Any cord cutters in the house?

rk_sports

Hall of Fame
As some of you know, cord cutters is a young trend with many options available and one thing that was missing was a decent DVR for cord cutters...
now I heard about Boxee TV (albeit available only in selected areas)

So, any of you here cut the cord?
If so, whats your setup? Any cons?
 

cluckcluck

Hall of Fame
I cut the cord about 3 months ago. I broke up with Directv cause it was getting out of hand expensive.

We are now setup with Roku streaming Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu Plus, and Vudu.
We have been watching a bunch of series we never knew existed and are pretty legit.

The biggest con would be the lack of live sports like tennis. I can stream on my computer but it's not the same quality as ESPNHD or TennisChannel HD.

Though, with all the money I'm saving, I can afford to buy some tennis tickets.
 
We haven't had cable in our house in 3 years. Netsucks& Vudu are alright. I'm trying out amazon prime now, and the in-laws have Uverse with the sports pack so if I can't watch my F1/tennis online, it gets recorded over there.
 

ollinger

G.O.A.T.
The notion that information on the internet is more reliable than other information sources is laughable. I won't soon forget the patient who told me he read on the internet that a medication he was taking could make your head fall off (and yes, he showed me the citation). There's bad information everywhere, probably moreso on the internet where oversight and financial liability are all but nonexistent.
 

SoBad

G.O.A.T.
Yeah, I did not bother setting up TV last time I moved a few months ago. Internet media and computer equipment far easier to manage.
 

heycal

Hall of Fame
Take the election for example. The news websites were all up to speed and accurate while Fox News was running around claiming Romney was in front of Obama, where the actual numbers were in favor of Obama.

That's not quite an accurate representation of Fox News election coverage. It's more like they had some commentators and guests on news shows who spun scenarios of how and why Romney would win. The news division as a whole never said such a thing. (Nor did Bill O'Reilly, the network's biggest star.)

But that aside, the internet is a horrible source for accurate information compared to TV overall. It's not even close.
 

ollinger

G.O.A.T.
^^ absolutely. My daughter worked for ABC News a few years and now for NPR, always interesting to hear from her about all the fact checkers who double-check on information. It's not fool-proof, but it's something that doesn't exist at all with the various news and blog sites on the web.
 

Cindysphinx

G.O.A.T.
I would be very interested in cutting the cord. My current bill is about $175/months. That is for a basic package, Tennis Channel, DVR and a total of three TVs, internet and landline.

I just dropped Tennis Channel to save $15/month.

If I drop the landline, Verizon will drop the price another $10.

If I get change two high-def boxes to standard, that will save $8 a month.

I am getting so resentful that I am tempted to cut the cord and go with Netflix + internet. . . .
 

NickC

Professional
anyone watching tv for news is like........i cant even say it

What's wrong with TV news? I am a big fan of PBS Newshour. They don't exhibit any bias nor do they waste time with little menial stories that seem to flood the major news networks.

It's cable news that sucks. Cable news, and I mean all of it, needs to be destroyed.

I have the internet which is faster and seemingly more accurate than TV news.

The internet isn't always accurate.
 
I just can't handle not having HBO and AMC...90% of the TV shows I watch are on one of those two networks.

Couldn't give up Tennis either...ESPN 3 streaming isn't available through my internet provider, so unless I want to deal with crappy pirated streams, DirecTV will do it for me.
 

sureshs

Bionic Poster
I just dropped Tennis Channel to save $15/month.

Exactly the wrong thing to do. It is the duty of every poster here to support Tennis Channel. You can easily save the $15 by cutting out one tennis lesson a month, and learn much more from TC.
 

Cindysphinx

G.O.A.T.
Exactly the wrong thing to do. It is the duty of every poster here to support Tennis Channel. You can easily save the $15 by cutting out one tennis lesson a month, and learn much more from TC.

It feels like TC largely duplicates the programming on ESPN2. I will miss minor tournaments and early round matches but . . . dang. Even I can't watch that much tennis.

Dropping TC also cost us the Golf Channel. My husband is in pain.
 

krz

Professional
The notion that information on the internet is more reliable than other information sources is laughable. I won't soon forget the patient who told me he read on the internet that a medication he was taking could make your head fall off (and yes, he showed me the citation). There's bad information everywhere, probably moreso on the internet where oversight and financial liability are all but nonexistent.

They can't post anything on the internet that's not true.

Where'd you hear that?

