon prime tv
We turned in our charter equipment years ago over pricing.
OrangeKrush
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BX2680, LA344 with Piranha tooth bar, LP PF 1242, LP Rear Blade, KK 60" BB
Yep same here.. turned that stuff in and got Netflix and started streaming with a Roku device. I could not watch my live news so I broke down and I’m now paying for streaming through my internet service.. just can’t win!
ArmyLifer maybe I’ll try that website and see if it does any good around here.
ArmyLifer maybe I’ll try that website and see if it does any good around here.
armylifer
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BX1860, FEL, RCK54P MMM, BB1548 Box Scraper, Quick Hitch, Piranha Bar, BX6315
If Indianapolis is local to you it should work. They have that location listed as a service area. It is free to try it but every 15 minutes or so they break to solicit a donation of $5.00 per month + a $.0.50 processing fee for a total of $5.50. I have been using it since May and I think it is well worth the money. All the local broadcast channels and no cable fee. It also works on your mobile device and your PC. Just use the same account for all devices. Also, it works simultaneously on more than one device at a time. I can be watching a channel on one TV and my wife can be watching a different channel on another at the same time.
OrangeKrush
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BX2680, LA344 with Piranha tooth bar, LP PF 1242, LP Rear Blade, KK 60" BB
Yes Indy is real close.. do they do the trial period deal where you give your card info and then have to Try and get a hold of them to cancel? Learned my lesson years ago on that! Lol
Thanks for that info armylifer!
Daren Todd
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My wife made that mistake years ago. I caught it pretty quick so we only got dinged for a month.
OrangeKrush
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BX2680, LA344 with Piranha tooth bar, LP PF 1242, LP Rear Blade, KK 60" BB
I checked it out and it looks like I get all of it and more through my Roku already, thanks anyways!
Magicman
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Let me be sure that what I ordered is worth a flip before before I post a link. I will be da "guinea pig"
armylifer
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BX1860, FEL, RCK54P MMM, BB1548 Box Scraper, Quick Hitch, Piranha Bar, BX6315
Once you give them yoiur CC info they go to automatic billing each month. If you want to cancel you must do that manually. There is no option to just try for a short period and cancel that I am aware of. You can try the full version for free if you don't mind the interruptions every 15 minutes or so for a solicitation for donation. I did that for a few weeks before I decided to go for the paid donation route. It was worth it to me. I have all the channels I want and just $5.50 per month is a great price.
The issue with satellite are the data caps. The offers where I am are like 100 bucks a month for 100 gigs of data (which is outrageous if you ask me). If I remember right movies are about 3 gigs a pop at 1080p and like 1 and a quarter at 720p. So I get at most 100 hours of TV across 30 days (about 3 hours a day including weekends) not including the internet usage that my wife and I need for work. So instead we got an unlimited plan using 4G data and a mobile router but the bandwidth just isn't there yet to support streaming and working at the same time. So we can either work and with DirecTV on or we can stream and do nothing else.
However, once 5G gets rolled out enough we can switch to a 5G plan and even if it is only 20% better it would be enough to cut the cord.
I havent read all the replies here but this is an issue Ive been talking about for a long time with folks. If you have an internet speed of at least 15mbps down, there is no reason to stay on satellite or cable tv. You can save a boat load of money by going to internet based tv. Throwing up an HD antenna isnt a bad idea either if you want to grab local channels for free. My wife and I left Dish Network years ago when we finally qualified for 25mbps DSL. That has since went up to 50mbps DSL. We went from $140/month or so on dish to $40/month for the same channels. Yes there are a handful of channels we dont get, mostly obscure channels that we didnt watch anyways - all the big main channels are there.
