Cutting the Cable "cord"...what's the best alternative?

get a girlfriend

 

:keke:

 

If you keep comcast for Internet, you will still get their basic cable service which has a few local HD channels. You will need a TV that has the correct tuner in it though. I am pretty sure most Flat Panel TV's in the last few years have the correct tuner.

 

call and tell them you are cancelling to go with Dish, usually offer a good deal after the third time you say no. Of course you have to play this game every six months when the intro price runs out.

 

Look at the new Boxee TV. You can hookup a HD antenna to it and record your shows too. I have one, but haven't gotten around to installing the antenna so I can't really comment on how well it works for that purpose.
http://www.boxee.tv/

 

I am in the same boat as you, except that I barely watch tv, so I'm basically throwing 90/month away on directv.

My plan is to get a Boxee (the original Boxee) and use my family's log-in for Netflix. I might get basic Comcast for local channels or an antenna.

I already have Comcast internet and not looking forward to the price hike to 50/month just for damn internet. These service area monopolies are bs.

What is your Comcast bill currently looking like?

 

mine is 129, would be cheaper without the boxes which will be gone soon.

what about Dyle? that going anywhere?

 

I love my cable company....$160 for full CATV with 4 dvrs, 2 unlimited cell plans, high speed internet, and landline service....perks of being employed by the company that provides all the services.

WHat can you get over the air? Just the public channels? I've heard rumors of cable level services being provided over the air wirelessly (not satellite but using broadband data bandwidth for channels like TNT, USA, ESPN, etc).

 

should be able to pick up all the standard over the air channels. I just cancelled my Direct TV stuff a few weeks back, I've been watching this to see what route you take. I torrent most of my stuff already, but I'm thinking about going w/ one of the antennae for the start of the 2013 football season

 

+1 Uverse. Love their OS on their box. And I have a wifi tuner, too.

 

If you have a solid internet connection, convince one of your friends/family members with a subscription to Xfinity streampix to give you their login information. Connect compy to TV. Profit.

 

Boxee is cool, but don't be surprised when they suddenly stop updating your equipment and drop all support. I've got the Boxee Box and its great at streaming (very high bit rate) local content.

I'd consider a News Group subscription and an encrypted VPN then just a media streaming device from a server in the house (depending on your consumption/comcast's throttling).

 

i miss Direct TV, as far as companies go, i've been happiest with their services. Currently I have Time Warner and they blow, not to mention they literally call me 7 times a day to upgrade my services, and that started literally a month after i already upgraded my service.

my friends (you know them too), don't have cable. I told them to get an over the air antenna, and now they have ~15-20 channels. keep in mind this is totally LINE OF SIGHT ONLY, so considering where you live, you might have shitty angles to the ATL news stations. they also have Apple TV and he torrents all their movies. He buys seasons (walking dead, game of thrones, etc) through Apple TV, but keep in mind with service like that, some providers allow instant (same day) downloads, next day, or wait until the end of the season. They also have Hulu, Netflix, and the like through his xbox.

I'd totally do this, if I had an Apple TV and Xbox, but alas....

 

I finally kicked direct out last week. 2 separate directional antennas (UHF/VHF) in the attic with a pre-amp. I'm 50+ miles away from the transmitters and I'm getting good signal on everything but fox. When I pull in fox I lose 17,36, and 46. So I either need to add a rotator or add another antenna.

I've tried 2 different external tuners. The Channel Master was ok and expensive. The Iview is less than $50 has composite/component/HDMI and a USB port . USB port allows you to connect a flash or hard drive and it's an instant DVR.

I already use my PS3 for Netflix and VUDU so I added Hulu Plus. I looked at boxee and others, but decided to give Roku a try for the other rooms and I'm pretty happy so far.

Sports are the only thing I'm not sure I have 100% solved yet. I feel like there has to be a gap without espn. NHL game center app gives me more than I used to get, and I know MLB has a similar app.

 

yeah, sports is THE ONLY reason i have cable. I have a website i can stream games from, but the quality is blah and they don't always have all the games.

and i also find with HULU, etc. that i watch all the available shows i like then there is nothing else good to watch until the next episodes become available, and that SUCKS

 

[youtube]0ilMx7k7mso[/youtube]

 

Don't blame the cable companies for rising costs. They are not the culprits. It the channel itself that is raising the prices therefore forcing the providers to do the same.

