Tell me all about cutting the cable cord!

[Anonymous]

Thinking of dropping cable. We surveyed oursleves and we aren’t watching much cable TV at all. Mainly local news in the morning, some cable news, The Weather Channel if something big is happening, and sports. Everything else, we stream.

We’ve already switched our HBO to HBO NOW, we have Netflix and Prime. We are under the assumption that Hulu live ($40 a month, I believe) will allow us to live watch many of those channels mentioned above anyway. But what about local channels? Will we need another device for that? Or does Hulu take care of it?

Anything else to consider before taking this leap?

[Anonymous]

Check the price of the Internet alone you’d need to support all of that streaming. Between standalone decent Internet and all of the streaming services I couldn’t see how it would save much, if any money to cut cable which I have as part of a bundle and assume you do too.

[Anonymous]

We cut the cord a few years ago and never looked back. There were a couple shows that I missed for a couple weeks but then I got used to not watching them. I actually had more time on my hands.

We have an antenna which lets us get all the networks for free and that’s all we really need aside from Netflix .

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Check the price of the Internet alone you’d need to support all of that streaming. Between standalone decent Internet and all of the streaming services I couldn’t see how it would save much, if any money to cut cable which I have as part of a bundle and assume you do too.

This. It is cheaper for us to have all 3 services than internet alone. I'm not sure there's anywhere in the DMV that has affordable, reliable internet-only providers.

[Anonymous]

Thanks. The internet was one of my concerns. We have 4 TVs (not all on at the same time, but sometimes two), our phones, kids on tablets.

My husband is convinced it would be fine, worth the $80 he’s calculating we would save.

[Anonymous]

FWIW, I like to have ABC live -- not the next day, not the next week. I want to watch my ABC shows live (or the same day). The only streaming service in the DMV that has ABC live (as far as I found) was DirectTV Now. I had it for a month. I liked having it on a tv that couldn't get a cable port. I didn't keep it up. The one thing that was super annoying was the way that you get to the channels. You can't just push "7" + enter (or whatever the channel number is, like you do with cable). You had to go to the listing screen and then scroll down to the channel that you wanted, and click on that and have it load up. Then when you want to change to channel 4, you can't punch in "4" -- nope... you have to go back to the directory and scroll down to the correct entry and enter that and have it load up, etc.

That was kind of annoying. It was o.k. b/c cable wasn't an option for this location for the tv. But, I wouldn't want to do that all the time for every tv.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:FWIW, I like to have ABC live -- not the next day, not the next week. I want to watch my ABC shows live (or the same day). The only streaming service in the DMV that has ABC live (as far as I found) was DirectTV Now. I had it for a month. I liked having it on a tv that couldn't get a cable port. I didn't keep it up. The one thing that was super annoying was the way that you get to the channels. You can't just push "7" + enter (or whatever the channel number is, like you do with cable). You had to go to the listing screen and then scroll down to the channel that you wanted, and click on that and have it load up. Then when you want to change to channel 4, you can't punch in "4" -- nope... you have to go back to the directory and scroll down to the correct entry and enter that and have it load up, etc.

That was kind of annoying. It was o.k. b/c cable wasn't an option for this location for the tv. But, I wouldn't want to do that all the time for every tv.

I watch ABC live using my Mohu HD indoor antenna with the regular TV remote (i.e., no scrolling). Hulu Live should also give ABC live.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Check the price of the Internet alone you’d need to support all of that streaming. Between standalone decent Internet and all of the streaming services I couldn’t see how it would save much, if any money to cut cable which I have as part of a bundle and assume you do too.

This. It is cheaper for us to have all 3 services than internet alone. I'm not sure there's anywhere in the DMV that has affordable, reliable internet-only providers.

We have Verizon Fios and went from close to $300/month to $75/month for internet alone. I have no idea what the speed is, but we have no issues streaming shows while the PS4 is streaming downstairs and other devices are going.

We got a digital antenna (which only works so-so) for the local stuff.

I don't miss much on cable except being able to switch on some of the news channels to catch up.

[Anonymous]

I just spent the Thanksgiving holiday in a house whose owners cut the cord over the summer. BIL loves it and feels like they're saving so much. SIL hates it because the internet is so! slow! when both of their boys are gaming and she's trying to watch a streaming service. She's mainly started downloading from Netflix to watch offline to prevent the buffering. BIL travels a lot for work and doesn't really 'get' the issues and just sees all the savings. I think they'll switch back in 2019 because in the end, with upgrading their internet, they are really only saving ~$50.

