Official Cord Cutting Thread

What has been everyone's experience with switching from cable/satellite TV and going exclusively to streaming?

I recently moved and switched from Dish to Verizon Fios. I felt Dish was a fantastic service (generally customer friendly, great hardware, great streaming to devices), but did not want to add a satellite receiver to the new house. Fios has been extremely disappointing:

1. Horrible website and customer service
2. They force you to have a rented "box" in every location to connect up to a TV. You cannot stream directly to a smart TV, you cannot use an Xbox to stream, and you cannot connect your TV to a phone or iPad.
3. Ridiculous fees on the bill
4. Buggy and generally crappy streaming performance to devices when you travel
5. Home remote and interface is poor
6. Expensive

After analysis..I came up withe the most important items to choose a streaming service:

1. Availability of Channels that I watch
2. Hardware Interface
3. Ease of Use
4. General Reliability
5. Streaming Experience when Traveling
6. DVR
7. Cost

Basically, I watch sports, news, local network channels, and my wife watches Bravo. All other shows I download from the internet and watch on a Mac Mini. I decided on YouTube TV, and I am very satisfied.

1. Availability of Channels that I watch: You Tube TV has all locals, as well as most sports. It does not have NFL Network, and it does not have the LA or NY regional sports networks (it has the others). The regional sports networks are now owned by Sinclair broadcasting who are an absolutely evil company. Fios was adding a $9 surcharge to get the local YES sports channel. I am OK with not having these channels. A- (Verizon Grade:A)
2. Hardware Interface: Many options including Firestick, PC, etc. A+ (Verizon Grade:F+)
3. Ease of Use: Better than I expected. I am still playing around with remotes and different hardware to get the best experience. I really like the ability to organize the channel list in the order that I want to see them on the grid. B+ (Verizon Grade:B)
4. Reliability: A couple of one-time glitches, but it has worked great. A (Verizon Grade:B+)
5. Streaming Experience when Traveling: Absolutely perfect. Watching sports on my phone on a bench while my wife was shopping at the mall was great. On my android phone, the show will stream in a window while I surf the net. It also has stats and highlights of the game that you are watching. A+ (Verizon Grade D)
6. DVR: Cloud DVR with unlimited capacity. A+ (Verizon Grade:C)
7. Cost: $50/month B+ (Verizon Grade D)

My wife and I cut cable about 10 years ago and are happy with the decision - we had cable for quite some time but could no longer justify spending that much per month to find ourselves clicking through the channels, unhappy with the selections. We have internet only and are happy with the selections we find on our regular streaming services (Netflix, Prime). Every now and then we'll splurge for a few months on another service like HBO if we find a show we're really into. This topic has come up over the years with coworkers and I would say out of all of those that want to do this, the biggest hangup I hear about is not being able to follow sports as easily. I've never looked into it, but it sounds like there could be options for streaming sports now, as @abrod520 mentions above, buying MLB.TV for Yankees games.

I thought this was going to be a thread on the topic of recovery from the illness of watch collecting.


Imagine my disappointment! 😀

Cut the cord 6 plus years ago and strictly used Kodi for free streaming. Technically not legal but technically not illegal. 8 months ago we broke down and signed up for AT&T tv which has everything and local channels but cost 93 bucks a month, no contract. They have a cheaper package but it lacks most channels I use. Add comcast internet and my total is only $143 a month total. I run it on firesticks so I can bring a stick with me on vacation for rainy days and also take it with me to work when I'm stuck doing overnights. I'm not a huge fan of using my smart tvs because then I'd have a diffrent remote setup for each tv, where as with firesticks, every tv uses the same remote.

I will say this, if you want to go as cheap as possible and ge tthe most, sling tv is the best deal going and I prefer the interface. Only thing it lacked for me was local channels for NFL. If you live near a major city then you can get away with using an antenna for local but that's not an option for me way out in the sticks of NH.

I never watch anything live anymore so this is closest to how I watch TV. My fiancée can't get enough of the Investigation Discovery channel (Wives with Knives, Deadly Women, Scorned, etc.) so we pay $150 for Comcast. 🙁

You can't get her shows on kodi?

I haven't had cable since I got my own place four years ago, and to be honest I never even gave it a second thought. I have... Netflix, Amazon Prime (w/HBO and Starz currently), Hulu, Disney+. I think that's it. The really nice thing about streaming services is that you can just subscribe month by month and cancel when you don't need them. I know a lot of people that do that with HBO. I don't have any of the live services but it may work similarly for them.

One thing that's really worth looking into is getting a VPN, which will allow you to view content that's normally region locked. For example, AMC airs Better Call Saul in the US so the new season does not show up on Netflix. However, Netflix has the rights to it for the rest of the world, so I can just set my VPN to almost anywhere else (usually the UK) and I can follow along without having to have a cable provider login. Many more (different) movie options as well. Kind of a gray area... but it works well.

For my needs, I have Spectrum Internet, over the air TV, CBS All Access (no commercials) and Hulu (no commercials). I added Netflix too, and I already have Amazon Prime, therefore Prime Video.

I have an app I'm trying out that has the cable-only channels, but the reason I got rid of cable TV and the premiums is because they were very expensive to get, basically, crap. I've not seen anything I'd liked on Netflix in a while, so I am considering getting rid of that too.

There are some free to view with commercial apps, too, like Sony's Crackle, and I can usually find something there to watch when just about anything will do.

But you remind me, I need to cancel that app with the cable channels. Ain't worth it to me.

Tom

The app that carries that stuff is "philo". I have it on AppleTV but I wouldn't doubt you could get it on Amazon Fire or Roku. 59 channels for $20.00 per month before taxes. Their website is philo.com and you can also stream online.

Tom

This is very much a US thread currently as you have so many choices to ditch the cord. Here in the UK Sky (SAT) is still king despite losing things like UEFA champions league matches some years ago, Sport is a massive seller and despite the loss of champions league football they still have the best coverage for all sports and as long as they hold there current portfolio I don’t see them being moved over for streaming services in the next 5 years.
Football will dictate the decision in the UK and much of Europe I think as it is the number one sport with the largest audience and revenues. Apple, Google and others are hovering so maybe one day soon we can all cut the cord.
You just need to cost the move, understand the service you require and what your going to get, what you can live without and make the decision.

The day we cut cable (from Comcast) we also moved our internet away from them as well. Wouldn't have necessarily but the "nail in the coffin" for me, with Comcast (note, there were several frustrating years already building), was being on the phone with them and advised I needed to take up my requests via their live chat feature on their website and then when on their live chat, being advised I needed to call their customer service line. What a waste of my time, being bounced back and forth. I did call again. Just one more time. And cancelled it all.

This is a great thread as I am considered cutting the cord too, but at the same time my wife loves the programming and interface of the Spectrum service. I know I know, both my wife and I get that Spectrum sucks(in fact my wife can't say Spectrum without saying fυcking Spectrum everytime the service blanks out or locks up into "Please reboot your cable box" hell). But until we have a strategy we both agree on, were stuck keeping it.

So this thread is immensely helpful....

You must be in former Charter country. I have former Time Warner Cable and I have had fantastic service all along. Only time I had trouble was when wiring wasn't marked in my apartment building's junction box and they yanked me by mistake.

Tom