 

then drop the channel. it's ridiculous the prices we pay for cell / home phone (those still exist?) / internet / television. Bundled up, you can easily top $3,000 / year.

I'm not blaming any single culprit, but until all of them can get their shit together and stop ripping consumers a new asshole, I'm just staying away and taking my chances with torrents.

 

Many bundles are regualted by the Federal commission. Cable companies can't simply drop the channel. And you can't simply drop ESPN, TNT, USA, HBO, etc....they are the big guys that the general public wants.

 

Gas keeps going up....are you gonna just quit using gasoline? How about electric?

 

LMBO at gas being a 'necessity'.

 

I don't 'have' to have my car, my truck, a boat. Dunno about you guys over there in the concrete mountain but if I had to live off the land guess what.....I can. Ancestors did it and so can I....matter of fact I already do.

But getting off topic here. As an employee of a company that provides cable service, I can see the source of the rising costs. I dunno about Comcast or Time Warner but in competitive areas we really do not make much profit at all off of cable service. We just had to raise our rates as did TW due to several channels raising their per subscriber cost. And if we offered per channel costs no one could afford it and have the channels they want. The basic/plus packages are low compared to if you paid for each channel due to the fact we can spread the cost over the general subscriber base therefore making it cheaper.

 

cable/satellite companies should allow customers to subscribe to only the specific channels of their choosing instead of "packages" where we have to pay for all these channels, 75% of which we dont even watch.

 

Tell the Federal Communications Commision to let us then. The cable/satellite companies do not control this.

 

not to mention, you're locked into to terrible contracts where they raise prices arbitrarily and you can't do anything about it.

And your gasoline comment is just...laughable. You realize the rest of the world pays $8+ / gallon for gas? Oh, they also pay reasonable rates for data plans, and they're not capped to 200mb before they throttle everything back. We're in the middle of a communications rip-off that the government supports (by allowing the FCC to regulate the way they do) and consumers are ultimately fucked by.

 

oh, and if you want to live like a mountain man from the 1700's, more power to you. there's a reason we don't sleep on cots in sleeping bags anymore.

i prefer deodorant, toothbrushes, daily showers and modern conveniences. I pay for these conveniences happily so long as they're not asking for your first born child.

 

You just pointed out my point. Point the fingers at the Federal Communications Commission for the arbitrary retarded setups. The government does indeed to get their greedy hands out of the consumer market.

 

+3 for Sports being the only thing holding me to cable. Especially since I rely on Sports packages to get Detroit sports... Red Wings and Tigers alone run close to $400 a year. If I could get myself to stomach Atlanta teams, I'd be a whole lot better off. Also, DVR and On Demand has me pretty spoiled. Not sure when the last time I watched a commerical. Good friend of mine cut the cord for about 6 months... Then Comcast offered him a crazy deal and he went back...

 

or, they need to regulate it BETTER than what they're doing (which, i admit that's just as laughable as them removing their hands from the cookie jar).

Socialism is the devil until people start bitching about infrastructures and rising prices.

 

Bingo.

 

Interesting article from 2006...ie before the economy crisis.


AT the National Cable and Telecommunications Association convention in Atlanta last week, the cable guys were at it again. They were kvetching that the Federal Communications Commission had gotten it terribly wrong in pushing to loosen the way that cable television channels were packaged and sold. Essentially, the cable contingent says that its current practice of selling a package of 75 or so broadcast and cable channels is better for consumers and the public good than letting people pick and choose the 10 or 20 stations they actually watch.

The average price of extended basic cable — the type of channel package to which most of the nation's 73 million cable-watching households subscribe — is $41 a month, according to Kagan Research. Plenty of other premium channels and services are available, but the only cheaper option is truly basic: a package of mostly local stations with none of the popular cable channels (ESPN, MTV and CNN, to name but a few). At my house in Connecticut, for instance, basic cable runs me $13 a month.

The cable operators say that forcing them to give people more latitude over the channels they buy would constitute rank government interference, the equivalent of forcing restaurants to sell burgers and buns separately. The à la carte model favored by some regulators would lead to much higher rates for individual channels, executives argue. Whereas that same $41 might get you only 10 hand-picked channels, the bundle model both pays for the infrastructure — all those pipes and set-top boxes and servers and repair trucks — and preserves the smorgasbord of big and small channels to suit all demographics and tastes.

