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badger
6/22/2015, 09:55 AM
A few years ago, we dumped Cox cable because they were charging astronomical amounts compared to when we first signed up. Then, AT&T U-verse started jacking up the rates too high so we finally decided that we didn't watch enough TV outside of football season to justify the monthly cost ($280 per month including phone and internet).

For other cable cutters out there, what do you do as alternates to the high priced, bad serviced crap that cable companies have fed us all for years?

We are giving Sling TV a trial run ($20 a month for ESPN, ESPN2, Disney and some other cable channels) and still have Netflix and Amazon Prime.

SicEmBaylor
6/22/2015, 10:25 AM
I cut the cable a year and a half ago, and increased my network speed to 80mbps. It's fantastic. I either stream everything via Netflix/Hulu to my Nexus Player (or the old Chromecast), or I torrent/download everything.

I have a 4TB NAS server to stream all of my downloaded content.

The only thing I really miss is CSPAN, live sports, and cable news (which I only watch when some big event hits). However, there are still ways of getting all three.

badger
6/22/2015, 01:45 PM
If it was affordable I'd keep cable, but the glory days where our parents' generation could pay $10-$30 a month for a few dozen channels have been replaced with $100-$300 a month for a few hundred channels that you'll never watch.

Cable said 'we already have most TV owners. now let's jack up the price on them.'

Cable channels said 'we want in on this price jacking up too.'

Cable said 'if you're jacking up your price than we have to jack up our price again.'

It reminds me of the college racket -- students need more financial aid/loans to pay for higher tuition and fees, and since they have more aid/loans, the colleges jack up the price annually. OU regents are going to consider a 5 percent increase on everyone this week, and OSU regents approved a similar hike last week.

Think the 18-25 age demographic won't cut the college? They've already cut the cable.

Ton Loc
6/22/2015, 04:02 PM
Welcome to the cable cutting team. Sling TV is alright but I'll be going somewhere else (p2p sites) for my live sports when the trial is up. Find someone to share hbogo, hulu, prime and netflix with and/or get your parents sign in for their provider. Also, search Kodi, PLex, and consider a NAS. That's fancy pants stuff to get everything you want and more downloaded and streamed to your Television.

You can really get around cable if you want to dig in.

bmjlr
6/22/2015, 04:33 PM
Badger - I cut cable several years ago as I do not watch many shows and the price was stupid. Like you, I recently signed up for Sling TV. I enjoy it for $20. Looking forward to seeing if Sling TV adds Fox Sports 1 at some point. I found it cheaper to go to a bar and pay for beer to watch the Sooners play then having cable. Many times I just listened to it on the radio. Anyway, I am hoping come Football season, that Sling TV works out. Good concept anyway.

olevetonahill
6/22/2015, 05:00 PM
Welcome to the cable cutting team. Sling TV is alright but I'll be going somewhere else (p2p sites) for my live sports when the trial is up. Find someone to share hbogo, hulu, prime and netflix with and/or get your parents sign in for their provider. Also, search Kodi, PLex, and consider a NAS. That's fancy pants stuff to get everything you want and more downloaded and streamed to your Television.

You can really get around cable if you want to dig in.

What about folks like me who live in the sticks and only option is Satilite TeeVee and innerwebs?

SicEmBaylor
6/22/2015, 07:25 PM
What about folks like me who live in the sticks and only option is Satilite TeeVee and innerwebs?

The internet. That's what we're talking about when we say 'cord cutting.'

olevetonahill
6/22/2015, 07:39 PM
The internet. That's what we're talking about when we say 'cord cutting.'

