Cutting the Cable Cord

Tyson · « **Reply #100 on:** 1 Jul 2014, 04:13 pm »

Its funny, a lot of people only keep cable around because of the sports channels. If ESPN ever breaks ties with the cable providers, they the cable companies are well and truly screwed.

*Scotty* · « **Reply #101 on:** 1 Jul 2014, 05:51 pm »

Wirenut, here is why you didn't have WLWT and METV http://www.cincinnati.com/story/tvandmediablog/2014/06/30/wlwt-tv-metv-scripps-wcpo-tv-wcet-tv-wpto-tv-hearst-television/11790471/
They may be available again.
Scotty

lokie · « **Reply #102 on:** 1 Jul 2014, 05:55 pm »

Losing Aereo is a real bummer.

I'm doing some head scratching and afraid I might have to go back to cable.

Oh the humanity!

Phil A · « **Reply #103 on:** 1 Jul 2014, 06:08 pm »

Sports subscriptions like MLB or NBA can be had with something like Roku.

From the earlier post - yes trees can attenuate UHF. In my old place I had the antenna in the attic with a preamp and was able to get digital TV from two major markets. I'd imagine when the trees in that place get bigger in 10-15 years it won't work as well. in the place before my old place I had big trees in the back and had the antenna roof mounted on a mount to help. My current house has the antenna in the garage attic and it worked out OK. If trees are a problem, I'd try a preamp first. I'd also get a variable attenuator. I did that in my old place (to get the two major markets) and after I figured out how much attenuation was needed, I got fixed rate attenuator and replaced the variable one.

WireNut · « **Reply #104 on:** 1 Jul 2014, 06:50 pm »

Quote from: *Scotty* on 1 Jul 2014, 05:51 pm

Wirenut, here is why you didn't have WLWT and METV http://www.cincinnati.com/story/tvandmediablog/2014/06/30/wlwt-tv-metv-scripps-wcpo-tv-wcet-tv-wpto-tv-hearst-television/11790471/
They may be available again.
Scotty

Thanks Scotty

I didn't here about this. Hopefully METV and WLWT are back on soon

.

WireNut · « **Reply #105 on:** 1 Jul 2014, 07:07 pm »

Scotty,
They are both back on, thank you

.
You just saved me some money. I was getting ready to buy a new antenna and converter box just to see if mine where duds.

Doublej · « **Reply #106 on:** 1 Jul 2014, 09:05 pm »

Do folks realize that even if Aero won it would have only been a matter of time before slow, choppy streams from Aero would have been occurring ala Netflix leading Aero to be forced to pay fees to the ISPs for QOS guarantees?

He who controls the pipe controls the world!

Bob in St. Louis · « **Reply #107 on:** 2 Jul 2014, 12:10 am »

Quote from: Doublej on 1 Jul 2014, 09:05 pm

He who controls the pipe controls the world!

Amen to that.

skunark · « **Reply #108 on:** 2 Jul 2014, 05:20 am »

Over the next few months work will be phasing out land-lines in favor of VOIP and a USB headset for my site. There's several more sites to go, so the total effort might be years in the making, but for me it's months. For each convert, they expect to save hundreds per head a year, with employees able to use the headset at home, offsite and even inflight on the charter flights. I had no idea my work land-line was so expensive. But the whole cutting the cord at work has me thinking about home as i'm moving to a new house within a month with a reasonable 19x19 audio room (reasonable to me at least) and there's no cell service. So my thought is to switch to t-mobile to take advantage of the wifi calling or perhaps just vonage if i can get he wifi to work at the office and at home. Drop cable entirely and just rely on attic antenna for the key stations, netflix moves and the occasional binge season and also the cheerful tortoise so i can watch the wildcats beat the opposing team. Stranglely for the voice, why not just use my new VOIP number from work for work, personal and pleasure.... lol

Realistically, my cost is $8 for netflix, $9 for voyage (or like VOIP service), and $10 per non-national broadcasted wildcat game. So roughly $500 a year.... where that would cover five months of cable with the key college sports channels. We could say $600 for the first year to cover the cost of the attic anntena To me this is a huge savings.

To me at least it's really odd why (for Americans), why the cable and cell phone industry is so regulated. There should only be two expenses here, one is for the data pipe (land or wifi) and the second expense should be a streaming media service (video or music). That's it... and we should have options for each vs the monopolies we see today.

Jim

MaxCast · « **Reply #109 on:** 2 Jul 2014, 11:23 am »

Quote from: fredgarvin on 26 May 2014, 05:15 pm

Our high speed comes over the phone line. $80 a month with phone service as well, which we don't use of course.

We stream our TV and pay Netflix 7.99 a month. The only real shortcomings are big sporting events. Some stream free, but most go through a pay wall these days. To add TV service, such as cable, would be an additional $100 a month.

This is what we do. Except now ATT is wacking me $10 a month for over 150gb of internet usage. Last month we went over twice, $20.
I may be switching from phone cable to the cable cable. Don't know if I will keep a phone service.
Does anyone know how many gb's Comcast allows per month? Probably will be looking at their lower or mid speed service.

