OT - Cutting Cable

[galactawitz]

I cancelled Vue at the end of March and they had a list of "reasons why you cancelled" on the cancellation page and not a single one was "I just don't watch TV anymore" or my real reason of "There are no sports I care about until August" or anything like that. The industry is moving slowly but it still hasn't totally internalized that the landscape has changed.

This is the same thing I did and thought the same thing. I'm going to sign back up in August once football starts, but in the summer I just don't watch enough to care.

 

[1100011CS]

Interesting. This might be a game changer for me... any chance you could post a picture of how you connected that?

Just to be clear, he's only talking about over-the-air antenna to get local channels. Basically you'd just take the cable coming from the antenna and plug it into the splitter that your cable wire ran to.

 

[Bryce7]

I agree with the bloated bundle. A La Carte would be great if that were out there. The reason I was skeptical is that HGTV was the 3rd most watched network in the country last year, behind only Fox News and ESPN. It's family friendly, never spews political banter, and only costs 23 cents per subscriber (3% of what ESPN charges)

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...er-upset-you-how-the-network-beat-cnn-in-2016

When you are sick and bedridden, HGTV can be very soothing. Like medical marijuana.

 

[crash_zone]

I bought a jail-broken Fire Stick about three weeks ago. The number of movies available is crazy. There's a lot of free p0rn too, as well as nearly every Fox Sports extension. Amazon shows a bunch of apps to add regular channels but the couple I've tried (ESPN & CNN) required cable service to verify. I've looked at adding DirecTV Now or Sling apps but haven't pulled the trigger yet.

My other issue is that I've got 5 TVs in the house and it seems like I'd need to add antenna and Fire Stick to each of them?

What apps pull the fox sports channels?

 

[TXCyclones]

Just to be clear, he's only talking about over-the-air antenna to get local channels. Basically you'd just take the cable coming from the antenna and plug it into the splitter that your cable wire ran to.

Understood. One of my TVs is in a guest room, and another is in my daughter's room and she only uses it for Netflix and Amazon channels.

What apps pull the fox sports channels?

Two apps on the jail-broke Fire Stick, called Mobdro and Kodi. The p0rn, movies, and sports are on Kodi.

 

[ComCY]

I have the $40 Sling package. Has everything I want, and I can add on packages at any point in any month, and remove them also.

I'll be adding the Entertainment one for HBO once GoT starts, and during basketball season I had the Sports package.

 

[KCClone1]

I have the $40 Sling package. Has everything I want, and I can add on packages at any point in any month, and remove them also.

I'll be adding the Entertainment one for HBO once GoT starts, and during basketball season I had the Sports package.

I dropped cable for the summer. Would Sling be a good option for football/basketball season? Can you get ESPNU for all the ISU bball games?

 

[Judoka]

I dropped cable for the summer. Would Sling be a good option for football/basketball season? Can you get ESPNU for all the ISU bball games?

Vue offers both ESPN and Fox Sports channels for cheaper than Sling. At least they did last year. I've done both and right now my plan is to use Vue again this fall, but I'll be watching to see how things change between now and September.

 

[Incyte]

I know YouTubeTV has ESPNU which a lot of out MBB is on. Does any other service include ESPNU in their standard package?

 

[NickTheGreat]

Understood. One of my TVs is in a guest room, and another is in my daughter's room and she only uses it for Netflix and Amazon channels.


Two apps on the jail-broke Fire Stick, called Mobdro and Kodi. The p0rn, movies, and sports are on Kodi.

I'd be a little careful on that. There's a lot of "gray area" stuff out there for Kodi. And "gray area" is a nice way of saying pirated.

 

[ComCY]

I dropped cable for the summer. Would Sling be a good option for football/basketball season? Can you get ESPNU for all the ISU bball games?

I'd say yes. The Sports Package is $10 extra, but you also get a butt ton of channels including ESPNU and other obscure ESPN channels. You can drop it at any time.

I used to have Google Fiber TV + 1000Gbps, which was an amazing deal when I actually needed that much bandwidth. But when I realized I could drop down the internet and save some money with Sling, I opted for that. Plus I got lucky and received a free Roku Stick with Sling.

 

[Stewo]

I know YouTubeTV has ESPNU which a lot of out MBB is on. Does any other service include ESPNU in their standard package?

Standard on PSVue.