What im saying is I also have limited internet somepun like 10 GBs a month so none that werk for me. Thats why i were askin about maybe an alternative

SicEmBaylor
6/22/2015, 08:13 PM
What im saying is I also have limited internet somepun like 10 GBs a month so none that werk for me. Thats why i were askin about maybe an alternative

Ah, you get internet through the satellite as well? Satellite internet service isn't great. I suppose an alternative is DVD/Blu-Ray. :D

Boomer.....
6/23/2015, 08:26 AM
We recently switched to the "flex package" with Cox. It has 50MBps internet and basic over the air channels as well as HBO, Starz and Encore. No DVR, but we watch most of our shows On Demand or online and the kiddo watches most of his shows on the Amazon prime app.

badger
6/23/2015, 10:02 AM
We still have ATT Uverse internet and NP is checking into getting faster internet at the same cost via Cox... but since we just did a major scramble to cut tons of stuff, he said he's going to take a moment to breathe before doing any more household changes. :)

Are any sports season passes any good? We don't live near any pro teams (save for the Thunder if they count but NP is a Spurs fan so they don't lol). I've heard that MLB home games get blacked out sometimes, but isn't every game a home game for some team? Does it depend on your location?

One thing I will really miss come football season is NFL Redzone. For about $50 for the season, the NFL would dictate which game I got to watch depending on who was about to score and it was awesome.

Another thing we're discovering within initial days of cable cutting is the little Roku remote sucks :P

Ton Loc
6/24/2015, 08:30 AM
We still have ATT Uverse internet and NP is checking into getting faster internet at the same cost via Cox... but since we just did a major scramble to cut tons of stuff, he said he's going to take a moment to breathe before doing any more household changes. :)

Are any sports season passes any good? We don't live near any pro teams (save for the Thunder if they count but NP is a Spurs fan so they don't lol). I've heard that MLB home games get blacked out sometimes, but isn't every game a home game for some team? Does it depend on your location?

One thing I will really miss come football season is NFL Redzone. For about $50 for the season, the NFL would dictate which game I got to watch depending on who was about to score and it was awesome.

Another thing we're discovering within initial days of cable cutting is the little Roku remote sucks :P

In order:

Cox is faster and more consistent than AT&T can probably/maybe ever be. If you're a new customer you can get faster internet for whatever AT&T charges you.

Sports season passes are great but your home team will (almost) always be blocked out. Your husband could watch the Spurs with the NBA package.

I don't know how NFL Redzone works but much like all of the season passes for the different leagues there are apps out there for it through Android, Apple, PC, Xbox1, etc. You may be able to pay and watch through one of the apps.

Use the Roku app on your phone.

SicEmBaylor
6/24/2015, 08:31 AM
I use Plex 90% of the time. The absolute best app for consuming locally-saved content on your TV. I haven't tried their cloud service though.

colleyvillesooner
6/24/2015, 09:27 AM
Plex is great. Auto adds TV show descriptions of episodes and theme songs when on the page. Can be played on your ipad/iphone if on the same wifi or straight to your TV via the desktop app.

badger
6/24/2015, 09:35 AM
NP hates NBA refs so we wouldn't watch the NBA League Pass even if we got it :P We'd be more interested in Packers stuff, but as they barely show games down here I've relied on Redzone and NFL Network rebroadcasts to keep up, both regular and preseasons.

We subscribed to Cox up till several years ago... would we count as "new" since we haven't been with them in at least 3 years? I don't remember the exact timeline, but we could cut UVerse without penalty so it's been at least two, but I think it's actually been at least a year longer...

Tell me more about Plex please? Thanks!

SicEmBaylor
6/24/2015, 09:46 AM
Tell me more about Plex please? Thanks!

Plex is an application that streams locally saved content on your PC, NAS, server, etc. and sends it to whatever screen you want whether it be your phone, tablet, television, etc. It does so in a very elegant and visually beautiful method. It will automatically download posters for your television shows, movies, and music as well as the synopsis for each episode and even the theme song.

All of this content can be spread out across multiple drives and computers. For example, I have content spread across two internal HDDs in my gaming PC as well as my 4TB NAS. Plex curates all of this content from multiple movie/tv/music folders spread across many different drives and lists them in the application all under the category. This is true even if you have TV show episodes from a single season spread across multiple drives.

