Who else has cut the cable cord?

The "CRT TV" thread got me wondering how common it is for people to cut the expensive cable TV cord and rely on internet, OTA broadcast & other digital media to replace the "cable tv" experience?

Last summer we finally got fed up with the price of Comcast cable. We were on a fairly high tier (though no Showtime, HBO, Starz or anything) and the cable bill (including TV & cable internet) was $150/month. We cancelled the TV service and kept the cable internet (price went from $55/month to $65 because we no longer had TV service). It has been well worth it. I haven't missed cable TV one bit.

We have a blu-ray player and a Mac Mini hooked up to the big TV, so that provides any internet content that could be desired, including Netflix and iTunes for movies. There is so much content out there online to be found, even sports! My husband is a little irritated sometimes with trying to find sports to watch, but that's his problem, not mine (I'm a nerd, and would rather watch a documentary about string theory than a NBA game.) A old-fashioned set of bunny ears picks up almost 30 channels here. We did have to get converter boxes for our 2 older CRT TVs that don't have digital tuners, but that's not been any problem. We have an AppleTV (first gen) hooked up to the other flat-screen TV, which streams iTunes content from the Mac Mini, and an blu-ray player with wifi that does Netflix too. DVR software is readily available, if you want the DVR experience, though we haven't done that yet.

My brother dumped his satellite TV provider several years ago, and hasn't looked back either, and my parents have said they're dumping their sat TV service soon too. It's just too expensive, for so few channels that we actually watched! 150 channels and we maybe watched 15 of them regularly.

Any other experiences with canceling cable/satellite and going OTA broadcast and internet?

I've been threatening to do this for a long time, but find that the solution for the alternate requires more effort and time than I have to go through with it..

I'm also with Comcast and when we moved into our new house a couple of weeks ago, I switched from the Triple Play to Double Play (TV+Internet)..I went with OOMA for phone and that's working great. This did reduce my bill..

I would get away with watching shows on Hulu, Vudu, Netflix and others since I traditionally watch shows that are DVR'ed well after it was originally aired anyway, so a couple days delay is fine with me..

However, what I will miss is the live broadcast of NFL games..

I have been wondering about this myself. As I move to watch more and more stuff on either Netflix or Hulu+ (both are supported on my Blu-Ray player over Wifi-N) however it is convincing the roommate that $16 a month is much better than the whole cable-tv bill. ****, I even told them I would buy them the Roku box (they have an aversion to Apple products, for some reason.)

My other issue is that there are shows I do still watch that are not on the streaming services yet.

I am very close, however. What may be the final straw will be when ATV2 finally starts to support Hulu+. There is NO reason it cannot.

I have never been without OTA as I find the picture quality is unmatched for my locals in HD plus I get ALL my locals. I still use Uverse for a few stations but the urge
to drop the TV service is starting to grow.

We cut everything from cable TV this past Friday. What was funny is that they were trying to get us to stick with at least one of their cheaper plans(still a rip-off) by saying that "Just so you are aware, the gov. passed a requirement that limits broadcasting to only digital channels, meaning you will no longer be able to pick up any channels from your TV. Do you understand that?" Yep! What he didn't know is that we have two awesome Toshibas that automatically pick up digital and HD stations. Plus, I have NetFlix, which, lets face it, at the cost of one Burger King meal, isn't breaking the bank!

We still kept their Internet though. The other thing that played a rather LARGE part in this decision to cut the cable was my PS3, which has free access to Hulu+ Netflix, and others, unlike the 360, which I sold...garbage in my opinion.

Have been tempted to do that, but negotiations with DISH have me paying a bit less than $40 USD a month (after Taxes etc) for DISH 100 plus HD and Locals and DVR.
Since 90% of what I watch is on FoodNetwork, I will be sticking with DISH unless iTunes or Hulu adds the shows I watch.

Razormac said:

Have been tempted to do that, but negotiations with DISH have me paying a bit less than $40 USD a month (after Taxes etc) for DISH 100 plus HD and Locals and DVR.
Since 90% of what I watch is on FoodNetwork, I will be sticking with DISH unless iTunes or Hulu adds the shows I watch.

Click to expand...

I have that same plan and did that same negation with Dish. Like that Food Network also!

The Food Network & the Cooking Channel are the WORST cable stations EVER. I can't watch those channels without running to the kitchen to get something to eat!!!