 

[Cyclones_R_GR8]

I bought a jail-broken Fire Stick about three weeks ago. The number of movies available is crazy. There's a lot of free p0rn too, as well as nearly every Fox Sports extension. Amazon shows a bunch of apps to add regular channels but the couple I've tried (ESPN & CNN) required cable service to verify. I've looked at adding DirecTV Now or Sling apps but haven't pulled the trigger yet.

My other issue is that I've got 5 TVs in the house and it seems like I'd need to add antenna and Fire Stick to each of them?

You can go to Youtube and watch videos on how to jailbreak a fire stick.

 

[Judoka]

I have the $40 Sling package. Has everything I want, and I can add on packages at any point in any month, and remove them also.

I'll be adding the Entertainment one for HBO once GoT starts, and during basketball season I had the Sports package.

If you do HBO Now directly it is $15/month and allows multiple streams at once. I don't know if they've changed it but back when I had Sling it only allowed one stream at a time.

Right now I have Netflix year round, Amazon Prime year round (though really I have it for the 2 day delivery and the streaming is just a bonus), PSVue/Sling/Whatever September-March and HBO Now for a couple of months each year for Veep/Silicon Valley/Game of Thrones.

Unless something new comes out I'll probably stick with PSVue for next year, their interface isn't great but I mostly just use it for sign ins to the individual channel's apps anyway.

 

[CapnCy]

The one thing that still kind of stinks is the packaging of some of the products (probably done on purpose)....very similar offerings...but Fox Sports may ONLY be on the tier up and then have to but a bigger package (as football especially can be on a variety of channels).

BUT, don't worry....my solution has always been buying Sling for football/bball season and if there is a game on a channel i don't have, sign up for Vue for a free week trial and cancel...just need to have lots of email addresses on the ready

 

[3GenClone]

I know YouTubeTV has ESPNU which a lot of out MBB is on. Does any other service include ESPNU in their standard package?

Wow I just checked out their offerings. Here's what you get from YouTubeTV for $35/month:
ABC
CBS
FOX
NBC
ESPN
NBC-CSN
FOX Sports
FS1
FS2
ESPN2
Big 10 Network
SEC Network
ESPNU
ESPNNEWS
CBS Sports Network
NBC-SN
NBC-Golf

And you also get some standard cable channels as well. This package looks like the best and cheapest option for college sports fans. This wouldn't be ideal for fans of professional sports - no NFL Network, no TNT for NBA, no Fox Regional channels or MLB network for baseball.

Edit: and now I find out its too good to be true. Lots of caveats in this article. Biggest one for sports fans is that this service is prone to blackout restrictions.

https://www.theverge.com/2017/4/5/15194374/youtube-tv-live-streaming-10-important-things-to-know

 

[Judoka]

I'm still salty that there's no options that allow you to opt out of the Big Ten Network and the SEC network. I really, really, really don't like funding our own demise.

 

[CycloneBob]

Actually I'd say that's a microcosm of cable's issue. You apparently care about HGTV. That's fine and if that's a dealbreaker for you that's also fine. But for the vast majority of people they could care less about HGTV. But there's probably some other channel, I dunno, MTV, that you could care less about. But for somebody else MTV is a dealbreaker. And you could go down the whole cable lineup like that. And that is how you end up with bloated, overpriced packages. Because between trying to get everybody's dealbreaker channel plus the conglomerates forcing channels that no one wants down people's throat in order to get the ones people do want you end up with 200 channels, maybe 5 of which you watch, but all of which you're paying for.

I totally agree. We would like to pay for like only 10-12 channels out of the whole package that we have to pay for.

 

[NickTheGreat]

I'd be a little careful on that. There's a lot of "gray area" stuff out there for Kodi. And "gray area" is a nice way of saying pirated.

Follow up to this. Saw this article out of the UK this morning
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-s...sentence-copyright-data-sharing-a7716131.html

Some more light reading
https://www.engadget.com/2017/06/07/kodi-addons-phoenix-zemtv-dish-network-lawsuit/

 

[CycloneSarah]

BUT, don't worry....my solution has always been buying Sling for football/bball season and if there is a game on a channel i don't have, sign up for Vue for a free week trial and cancel...just need to have lots of email addresses on the ready

I did this last year for football and it was miserable. Vue makes you sign up for a Playstation account with username and then the Vue account, then once you log in to the app it makes you pick another username on there. This year I'll just pay for the Orange and Blue package on Sling to get the Fox Sports channels without the weekly hassle to get it set up before the game and then remember to cancel it afterwards.