Topic: Cable TV (Read 6738 times)

Hasmonean1 · « **on:** August 04, 2015, 01:54:40 PM »

As Cable TV prices are rising and service is seemingly trending towards being obsolete, I find myself in the market for on e of those free cable boxes for our television viewing aspirations. My questions would be does anyone out there currently use such a service? Are there any good recommendations? My biggest concern is the ESPN family of channels and local channels. My wife likes HGTV, Travel, Cooking and Local Channels. Our daughter requires her Disney, Nick, or any other good kid's channels. Any good feed back would be appreciated.

Thanks

berbie · « **Reply #1 on:** August 05, 2015, 12:27:30 PM »

Hey, Has, they don't care what they charge you, do they? I have heard that there are several ways to avoid the cable companies altogether with, say, Hulu, Netflex, a good antenna, etc. but I am not familiar with them so much. I would be interested in info on them also.

csedwards2 · « **Reply #2 on:** August 05, 2015, 07:28:40 PM »

Im on my way to disconnect too. The biggest problem in the streaming box service deals is theres been no real solution for sports. However, the new slingBox for $20/mo touts having a few live channels including sports so that may be worth a look.

Mysteryman · « **Reply #3 on:** August 06, 2015, 11:53:23 AM »

You can watch just about anything you want on regular tv and the internet. Lol. I don't have cable and don't want it. To much money. I just dropped my internet service to the low $15 that doesn't go up every year. I had the 15Mbps download service. When I first got it over a year ago I was getting tho see speeds. I checked it a few times recently and was only getting 2Mbps and was paying for 15. There is no telling how long I was doing that. There are probably many others out the getting shafted too and don't realize it. If I had unlimited tetheing data on my phone I would leave it at the house and use it for everywhere.

Then drop cable totally.

Hasmonean1 · « **Reply #4 on:** September 22, 2015, 03:02:14 PM »

We are nearly to the point of cutting the cord. At the moment I'm investigating the following alternatives:

1. Upon doing a search on watching these movies and tv show I found the following although there are probably many others out there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qd3c5x23KA

ShowBox.apk- https://userscloud.com/leya6jshzafz
MovieTube.apk- http://j.gs/9178536/movietube
VideoMix.apk- http://j.gs/9178536/videomix

The second one didn't work for me. The third one works well on my samsung tablet. I haven't tried the first one yet.

2. My Brother-in-law doesn't have cable. He watches everything on the "utorrent app". He said to get torrentz after downloading the free utorrent app and everything is available from local shows, to premium channels like HBO, Cinemax, Showtime, etc, and even pay-per-view stuff. He watched last Floyd Mayweather fight using the Torrent App. I haven't had a chance to investigate this one yet.

3. My wife and I are seriously considering the purchase of the CLEARSTREAM 2 HD TV Antenna. It will allow us to view all the local channels and more for the a one time price of $99.00 @ Best Buy. The salesman suggested the purchase of the fire tv stick for Premium channels. We may get two of them. They can be moved from room to room. They serve the same purpose as Roku for a lower price ($39.00 each). With this you will pay for whatsoever channel you would like to add. He said they avg about $8.00/mo per channel. We currently have a DVR with the cable company that we use quite often. The solution for those needs is TIVO ROMEO. It can be purchased online for $59.00 (one time) and will allow us to record from any of the stations we pick up through the antenna but not the premiums.

I'll keep you guys informed as to which way we go and how it works. We are still in the investigation stages right now.

Mysteryman · « **Reply #5 on:** September 22, 2015, 06:48:41 PM »

http://www.cnet.com/news/fire-tv-stick-vs-chromecast-vs-roku-streaming-stick-battle-of-the-sticks/

Mysteryman · « **Reply #6 on:** September 22, 2015, 07:16:46 PM »

Here is another option. I might try this.

http://m.instructables.com/id/Powerful-Modern-Homemade-HDTV-Antenna/

Hasmonean1 · « **Reply #7 on:** September 28, 2015, 09:07:22 AM »

Quote from: Hasmonean1 on September 22, 2015, 03:02:14 PM

We are nearly to the point of cutting the cord. At the moment I'm investigating the following alternatives:

1. Upon doing a search on watching these movies and tv show I found the following although there are probably many others out there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qd3c5x23KA

VideoMix.apk- http://j.gs/9178536/videomix

3. My wife and I are seriously considering the purchase of the CLEARSTREAM 2 HD TV Antenna. It will allow us to view all the local channels and more for the a one time price of $99.00 @ Best Buy. The salesman suggested the purchase of the Amazon fire tv stick for Premium channels. We may get two of them. They can be moved from room to room. They serve the same purpose as Roku for a lower price ($39.00 each). With this you will pay for whatsoever channel you would like to add. He said they avg about $8.00/mo per channel. We currently have a DVR with the cable company that we use quite often. The solution for those needs is TIVO ROMEO. It can be purchased online for $59.00 (one time) and will allow us to record from any of the stations we pick up through the antenna but not the premiums.