The internet.

images
 

LuckyR

Legend
I have an Apple TV in one room and a Roku in another (for technical reasons that I will skip here). The Apple TV download speed and relaibility is better than Amazon Prime. This could change over time, is likely to IMO. But for now, there it is.
 

mikeler

Moderator
I have an Apple TV in one room and a Roku in another (for technical reasons that I will skip here). The Apple TV download speed and relaibility is better than Amazon Prime. This could change over time, is likely to IMO. But for now, there it is.

I am going to be getting both in a few weeks. The Roku box will go on my older TV since it does not have an HDMI connection.
 

LuckyR

Legend
I am going to be getting both in a few weeks. The Roku box will go on my older TV since it does not have an HDMI connection.

My situation exactly. My older TV did have a direct digital input (for use as a monitor, yup a >150# monitor), so I found a HDMI to DVI adapter and ended up with a great picture.
 

dak95_00

Hall of Fame
I haven't had cable for 10+ years. It is great!

Pros:
1) More sleep. There is no more flipping through the 100+ channels knowing something is on that I could be watching. Instead, I go to bed.
2) My kids actually go outside to play.
3) $$$$ saved. I actually watched network tv most of the time anyways for the weeknight shows. I still get them with rabbit ears and the picture is crystal clear with the hd signal.

Cons:
1) Sports on tv. I miss most things but in the last few years I've learned many tricks to find the shows on the Internet.
2) Popular culture disconnect. It's not that big of a deal but it really hit me by surprise to find out that as a public employee/servant that I was the largest problem to the health of the country. Here I was going to work and doing my job only to find out later that I was just some union goon, thug, etc. If I had Fox News, I would've known much sooner.

That's about it. Cut the cord! What will happen to you? It's not like the cable provider won't be calling you in a few days offering to reconnect you for free and throw in a couple of months of premium channels for free if you do reconnect. If you are on the borderline of choosing, contact your cable provider and see what you can do to renegotiate your 'deal' with them. I've known friends who've gotten their price reduced, etc. I like my sleep and the fact that my kids go outside to play or play with each other. We had cable for a month about 7 years ago after my wife started back to work. She'd finished nursing school (reason we cut the cord to save money) and she thought she was rewarding us by getting cable. I couldn't get the kids to go outside and do anything. It was a constant, "Let me watch this show, please." or "Right after this show." I took the box down to the cable provider and left the cord plugged into the tv. The kids kept watching. Then the tv went snowy a day or so later.

I heard, "Dad! Dad! The TV is broken!"
I asked, "Is the screen snowy?"
Their reply, "Yes."
I aksed, "Is there a white van out front?"
Moments later....."Yes."
I said, "Great, no more cable."

About ten minutes went by and then I was asked, "Dad. Can we go out and play?"

With a fist pump or two I exclaimed, "YES!"
(True story.)
 

rk_sports

Hall of Fame
I haven't had cable for 10+ years. It is great!

Pros:
1) More sleep. There is no more flipping through the 100+ channels knowing something is on that I could be watching. Instead, I go to bed.
2) My kids actually go outside to play.
3) $$$$ saved. I actually watched network tv most of the time anyways for the weeknight shows. I still get them with rabbit ears and the picture is crystal clear with the hd signal.

Cons:
1) Sports on tv. I miss most things but in the last few years I've learned many tricks to find the shows on the Internet.
2) Popular culture disconnect. It's not that big of a deal but it really hit me by surprise to find out that as a public employee/servant that I was the largest problem to the health of the country. Here I was going to work and doing my job only to find out later that I was just some union goon, thug, etc. If I had Fox News, I would've known much sooner.

That's about it. Cut the cord! What will happen to you? It's not like the cable provider won't be calling you in a few days offering to reconnect you for free and throw in a couple of months of premium channels for free if you do reconnect. If you are on the borderline of choosing, contact your cable provider and see what you can do to renegotiate your 'deal' with them. I've known friends who've gotten their price reduced, etc. I like my sleep and the fact that my kids go outside to play or play with each other. We had cable for a month about 7 years ago after my wife started back to work. She'd finished nursing school (reason we cut the cord to save money) and she thought she was rewarding us by getting cable. I couldn't get the kids to go outside and do anything. It was a constant, "Let me watch this show, please." or "Right after this show." I took the box down to the cable provider and left the cord plugged into the tv. The kids kept watching. Then the tv went snowy a day or so later.

I heard, "Dad! Dad! The TV is broken!"
I asked, "Is the screen snowy?"
Their reply, "Yes."
I aksed, "Is there a white van out front?"
Moments later....."Yes."
I said, "Great, no more cable."

About ten minutes went by and then I was asked, "Dad. Can we go out and play?"

With a fist pump or two I exclaimed, "YES!"
(True story.)

haha that was funny..
complete blackout is a brave thing.. kudos to you
 
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