Without bundling, programmers like Disney and Viacom might no longer be able to afford shows with smaller but loyal followings. Under the current system, they can produce niche channels like ESPN Classic because they are bundled with ESPN and other channels, the programmers say.

For the most part, the F.C.C. rolls its watchdog eyes and notes that the price of expanded basic has increased well beyond other goods and services over the past few years. It and the cable association have drawers full of studies disputing the other's studies about their studies. Kevin J. Martin, the F.C.C. chairman, showed up briefly in Atlanta to reiterate that he was not giving up the fight, even after recently cajoling cable companies to agree to put together a new, smaller tier of family-oriented channels that was a few dollars less than extended basic. "Putting more control in the hands of consumers is always good," he said.

Alas, the legislative year is rapidly winding to a close in Washington, making it unlikely that Congress will pass any à la carte legislation this time around. Still, even a few renegade television providers are finding it difficult not to side with Mr. Martin. Cablevision Systems in New York and the satellite service EchoStar have done so, though they remain a clear minority. Comcast, Time Warner, the News Corporation, Walt Disney and others are lined up to harrumph at Mr. Martin.

The great paradox of this debate is that it comes as the number of media options is exploding and the way they are being priced is all over the map. The much-maligned bundle will most probably prevail as the most popular business model for media, although it, too, is likely going to need an extreme makeover.

Just look at the big picture: At one end of the spectrum is the push to sell more and more programming on a per-show or per-viewing basis, via video-on-demand or some kind of download service. Whether it is iTunes from Apple Computer, the new video services from Google and Yahoo, or the newest iterations of nascent mobile telephone services through Verizon, Sprint and others, it's clear that we are approaching a future where there will be no chance that a favorite show can be missed.

Last week, Disney pushed the ball forward by announcing a trial to show four of its popular television shows free on www.abc.com, with commercial sponsors. And Fox said it had worked out a deal with affiliate stations that would let it join the other big networks in making popular shows available in new digital and online formats.

All this is happening not so much because content makers sense gigantic riches in these new ventures, but out of fear that if they don't make their programming more freely available, younger audiences will grow up accustomed to getting their favorite shows free via illegal file-sharing services and DVD's burned by their pals.

At the other end of the spectrum from selling individual shows is the equally au courant concept of überbundling — selling digital cable services combined with high-speed Internet and telephone service, and maybe throwing some wireless into the mix.

Ask cable industry executives, and most will argue that a majority of people still prefer buying the existing pre-ordained packages of cable. And the addition of new services like high-speed access gives viewers conveniences like a single bill and shared customer service. Yet a recent USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll found that 54 percent of television viewers said they would prefer to buy channels individually, while only 43 percent said they'd rather pay a flat fee for a fixed number of channels.

Strangely, these colliding views make sense. When asked whether they want total choice, especially from historically monopolistic quasi-utilities, it's no shock that most people say: heck, yes. Yet, as the author and psychology professor Barry Schwartz and two of his colleagues pointed out a few weeks ago in The New York Times Magazine, Americans have this funny habit of confusing freedom, which they cherish, with choice, which can give them headaches.

"We're definitely at an overwhelming number of options," Maribel D. Lopez, a media analyst at Forrester Research, told me. "It's frequently difficult to understand what you're buying. There's also different content that goes on different devices. We run the risk of consumers moving to indecision because they have a lot of choice."

Stephen B. Burke, the chief operating officer of Comcast, also contends that people are most comfortable paying for subscription services they can rely on at a set price, even if they don't consume every minute or inch of it — whether the subscription is to cable service or Time magazine.

Mr. Burke pointed out to me that well under 10 percent of subscribers bought pay-per-view or video-on-demand movies from Comcast. But as many as 70 percent of Comcast's customers avail themselves each month of the free video-on-demand programming that is part of its digital package.

Mr. Burke says part of the problem with buying individual shows is that, amazingly, more than 90 percent of Comcast's 22 million customers still pay monthly cable bills by cash or check. That kind of customer isn't ideal for impulse digital purchases.

And Ms. Lopez says that one reason new mobile services may be slow to take off is that even tech-savvy consumers in the United States are not as culturally attuned to prepaying for communications services as those in Europe and elsewhere.