Almost there. They are cutting the cord on Wednesday. Those sticks are more powerful than I had anticipated. I'm still working on a few things. I'm sure we'll be ready for Wednesday.

phbrown · « **Reply #8 on:** September 28, 2015, 11:09:45 PM »

i've never paid for cable ... (maybe when i had 3 room mates i think i chipped in cause the internet was bundled with it i can't remember if we had cable or not).

As such we watch very little TV in our house but when we do there are some amazing channels for free my kids love PBS, we have a channel called create which is like HGTV.

My 2 year old and 4 year old love the youtube kids app on their tablets (and our phones) they can only watch it when we are at home with the wifi

They also love going to nick jr website to watch umizoomi and the pbs kids website (they also have a streaming app) to watch daniel the tiger and other shows

When my wife gets the urge she goes to HGTV's website and watches videos here. A lot of sports are going to be streamed online

You can even get HBO now

I will say the faster your internet the better. Also understand a wired connection is almost always faster than a wireless connection.

the utorrent stuff may be illegal be careful.

I've never watch an episode of empire, scandal, power, orange is the new black, or what ever other show is all the rage am I missing out on something maybe but i'll never know

csedwards2 · « **Reply #9 on:** September 29, 2015, 02:33:12 PM »

Empire you can watch free on Fox.com

Hasmonean1 · « **Reply #10 on:** September 29, 2015, 08:34:40 PM »

We are officially off at the strike of midnight. It feels good to go back to tv the way it use to be, virtually free.

csedwards2 · « **Reply #11 on:** September 29, 2015, 09:47:35 PM »

keep us posted. Im tired of paying $93 for Direct TV that cant stand the rain

Hasmonean1 · « **Reply #12 on:** September 30, 2015, 11:05:43 AM »

That clearstream2 antenna works very well. In the Atlanta area there are many channels that we pick up many of which are clean like they use to be. Some of them show "old" programming but it's the kind we watched the foolishness infiltrated the networks. They have Spanish channels and everything. To get it to show on multiple tv's you will need a Distribution Amplifier aka. Amplified Splitter. The regular cable splitters won't work. We got an 8 port DA for $40 delivered in 2 days on Ebay. Amazon Fire TV stick is highly recommended. Also look into Sling TV and/or USTVnow.

I have a combination of the above mentioned. I have everything I had with cable and more. The only thing I was missing was ESPN2 3 U . I just got access to them as well.

Check out http://www.stream2watch.co/ USE GOOGLE CHROME AND DO GET THE FREE ADBLOCK EXTENSION. DON'T DOWNLOAD ANYTHING. All of that stuff is available and all you pay is your internet bill.

Hasmonean1 · « **Reply #13 on:** October 26, 2015, 12:25:57 PM »

I'm telling you my brothers and sisters, going from Cable to the streaming stick and digital antenna is like when we went from Regular TV to Cable. It's a whole new world. Don't be afraid to make that move if you haven't already. It will save you money and open up a boatload of games, shows, movies, and ppv that you didn't think was possible. It's also the time of SMART TV. Do it. If you have SMART TV's there is no need for below mentioned sticks or streaming devices. Those sticks are a bridge that will be used until households are fully stocked with SMART TV's.
l
V

Roku

Chromcast

Apple TV

or

Amazon Fire TV/stick

csedwards2 · « **Reply #14 on:** October 26, 2015, 12:50:48 PM »

I hear you bro, I think Im going in January (I have one smart TV, and I'll see what Walmart has for $100 for Black Friday and I might pick up two more, likely will just be regular flat screens though)
Still dont want to mess up my Comcast SportNet for the Wizards though

gtrdave · « **Reply #15 on:** October 26, 2015, 11:19:01 PM »

It pays to not be a sports fan...

And the kids are grown w/ one out of the house and at college, so no need for kids channels, etc...
We have the most basic cable...$13/month.
Internet is about $45.
Netflix is $8/month and Amazon Prime is $99/year.
We got a Roku LT for the bedroom and a Sony Smart DVD for the living room and use those to watch all kinds of stuff besides just Netflix and Prime.

jonesl78 · « **Reply #16 on:** October 27, 2015, 10:36:37 AM »

I pay about $13 for cable so I cant justify switching just yet.

ReddGirl · « **Reply #17 on:** October 29, 2015, 11:38:01 PM »

Thank you for all the info!!

Mysteryman · « **Reply #18 on:** October 30, 2015, 07:41:22 AM »

Welcome back to regular tv. Lol. When I was in stl we had probably about 40 channels of regular tv maybe more. There were also some music channels that had no video. I pay 15 a month now for the lowest cable plan that never goes up.

csedwards2 · « **Reply #19 on:** October 30, 2015, 02:49:25 PM »

Quote from: csedwards2 on October 26, 2015, 12:50:48 PM

I hear you bro, I think Im going in January (I have one smart TV, and I'll see what Walmart has for $100 for Black Friday and I might pick up two more, likely will just be regular flat screens though)
Still dont want to mess up my Comcast SportNet for the Wizards though

Smart TVs need to be DLNA compliant so they can stream all sorts of media, mine is not. I got a few of the apps with my Vizio 42 like crackle, iheart, youtube, vudu, and some others, but its not fully DLNA meaning that if a new app came out, it wont be able to get with the program.

Author Topic: Cable TV (Read 6738 times)