For this past black Friday we also upgraded to a new tv. We were on an 8 year old 60inch 1080p smart tv, but went up to a 75inch 4k smart tv with HDR. Not only a nice 15 inch jump in diagonal size, but a huge leap in picture quality between the two panels. This tv also opens up for us the ability to now stream movies in 4K UHD. We wanted to upgrade the tv soon because I had installed last year a Klipsch 5.1.2 Dolby Atmos entertainment system. To those who are not sure what Dolby Atmos is, it is essentially the next step up from traditional surround sound. Atmos adds vertical soundscape by having speakers mounted on the ceiling in addition to the standard surround. I had about $3500 in the sound system equipment and speakers, but the kicker is that Dolby Atmos is only present in 4K UHD content. 1080p content is relegated to traditional 5.1 surround sound. I say all that to say that the tv upgrade was a big jump for us in many ways, even allowing us to finally take full advantage of dolby atmos sound available in 4k uhd movies. We essentially have a true theater experience now. It is amazing how much less we spend for tv but how much more we get now with streaming services. If you are paying for dish tv and have decent internet you are honestly wasting money. If you arent super tech savy and are just not making the change because you dont understand it all I would encourage you to take the time to learn and educate yourself. Not only will you save loads of money but you will enjoy the options that open up to you when you cut the cords.
For this past black Friday we also upgraded to a new tv. We were on an 8 year old 60inch 1080p smart tv, but went up to a 75inch 4k smart tv with HDR. Not only a nice 15 inch jump in diagonal size, but a huge leap in picture quality between the two panels. This tv also opens up for us the ability to now stream movies in 4K UHD. We wanted to upgrade the tv soon because I had installed last year a Klipsch 5.1.2 Dolby Atmos entertainment system. To those who are not sure what Dolby Atmos is, it is essentially the next step up from traditional surround sound. Atmos adds vertical soundscape by having speakers mounted on the ceiling in addition to the standard surround. I had about $3500 in the sound system equipment and speakers, but the kicker is that Dolby Atmos is only present in 4K UHD content. 1080p content is relegated to traditional 5.1 surround sound. I say all that to say that the tv upgrade was a big jump for us in many ways, even allowing us to finally take full advantage of dolby atmos sound available in 4k uhd movies. We essentially have a true theater experience now. It is amazing how much less we spend for tv but how much more we get now with streaming services. If you are paying for dish tv and have decent internet you are honestly wasting money. If you arent super tech savy and are just not making the change because you dont understand it all I would encourage you to take the time to learn and educate yourself. Not only will you save loads of money but you will enjoy the options that open up to you when you cut the cords.
Tornado, can you do it all commercial free? When I see a commercial now, I feel like there should be a 5.00 bill coming my way for giving them my time.
Geo saved some money by turning it all off. I save a bunch of time skipping commercials. I figure the time easily covers the bill. Going back to commercials would be a no-go for me.
Do any of you guys time-shift with multiple tuners?
Geo saved some money by turning it all off. I save a bunch of time skipping commercials. I figure the time easily covers the bill. Going back to commercials would be a no-go for me.
Do any of you guys time-shift with multiple tuners?
I dont actually watch much live tv at all, so commercials is something I rarely deal with. The only live tv I actually watch is college football honestly. I will have to see if I can skip commercials. We currently use Hulu for or live tv option. We were using Playstation Vue but they discontinued their live tv service. Im pretty sure I have skipped commercials on live tv though on hulu when watching football, but this is only possible of course if you are watching a little behind live tv, so that you have something to actually skip to - you cant obviously skip something if you are 100% live. If you start a football game 30 minutes late, or are watching it after its over or something, you can skip and rewind and fast forward etc etc.
Most of my tv watching is via streaming services though. We watch shows on Netflix and other apps. If you have a 4k setup like we do now, netflix charges a premium of like $4 or $5 extra per month to unlock 4k UHD streaming. Not all netflix shows have 4k options, and then shows that are in 4k some do not have Dolby Vision (hdr) and/or Dolby Atmos. The most ideal content is 4k UHD with Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos all available on Netflix. We have amazon prime, so access to all the prime video stuff, netflix, hulu and hulu live so all of netflix and hulu's library of stuff. We have also had HBO streaming service on and off. YOu can buy subscriptions to 3 or 4 streaming services like this, plus the live tv option on hulu, and still pay way less than one dish network subscription - And dish network can offer no 4k, no hdr, no dolby atmos. To me, dish tv service is a dying technology. Its only really viable to folks who have poor internet. Many though, like my own mother, still pay for dish tv simply because they dont want to learn something new like the streaming stuff, even if it would save them $100 a month.