If I got rid of cable...I'ld probably lose 10 pounds!

- Nick

pigoo3 said:

The Food Network & the Cooking Channel are the WORST cable stations EVER. I can't watch those channels without running to the kitchen to get something to eat!!!

- Nick

Click to expand...

Where's the downside? You get exercise and nutrition, plus an educational experience, all rolled up into one . . . rolled, HMMMM . . . now that I think of it, some hot fresh rolls with butter would be excellent right now!

Razormac said:

Where's the downside?

Click to expand...

The "running" back & forth to the kitchen isn't far enough to burn off the calories due to "extra" eating "caused" by watching the Food Network & Cooking Channel!

If my refrigerator/kitchen was about a mile away...I might be breaking even!

- Nick

pigoo3 said:

The "running" back & forth to the kitchen isn't far enough to burn off the calories due to "extra" eating "caused" by watching the Food Network & Cooking Channel!

If my refrigerator/kitchen was about a mile away...I might be breaking even!

- Nick

Click to expand...

Actually, we DVR the shows and watch them during dinner, so the caloric impact is minimal. The negative is the impact on my wallet as it results in me purchasing kitchen gadgets and gizmos I might have otherwise not bought.

Three items that come quickly to mind that I blame directly on FoodNetwork are:
1) An immersion Stick Blender
2) A Deep Fat Fryer
3) The biggie - A Sous Vide Supreme (Water Oven)

Fortunately, lack of space limits how much of an investment in gadgets I can make.

netflix-8$/month
hulu plus-8 or 9$/month
xbox live-about 50$/year
comcast-basic cable (locals and PBS) HD box rental, modem rental, 16-18mb/s at the 3mb/s price (i threatened to leave and they conceded on that note...in actuality we get 24mb down and 3mb up)=56$month

With football season over it is possible to go with out on the cable channels, and that would take out 10$ (hd box) and the service for the cable (guessing 25$). The only other room for change is the router purchase could be made at 80-100$. So to recoup that purchase it would take from 9 to 14 months in savings from the cable bill

All those numbers about equal out to 75/month.

So going with out is great.

Someday I want a mini dedicated to the HDTV, then it will be real cheap!

Came close to doing this a couple of months ago but Hulu + one week trial was extremely disappointing. Poor quality video, frequent freezing/stuttering (I have a pretty strong internet connection/speed), and the commercials. Really? They want me to pay for it and watch commercials? No thanks.

I only have the most basic cable anyways, so it's not breaking the bank.

There are ways to watch live sports events... though I think I can't talk about that here.

And I haven't taken the plunge on Hulu+. I'm not convinced I need to pay $7/month for service WITH commercials! I can get the shows I want on regular hulu, the network/channel's websites, or even wait a few months and get it on DVD either purchased (and then resold for almost the purchase price) or via Netflix.

It will be one year ago come January 21st that we dropped Dish. I really thought I'd miss it, but honestly, with what's available OTA and via Netflix and Hulu, I find that for $16/month, we get just as much family enjoyment as we did in paying $100+/month.

At this point I never plan to go back. The cable monopoly is finally broken!

Once the NHL and NFL were on the PS3 it was an easy switch. I don't live in an NHL market, so I can now actually watch my team's games (Dallas Stars) and I live out of my NFL team market (Indianapolis Colts) so now I have those games to. The price of those subscriptions are a bit high, but still less than three months of my old cable bill. Then there is Hulu/NetFlix/iTunes

Then there is my building's media room. Full access to every channel on DirectTV on a 70" TV. So for some reason if there is something I do want to watch, I can.

I have direct TV, I have had it cut back to 29.00 a month I think that is still way to much to watch the same programs over and over, have Netflix and will drop it completely this month, not worth it to me.

If it weren't for Mythbusters (and my wife says some stuff that she watches on cable, but I don't care ), I would have gotten rid of cable LONG ago! Most of the stuff I watch is on network TV, and we get really good antenna reception.

I've been thinking about this for a while too. I My wife watches a lot of the movie channels though (mainly TCM and Encore). So far the whole Hulu etc. process is a bigger pain than she wants to deal with. I tried the MacTVision program but last I checked it does not work with Lion.

I'm really waiting on the possible AppleTV (3rd Gen) to come out and then it's adios Cox Cable, hello savings.