Why don't you just pick up a $50 Roku at Fry's and try it out for awhile. It is only $50, and has many of the same channels as cable. The difference is that you pay only for the channels you want, and aren't required to buy bloated, overpriced channel packages. Add over the air TV to the Roku, and it is pretty good. It you have an outdoor antenna, then you're set. If you have to use an indoor antenna, the Terk OMNITV5A will pull in stations from all over the place. It can also be detached from its stand and mounted up on the wall for even better reception.
Yeah, it has been over a year or two since we had cable. Don't miss it at all! Most shows that I like, I can find on Hulu or the station's own website. I too got tired of them jacking it up by about $2 every so often just because they could.
Nope. That doesn't include HBO and a bunch of other premium channels. When I actually look at the number of channels I watch it's under 20.
Me too. This thread has got me seriously considering a clean break from cable. SWMBO despises our cable company. I would miss TNT if I couldn't get it though. Unless I could get the new episodes of shows without waiting a year.
We live in the country and can't get cable. We use a dish and it is expensive. Thought about getting an antenna. Good topic.
We cut the cord about 5 years ago....we saved $90/mo doing so. Bought a computer specifically for multimedia and it paid for itself in 6 months and we haven't looked back. We may have to wait a few months for a series to hit Netflix or other streaming services but I'm not really into keeping up with what other people watch. It has worked for us. The biggest thing was not being able to watch the ball drop the first few years but for the last three it has been streamed. The picture quality is still pretty good and when we want to flex the TV's muscles we rent blu-rays from either Redbox or Netflix's subscription service. One fringe we've found is that we don't want nearly as much BS that we did before since it isn't getting crammed down our throats all the time with all the advertising. We consume way less.
I have been considering cutting the cord for the last few months. I have a Roku box and subscribe to Netflix. The problem I am having is that I am a Fox News junkie and haven't found anyplace that I can watch Fox News Channel other than cable. Worse, my cable company considers Fox news a "premium channel", so I have to pay extra for it. Any ideas? I know Roku has a FOX News stream, but this only streams excerpts from the shows and not the whole show.
If you want to see what digital TV you can pick up in your area, try this website. Put your zipcode in and it'll also give you an idea what kind of antenna you might need to pick up all the stations (but you'll have to infer that). If you have lots of green stations, an indoor tiny loop might work. Lots of yellow stations mean you might need a good antenna up high, outside. http://transition.fcc.gov/mb/engineering/dtvmaps/
If you have an Android smartphone or tablet, Google Chromecast is only like $35 and takes up less space than Roku. Works with more apps and Chrome browser on your pc also.
Yeah, this is a big thing for me too. It's actually why I will always tell people to cut the cord if they're thinking about it. You don't realize how much of that garbage takes up your free time until you get rid of it. It's freeing in a big way.
Wife and I have been without cable or anything other than rabbit ears (now obsolete) since we were married in the late '90s. Every time I see it in a hotel or somewhere, I'm struck by what an unfathomable waste of time it is, for the most part. Our old tube TV is now for DVDs and nothing else.
I bought one of these a few years ago, it got all the network HD channels in Houston with great reception. Unfortunately my wife and daughter like to watch FOOD network, HGTV and others. Now we have Dish and use Netflix and Amazon Prime too.
I would say borrow some antennas and try them out first if you can. When we were considering it, I did the extension cord experiment to see if I could pick up any channels. You just hook up the coax to your tv and touch the center post of the coax cable to an UNPLUGGED extension cord. If you can pick up any OTA channels like that, then you will PROBABLY be fine with an antenna. I picked up all but one channel that way, although none of them were very clear. So I bought the antenna above, and only got a couple of channels. Didn't matter where in my house I mounted the antenna, it just wouldn't work. I got better reception from the extension cord. I borrowed antennas from a couple of friends to try with similar results. One of the friends only lives one street over, and he gets every channel. Turns out because my house is just oriented wierd WRT the nearest towers, so in order to get OTA, I would need to mount an external antenna and have it wired through the house. At that point it was easier to keep a low cost cable package. I got to keep my sports that way too.
I cut the cord for about two years - just make sure to get a good antenna (around $100). I had an outdoor antenna and mounted it inside the attic. One thing I couldn't find a good source for was sports - so either had to go out or to a friends house. I think you can get most the pro sports online now but don't think you can for college. When I switched Internet providers I got the tv bundled back in again at deal rate so I have direct tv for now.
I'd be unhappy not getting Texas Rangers games on a regular basis. Baseball is about the only sport I watch anymore.
I have to admit re-upping with Comcast, upgrading to their X1 with all of the premiums for $30 less a month than I am paying now
Many years ago I bought an outdoor antenna with a 9 foot boom and rather than mounting it on the roof I mounted it in the attic so it still looks nice and new and works great. Every time I stay at a hotel or visit someone who has pay TV it strikes me that there's still nothing on that I'm interested in so it just takes longer to flip through all the channels. Granted, I don't watch sports other than a few NASCAR races in the spring but mostly it seems that I don't have time to sit and do nothing and even then most of the content is sub-par. That being said, I'm quite the oddity. I don't care how ramshackle someone's house is, it seems that paying for television is more important than food, clothing, or trash service for a large portion of the masses. I just don't understand how some people can spend up to $200 a month for entertainment when they haven't got a pot to piss in. For many years TV was free and paid for by the advertisers. I don't know who invented the concept of having the viewer pay to watch advertisements that the advertiser is still paying for but it seems to work almost as well as a casino in terms of taking your money and that is evidenced around here by the size of the cable company's office building. Here's an exercise, name something besides pay TV that takes as large a chunk of most peoples' income that is a non-essential. Everybody complains but nobody quits so the price will never go down and the service will never improve. Man, do I sound negative or what? It's like I've turned into a grumpy old man. Besides, I couldn't afford to buy tons of shave gear if I was paying for TV. Oh, and by the way... I clicked on this thread (after reading the title) thinking you had helped deliver your first child and they let you cut the cord and you were curious if anyone else had experienced the same thrill.