johnjk
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Still on DirecTV here. No option for broad band that will support streaming and the amount of data one of these apps uses. Someday when I can get real internet, I'll ditch DirecTV
When I switched from Verizon (lousy) DSL (avg. 100k speeds) to Hughes, the plan was a "soft" cap at 50GB. What that means is that my first 50GB is full bandwidth, seems to run 20-30mbps, then once I hit that mark, the rest is throttled. Exactly what that means depends on overall traffic, as I understand it, but it bottoms out at 3mbps. Still much better than my old DSL and enough for everything I do, including the meetings and streaming.
It's not the ideal, obviously, but those are my only two options, and it's served me rather well for 3 years now. If you have better options I can see why you would want to go that way.
Personally I'm hoping Starlink gets here soon.
I am open to Starlink as well, as long as the latency isn't too high, and have added myself to their mailing list for when it comes to my area. The AT&T router I have averages around 10-13mbps which is just too low for much more than streaming or work not both but I am rather pleased with it over the other options especially since I don't have any cap.
High Latency frankly just bugs the crap out of me, especially in virtual meetings, and a soft cap that tanks to a tenth of the speed after 50GB just isn't enough in todays world for home internet at least not for me and my wife. If it were my only option I would do whatever I could to make it work but I think we would still be stuck with DirecTV anyway because streaming costs so much data. Still hopeful that new technology either replaces normal DSL or adds enough competition that it forces the traditional providers to expand into more rural areas.
So far for the live/local stuff we have tried HULU, YouTube, IPTV, a Data Center HD Antenna DVR (they were sued out of existence), and a bunch of others. None have been able to replace DTV with a multi-tuner DVR.
And NONE of them are free. They all require good bandwidth (the cable that was cut) and 50.00+ a month for a comprehensive lineup. Hardly "cutting the cord". and none of them provide what DTV does for live and sports.
If I had better OTA coverage I would consider a TIVO for locals. That would still allow me to skip all the commercials.
What I can say is we have DirecTV multi-tuner setup for the rooms and between the wife and kids, I am pretty sure we pay for every other streaming service out there. So I am surrounded by "cords".
We haven't watched live TV, LIVE since 1999.
And NONE of them are free. They all require good bandwidth (the cable that was cut) and 50.00+ a month for a comprehensive lineup. Hardly "cutting the cord". and none of them provide what DTV does for live and sports.
If I had better OTA coverage I would consider a TIVO for locals. That would still allow me to skip all the commercials.
What I can say is we have DirecTV multi-tuner setup for the rooms and between the wife and kids, I am pretty sure we pay for every other streaming service out there. So I am surrounded by "cords".
We haven't watched live TV, LIVE since 1999.
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This thread motivated to pull the Verizon STB's and cancel Fiso TV. I think it the picture quality was declining anyway. [mini Fire-Stick runs circles all that clunky hardware]
But the good news is saving $100 per month, and still have high-speed internet. When I called Verizon it was apparent that they are trying to adjust to the market and now offer 200/200 for $69. Which I jumped at and checked the speed, which is now at 277mbps. [that's enough speed for 27 devices]
Next moved the TV cables around in the basement for OTA; the longest run in the house [diagonal], probably 100' of cable, but to my surprise it pulled in 70 channels from two cities.
Highly recommend this GE antenna:
As mentioned above, I simply pushed it into the soil a couple of years ago (by AC).
But the good news is saving $100 per month, and still have high-speed internet. When I called Verizon it was apparent that they are trying to adjust to the market and now offer 200/200 for $69. Which I jumped at and checked the speed, which is now at 277mbps. [that's enough speed for 27 devices]
Next moved the TV cables around in the basement for OTA; the longest run in the house [diagonal], probably 100' of cable, but to my surprise it pulled in 70 channels from two cities.
Highly recommend this GE antenna:
As mentioned above, I simply pushed it into the soil a couple of years ago (by AC).