So I haven't had cable / satellite / any TV in over a year, here is how I cope! I have a Wii with Netflix on it. Fairly straightforward setup. I use an unblock service to be able to watch US / UK / CA netflix, so this gives me a wide variety of TV shows and movies to watch. On my second TV I have a more complicated setup. I have an XBOX with Netflix (US/UK/CA...) and Crackle. Crackle is free I have a Raspberry Pi computer, set up to run XBMC, which is a media player type setup. On that I have Hulu where I can watch everything available on Hulu Free. I have USTV Now on it for live TV streaming of CW, ABC, NBC etc etc. I then have a 1channel app, icefilms app, bbc Iplayer, 4od...etc basically 20 other TV apps I have never used because everything else works. The games consoles were my boyfriends so my total cost of setup was: $35 Raspberry Pi + $15 in accessories. $7 per month for Netflix + $4 per month for unblock! Waaaaay cheaper than my cable setup. So, what are you guys doing to pay less for TV?
My husband couldn't live without his sports, so we have cable again, lol. Before now though, I was done with TV. I didn't raise my children with TV, so they didn't need it and I started watching everything via the net anyway. I just don't need it. Stupid sports, lol. We WERE saving money!
We are thinking of 'cutting the cord' in my household because Sky TV is just too expensive. We pay the equivalent of 110 dollars and we don't even have Sky Movies. Our problem is that we can't rely on our internet connection to watch TV and movies as our connection is really slow.
we are also considering this. I've never heard of raspberry pi. I'll look it up. We did tone down our cable, we pay less and get less channels. But we notice we use netflix a lot more. $7 is much easier to swallow then the $30 or so it was before.
This is a great topic. I've been seriously considering an alternative to all tv service for my household. I've already killed the landline phone which has saved me so much in terms of bills and stupid marketing calls and just use cel phones. Right now, I'm paying about $180 for Verizon Fios tv and internet and not happy about it. I know netflix is great for movies but how do you get access to local tv and maybe a special event once in a while?
I just watch TV on my computer. There's a site called Project Free TV that has every show you can imagine uploaded, including Dexter and The Walking Dead. Youtube has also started showing full length movies and TV shows. There's also Hulu, Crackle and Dramafever. A relative of mine gave me their old digital converter box and set it up on my TV. I took one look at the basic NBC and ABC shows and the commercials that you can't skip, turned the TV off and went back to watching The Walking Dead on my computer. Internet TV spoiled me, basic network TV is just not as good.
For Local TV I would suggest you use US TV NOW, its a free service which streams US TV channels! Ads and all sadly, but it is Live so you get the shows as they air. This would be good for sporting events - I know all my shows are off because of March madness right now. I recommend the Raspberry Pi, it takes a little bit of technical knowledge to get it all set up and running, but once you do it is amazing! Bolt, in the UK I had that problem too! The BBC Iplayer can't even play on my home internet it is so slow! Luckily though, Netflix still works, it manages to scale down its streams so that it works really well and the picture is still clear and watchable.
Most TV on freeview over here in the Uk is repeats so its probably a beer option to watch the online catchup sites for channels like the BBC, Channel 4 etc etc. As for Sky, I would only have it for the sports and you can find an online stream for 90% of events these days. No wonder Murdoch hates the internet...
Yeah the UK is actually much better than Canada, we don't even have freeview! I really miss freeview. Without paying a lot of money to Rogers or Bell you can't get TV here, nothing gets picked up over an antenna, and if you guy a big antenna you are lucky to even get anything, it really depends on where you are located.
Here in the US it can get complicated to get every channel you want. No doubt there's some collusion between cable and the networks to keep the volume of paying customers high. A friend of mine has recommended a digital antenna. I believe with that and Internet TV we can get something for everyone over the air. Along with cellular phones, TV is a service designed to rip off the consumer. We're addicted and this is taken advantage of. Unfortunately, to allow the service to be anything but private would cause greater problems.
We have also let go of our sattelite service. For the basic package which is about 12 channels it was $40.00. And that did include NBC, CBS, ABC and Fox. But the other channels were some off beat channels we never watched. And there were a few shows that we did enjoy watching. But for the amount of money we were spending it did not balance out. So we do have a PS3 and we have the netflix hooked to it. And also I do get on the computer and watch some tv shows. So we are really saving money. As far as the digital antennas go, make sure you live in an area that can pick up on them. We live in a rural area and we bought an expensive antenna. And we got zero channels to come in. But it is ok because we got our money back. And we have other alternatives anyway.
We have stayed with our cable company - tried the dish companies and went back to cable. But we went with a bundle package for phone and Internet too since it is the highest speed Internet you can get easily where I live so for us it is cost effective to just keep all 3. I can actually go completely without any TV as long as I had a way to watch Criminal Minds on Wed night, I really only got TV for the rest of the house! I just need my Internet and I am good.
Seeing that neither me or my girlfriend likes to watch TV, we only have cable because it's bundled with the Internet, and that ends up being a lot cheaper than just Internet.
We cut the cord it was just to expensive. We do have a wifi set up for the computers, use Netflix, Hulu and I just got Amazon Prime to watch what I like on my computer. I don't really need a tv just a computer. I do miss Doctor Who but the dvd will be out soon.
For me it has been a few years since I had cable t.v. I couldn't really afford internet and cable t.v. and I opted for internet. No second thoughts. I now read more. And I watch dvds. I watch some things via internet. I miss it sometimes but really not that much. Ryder13
This is an incredibly smart way to save money. Even if you have both Hulu and Netflix, you can watch all of your favorite movies and shows for only $16 a month. They also have a new Redbox streaming out as well that I would like to try. You can also rent movies from your library for free. There has to be some movies that you have never seen before. It is amazing how much money can be blown on cable and satellite t.v. In my opinion it is a complete waste of money.
I barely watch any TV, and what I do watch was mostly on the local networks, so I ditched cable and now use ClearQAM for free. I kept my Netflix account as I'm something of a movie buff, and got a Roku so I could watch stream them to my TV. It has turned out to be a great investment.
I also agree with JosieP that cable is so unnecessary now, especially with devices such as the Roku streaming player, and so many television and movie apps, who needs cable anyway?