There are examples to the contrary that suggest that consumers are more than keen to buy products by the bite — but they are fewer than you'd expect. Ring tones, music downloads and pornography come immediately to mind, but, needless to say, these models don't translate across all media.

Rather than unfettered choice, maybe what most people yearn for is more, better choice. Video providers in Britain, Hong Kong and Canada have figured out how to offer a much wider variety of ways for their audiences to pay for TV without invoking video Armageddon.

The cable operators are indisputably right about one thing: they shouldn't need Mr. Martin to tell them to do the right thing.


Ken Belson contributed reporting for this article.

 

Corporations always spin a good story it's part of the marketing. This is a capitalist society so you vote with your wallet. I can write all the letters I want, but the only language corporations understand is money.

Legitimate rising costs is one thing, but direct nickel and dimes you to death. $10 per month for DVR service? wtf? They don't "provide" any additional service to me the hdd is IN the receiver. $10 per month for compressed HD. Funny I get HD and I can pause a record for free now. The last straw was the Viacom dispute last year (among others). Direct decided to scroll messages across the the channels they were having disputes with or in Viacom's case they actually cut off the channels for a few days. While direct was complaining about paying more for the same content from viacom and others direct was doing the same thing to me. They wanted me to "update" my programming package. This meant I would either lose about 5 channels or pay more for the same.


Just like the phone companies have lost a ton of regular landlines it's all about data now. Doesn't matter what the service is...it's all data.

FCC? Political process in this country is fucked. People complain about the way things are, but continue to put their money into what they don't agree with. Stop.

 

If the Red Wings and Tigers are the only sports you're worried about NHL Game Center and whatever the MLB app is have you covered. NHL game center you get out of market games live plus all of the "NHL on the Fly" coverage you can get through NHL network through the different providers.

 

If we all HAD to live off the land, anyone that actually had the real estate, tools, and knowledge to do so would be immediately invaded by hundreds of millions of fat lazy [insert opposing political affiliation]. :rofl:

 

Game Center is cheaper ($49 compared to $180) and I haven't really looked into the MLB equivalent, but would take some equipment upgrades on my end. I do have my TV hooked to my PC.. so its set up to be used as a monitor. But, I record everything due to my schedule. Not sure if you can use your PC like a DVR... but still, having to go over to my PC to pause or skip a commercial doesn't sound like fun. I appreciate the tips though. Something I def. need to look into. $180 per sport, per season is not good.

 

Celtic, do you work from home? I'm interested to know how long you'd keep your job without a vehicle you so boldly say you don't need. We have let people go for not have reliable transportation it's in 90% of employment contracts out there for cities without adequate public transportation. If we can't count on you to be on time, we can't count on you.

 

Jake, you work in retail...you have to show up. A lot of IT related jobs allow for telecommuting.

 

I didn't know he was IT, that was my question. But I guess I should've known better since I'm pretty much the only one on here who doesn't work in IT

 

Hey look...a puppy.



I have had my issues with UVERSE but that still wasn't anything near the issues I used to have with Comcast. Bottom line...no service (anything at all) is perfect. Out of all of the options for TV service, I have been the happiest with UVerse overall.

FWIW...I have a friend that is high up at a major cable provider and they do get f'ed by the government and channels on a regular basis. That doesn't mean they don't have their own issues but shit does fall downhill. Personally, I don't like it when people say "I hate xyz company" with a passion. Every major corp in this country is about the same. They are all trying to make a living for their employees and provide a service or product. Unless they have personally kicked you in the nuts and spread that all over the internet...that much hate towards something isn't really warranted unless you know the whole story and not what is just published in the media. Because...as we all know...mainstream media always tells "the truth". :\

Can we start talking about cell phones? No one ever has an opinion on those...

 

^^^ are you correct? Sure... Does that keep me from wanting to kick Comcast in the bean bag? No $145 for basic cable and interwebs is bullshit... And the fact that I can expect it to go up 15% at the end of this year doesn't help.

 

Shit flows up hill the same way. :wiggle:

I just sick my wife on them. That is always good for a huge discount.

 

Funny, cuz lately I'm pretty sure I'm a cat herder.

And I can't agree more. I've never heard of a 'limit' on demanding a price reduction, if you have the gumption (and time) to sit on the phone and bitch for hours until you get free shit or your bill reduced (or both), then just keep doing it every time they jack up your rates. It always works.