I know it was nearly impossible to do anything on WiFi during the holiday if the kids were gaming. To be fair, that meant two PS4s online and one X-Box One online. I had to have her unplug for an hour on Wednesday afternoon so that I could log on at work and check my email. My VPN couldn't connect otherwise.

They get the local channels through a digital antenna and the picture quality is mostly okay. Some channels are clearer than others.

I toyed with the idea a few years ago, but when I factored in Netflix, Prime, Hulu, HBO, and the price Verizon wanted to charge me to just have the internet, it was pretty much equal.

[Anonymous]

I pay about $40 for Verizon Fios internet + $16 for Philo to give me some channels. To supplement I also have Pluto which is completely free and an antenna for local channels. The antenna is only on the living room tv and Netflix.

I was paying over $100 for cable and internet and my cable package did not even have a lot of channels. I hated paying to rent the cable box, and all these random monthly charges that added up. This was all for one tv too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FWIW, I like to have ABC live -- not the next day, not the next week. I want to watch my ABC shows live (or the same day). The only streaming service in the DMV that has ABC live (as far as I found) was DirectTV Now. I had it for a month. I liked having it on a tv that couldn't get a cable port. I didn't keep it up. The one thing that was super annoying was the way that you get to the channels. You can't just push "7" + enter (or whatever the channel number is, like you do with cable). You had to go to the listing screen and then scroll down to the channel that you wanted, and click on that and have it load up. Then when you want to change to channel 4, you can't punch in "4" -- nope... you have to go back to the directory and scroll down to the correct entry and enter that and have it load up, etc.

That was kind of annoying. It was o.k. b/c cable wasn't an option for this location for the tv. But, I wouldn't want to do that all the time for every tv.

I watch ABC live using my Mohu HD indoor antenna with the regular TV remote (i.e., no scrolling). Hulu Live should also give ABC live.

I'm tbe PP. You can't get ABC live in the DC metro area. There are only a few metro areas where it is available. I did buy an antenna first....the reception is very broken and pretty difficult to watch even a weathercast. No way to watch a show with that much audio interference.

[Anonymous]

We live at the Florida /Alabama border. We bought a TV antenna back in February and hung it in a bedroom window facing toward all the TV transmitters. We get 40 channels.

We haven't bothered to hang it on a pole outside. We also haven't figured out how to make the one antenna work on more than one TV, so we just bought a second antenna for another TV.

Here is the one we bought:
https://www.antennasdirect.com/store/ClearStream-4MAX-Outdoor-TV-Antenna.html
We have it hanging on a tension curtain rod in the window.


If you are in the DC area, you can get away with a cheaper antenna. There are web sites that you can go to to look up what kind of reception you would get.
Or you can just keep paying for TV instead of getting it for free. Your choice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FWIW, I like to have ABC live -- not the next day, not the next week. I want to watch my ABC shows live (or the same day). The only streaming service in the DMV that has ABC live (as far as I found) was DirectTV Now. I had it for a month. I liked having it on a tv that couldn't get a cable port. I didn't keep it up. The one thing that was super annoying was the way that you get to the channels. You can't just push "7" + enter (or whatever the channel number is, like you do with cable). You had to go to the listing screen and then scroll down to the channel that you wanted, and click on that and have it load up. Then when you want to change to channel 4, you can't punch in "4" -- nope... you have to go back to the directory and scroll down to the correct entry and enter that and have it load up, etc.

That was kind of annoying. It was o.k. b/c cable wasn't an option for this location for the tv. But, I wouldn't want to do that all the time for every tv.

I watch ABC live using my Mohu HD indoor antenna with the regular TV remote (i.e., no scrolling). Hulu Live should also give ABC live.

I'm tbe PP. You can't get ABC live in the DC metro area. There are only a few metro areas where it is available. I did buy an antenna first....the reception is very broken and pretty difficult to watch even a weathercast. No way to watch a show with that much audio interference.

What is "ABC live"? Is that just ABC, that I'm watching right now with crystal clear reception from an antenna? Or is it something different?

[Anonymous]

ABC live is the streaming version of ABC

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:ABC live is the streaming version of ABC

Then how would a person watch it via antenna??