It really is fantastic. The only thing to be aware of is that the file names and folder structures need to be in a certain format for Plex to properly read and download the appropriate poster art/theme song, etc. For example, movie file names need to be titled thusly: *Name of Movie* *(Year of Release). So that would look like Titanic (1997).mp4

TV shows are similar. They need to be in a Folder with the name of the TV show and then a folder with the name of the season and then the file name needs to be in this format: Friends - S04E08 which means the show is Season 4, Episode 8 of Friends.

bluedogok
6/29/2015, 10:46 PM
We still have ATT Uverse internet and NP is checking into getting faster internet at the same cost via Cox... but since we just did a major scramble to cut tons of stuff, he said he's going to take a moment to breathe before doing any more household changes. :)

Are any sports season passes any good? We don't live near any pro teams (save for the Thunder if they count but NP is a Spurs fan so they don't lol). I've heard that MLB home games get blacked out sometimes, but isn't every game a home game for some team? Does it depend on your location?

One thing I will really miss come football season is NFL Redzone. For about $50 for the season, the NFL would dictate which game I got to watch depending on who was about to score and it was awesome.

Another thing we're discovering within initial days of cable cutting is the little Roku remote sucks :P
We still have Directv with NFL Sunday Ticket (for my wife's Cowboys) and MLB Extra Innings we also had NHL Center Ice but I dropped that when I moved to Denver since the Avs were on locally. Extra Innings has a standard blackout opposite the Fox Saturday games, the games before or after that slot show on EI as normal. Outside of the Fox game they will blackout your "local teams" on the MLB.tv app but it comes through on the sat box, the Rockies here are always whenever the have a Root-RM broadcast. When we were in Austin the Rangers games would be blacked out whenever they had a "local broadcast" (usually a Friday night game) which was on a station that was 45 miles away in Marble Falls that we couldn't get in South Austin with the antenna (and was not rebroadcast over the satellite). When all the games went to FSN-SW that went away. I'm not sure how many teams claim Oklahoma as "home market", I know the Rangers and Astros did but not sure about KC or StL. A co-worker has the MLB.tv app alone and likes it except for Rockies games, mine is tied to my Directv account.

badger
6/30/2015, 09:55 AM
Update: We are having issues with our little receiver on getting local channels; they like to cut out every once in awhile. Same with Roku; the service can be spotty at times.

I'm not sure who to blame for the local channels, but the Roku could be blamed on the internet connection, so I'll just hold my breath till we have faster internet again ;)

I am finding myself doing a lot less things in the living room around our giant 50-inch TV and instead doing more housework and yardwork and family time, so there's that I guess. But, it's also summer so what happens when it's fall/winter and the Sooners are on a channel I don't receive...and I'm not fond of the illegal methods, so don't go there :P

SicEmBaylor
6/30/2015, 10:08 AM
Update: We are having issues with our little receiver on getting local channels; they like to cut out every once in awhile. Same with Roku; the service can be spotty at times.

I'm not sure who to blame for the local channels, but the Roku could be blamed on the internet connection, so I'll just hold my breath till we have faster internet again ;)

I am finding myself doing a lot less things in the living room around our giant 50-inch TV and instead doing more housework and yardwork and family time, so there's that I guess. But, it's also summer so what happens when it's fall/winter and the Sooners are on a channel I don't receive...and I'm not fond of the illegal methods, so don't go there :P

Have you considered the new Sling TV service?

badger
6/30/2015, 11:19 AM
That's the spotty Roku service I'm referring to. Sometimes the sound and/or picture cuts out. I'm hopeful that a better internet speed will help with this.

My parents are jealous that it offers H2. Their cable provider does not provide :P

colleyvillesooner
6/30/2015, 11:54 AM
We use sling through the Amazon Fire box and just wire it straight from the router to the Fire box. We have a fire stick in the other room and only experience slight lag when watching amazon prime on both TVs at the same time.