I figured you guys might have some feedback about this matter. My Comcast bill keeps going up and I am getting fed up with it so I am thinking about trying out a Roku box or Apple Tv Box paired with Hulu Plus, Netflix, or Amazon Prime. Does anyone here do this? -Joe
torrents? We suspend our directv service every year when its not football season and download everything we watch.
I tried it for 2 weeks and hated it. I called comcast to complain and they cut my monthly charges in half for the same everything.
Old setup was OTA channels and a cheap HTPC running Windows 7 with Boxee for Netflix and DL'd content, and Firefox for Hulu so I didn't have to pay anything for Hulu+. The new setup has that, but I run Netflix through a cheap blu-ray player I found since the HTPC didn't have the guts to stream HD Silverlight. Pretty sure Boxee does Amazon Prime, too, but they've cut support for the software versions to focus on dedicated hardware.
This latest Comcast price increase has me seriously considering... The only thing holding me back is sports.. I always get MLB and NHL tickets to watch my Detroit sports... Not sure I could do without... Matt, did you actually cut Cable off and then bitch? What did you say to get a decrease... Because my bill is almost $150 for basic and interwebs... (no extra channels, only one HD/DVR box)... Ridiculous...
A jailbroken Apple TV 2 with XBMC installed should take care of your problems Boxee is also available on it. The Apple unit, at its $89 price point and small form factor, is one of the better pieces of hardware out there capable of full 1080P playback and proper streaming from a NAS. That's whats on my todo list.
veetle.com enough said. All t.v. shows for free no commercials. numerous ammounts of movies channels. Sport channels. etc.
I was house sitting for a friend who didn't have cable, but had the roku. It made me realize just how much I enjoy "real" television and cable.. Currently, I pay $80 and have pretty much the same you do. Digital silver package with one HD/DVR and 16Mbps internets. At the time, I had a premium channel that I was getting for free and that promotion ran out. So I called up to cancel the promotion. I asked if they had any other specials or anything I could do to drop my monthly charge. This was the end result.
yeah my parents pay around $80 for directtv (not the best package but like right in the middle). i have yet to find another service that is a better deal frankly. comcast always went up on their prices/quality/selection sucks, and dish's UI just looks outdated and they're more expensive than Direct for the less stuff. my friend has direct AND a roku, and while the Roku is neat for watching netflix, he can do that through his PS3 and bluray player, so.....
screw directv. I'm paying 70 a month, and the best channels that i have are the basics. Like FX, TBS, ESPN, SPIKE, MTV. The rest of the channels are all BS that show commercials all day, brazilian butt, home cooking pots, best knifes, etc...lol Being in the contract for 1 more year with them i cant get out.
not sure what package you got. it all depends on what you want to watch. why would you sign a contract KNOWING what channels you do and dont watch?
It was about 2 years ago when I moved to this area. I called few companies and they all had same reply, we do not provide service in that area. So I was stuck with DirecTV. The best deal atm that they had was that package, 34.99 first year, and second year doubles. So I took the "deal". I personally don't watch t.v. at all, if im in a movie mood, ill just plug up my HDMI cable from my laptop to the t.v. and watch what i want. if im in the mood for t.v. show or w.e. same thing. Sometimes my my directv box stays off for days. lol
i called the comcast "loyalty" dept after the increase. they dropped my bill to $79.99 for the next 6 months and after that it goes to $99.99 for the as long as i'm with comcast. thats nfl package, starz, hbo, hd, and internet. call them and try it
Been contemplating this myself. My DTV contract is up in March and so far I've priced out some antennas to get the OTA channels and considering an Apple TV for netflix, streaming, etc.
I ended up ordering a Roku with Angry Birds. We'll see how it works. I like Roku over Apple Tv, because you can add channels and their channel base is ever growing. Hopefully these things get together to put the evil cable companies out of business.
Blame the cable companies all you want but I have insider info. It's not the cable companies fault that the gov't is yanking subsidies and funding. It's not the cable companies fault that the individual channels (HBO, ESPN, TNT, USA, etc...) are raising the cost of subscription by an substantial amount. I know this cause I just attended a budget meeting that showed all of this. Cable companies don't make a huge profit.....most the profit comes from quantity.
That's not what I said. But if the companies are not getting subsidies and need the money where you gonna get it? it's simple business.....funds go down, cost goes up.
Do you have any apple products? That's part of my reason for considering the Apple TV is use of the ipad, ipod touch, etc.
The fact of the matter remains that you're still paying $X a month for the three channels you want and the slew of channels you do not. Reminds me of a similar problem that saw the birth of itunes and the $.99 per song.
I have an Apple TV at my GF house and that is all we use. We are subscribed for the Walking Dead. So when the episodes come out they show up on Apple TV. Other than that I only watch Walking Dead and F1. Which I can stream on the computer. It really depends on what you watch.
I have an ipad, iphone, and macbook. However i prefer the roku's open channel ability. I think Apple TV charges for everything, whereas alot of Roku is free.