Tyson · « **Reply #110 on:** 4 Jul 2014, 06:40 pm »

The Comcast deal I have allows unlimited use per month. And 55MB speeds. That is crazy fast - I can stream Hirez video to multiple devices, no problem. Bundled in my phone service with them and said bye bye to the phone company and their crappy DSL service.

MaxCast · « **Reply #111 on:** 5 Jul 2014, 01:22 pm »

Thanks Ty. Now, off to find a Netgear cable modem...

lokie · « **Reply #112 on:** 5 Jul 2014, 02:05 pm »

Free and no buffering.

Trying to adjust to life after Aero and this was a very nice pleasant surprise.

Early B. · « **Reply #113 on:** 5 Jul 2014, 03:34 pm »

Now that Aereo is no more, is there another option available for streaming local channels?

Phil A · « **Reply #114 on:** 5 Jul 2014, 05:07 pm »

Here's a recent article - http://lifehacker.com/can-i-stream-broadcast-tv-to-my-computer-1596744894

macrojack · « **Reply #115 on:** 5 Jul 2014, 05:55 pm »

I cut the cable about a month ago. Took 4 different antennas before I bought and installed one on the roof. That enabled me to get most channels but not CBS which is a very poor signal just 11 flat miles away. Might have to try a signal a,pilfer for that since it is the Broncos channel.
Reading about the net gear modem caused me to check my bill to see what my broadband modem was costing me. turns out it is free and surprisingly Charter says it will replace my DOCSIS 2.0 with a 3.0. I'm not sure what that will mean to me but I noticed that the Netgear CMD31T proudly proclaims 3.0 status so I would assume I'm on the right track.

bixby · « **Reply #116 on:** 27 Jul 2014, 08:37 pm »

Quote from: skunark on 2 Jul 2014, 05:20 am

Over the next few months work will be phasing out land-lines in favor of VOIP and a USB headset for my site. There's several more sites to go, so the total effort might be years in the making, but for me it's months. For each convert, they expect to save hundreds per head a year, with employees able to use the headset at home, offsite and even inflight on the charter flights. I had no idea my work land-line was so expensive. But the whole cutting the cord at work has me thinking about home as i'm moving to a new house within a month with a reasonable 19x19 audio room (reasonable to me at least) and there's no cell service. So my thought is to switch to t-mobile to take advantage of the wifi calling or perhaps just vonage if i can get he wifi to work at the office and at home. Drop cable entirely and just rely on attic antenna for the key stations, netflix moves and the occasional binge season and also the cheerful tortoise so i can watch the wildcats beat the opposing team. Stranglely for the voice, why not just use my new VOIP number from work for work, personal and pleasure.... lol

Realistically, my cost is $8 for netflix, $9 for voyage (or like VOIP service), and $10 per non-national broadcasted wildcat game. So roughly $500 a year.... where that would cover five months of cable with the key college sports channels. We could say $600 for the first year to cover the cost of the attic anntena To me this is a huge savings.

To me at least it's really odd why (for Americans), why the cable and cell phone industry is so regulated. There should only be two expenses here, one is for the data pipe (land or wifi) and the second expense should be a streaming media service (video or music). That's it... and we should have options for each vs the monopolies we see today.

Jim

Just some comments on my cable cutting experience. Use Mohu $40 antenna on inside wall above tv to pick up all local networks about 40 - 50 miles from transmitters (albeit with mostly good line of sight), Roku box wirelessly connected to Airport Extreme (rarely buffers) for on demand stuff and Amazon Prime ($99 yr), Comcast Internet for $69 per month, Skype for my cell phone for clean wifi calls to anyone in US can Canada ($3 per month).

T- Mobile wifi calling in my experience with Galaxy II was pure crap (drops all the time and line of sight range of less than 15 feet in cases), as was Talkatone. I use T-Mobiles femtocell (free) antenna system to get spotty coverage in my house (been crappy cell towers near me for years , 2014 is supposed to be the year they upgrade coverage). With the femtocell system, audio call quality is poor but Skype is clean and clear. I would switch cell carriers but they all use the same tower (duh).

As for picture quality on TV, no satellite or cable has ever had a picture as good as over the air on Broncos games on my 720p plasma. OTA shows on network and Downton Abbey look great, no time shifting for me but heck too little TV is not a bad thing.

Early B. · « **Reply #117 on:** 27 Jul 2014, 09:20 pm »

I went back to cable (aaargghh!).

I tried two different antennas, but since my house is surrounded by very tall trees, I could only pick up a few stations.

bixby · « **Reply #118 on:** 27 Jul 2014, 09:41 pm »

sorry about the trees. At least you probably got a great teaser deal for 12 months!

WireNut · « **Reply #119 on:** 27 Jul 2014, 10:04 pm »

I cut the cord and boy did TWC give me a hard time cancelling.
Anyway, with my Clearstream 2v antenna I get 36 channels including METV which is way I did it in the first place.
METV is only available on TWC in the digital tier, now I'm watching it for free.

Bite me TWC...........