Ditch cable

[bpm07]

Hi all, and apologies if I posted this in the wrong forum (this has nothing to do with linux or ubuntu, though I am an ubuntu user).

My wife and I are looking to cut costs, and of course cable is the first place to look. We pay roughly $130/month to Time Warner for high speed internet and a rather expansive channel selection. Of course, we only watch about 15 channels (she watches popular shows on the major networks, I watch sports, and we both watch the news in the morning).

I've been researching alternatives for the inevitable cutting of the umbilical chord. We have Netflix with streaming, and there is of course Hulu and Joost. I've heard of a website called Channelsurfing but it seems infested with clickjacking stuff and other nasties. Moreover, googling popular phrases like "online tv" or similar mostly leads to various scam-based websites claiming to offer thousands of channels for a low-low one-time fee. In short, it seems difficult to find bonafide alternatives to cable tv in online searches (we rent in an apartment complex so satellite tv is not an option).

So, after all that rambling my question is essentially this: Does anyone here know of actual "good" sites to watch your favorite content at a more reasonable rate than your cable provider? I don't mind paying some, for example to watch the NFL or English Premier league, as long as the service is dependable.

Further, for those of you that made the switch from cable to, er... just watching stuff online, how do you like it? Where do you get your tv fix after the switch?

Thanks for any comments!

[McRat]

Hi all, and apologies if I posted this in the wrong forum (this has nothing to do with linux or ubuntu, though I am an ubuntu user).

My wife and I are looking to cut costs, and of course cable is the first place to look. We pay roughly $130/month to Time Warner for high speed internet and a rather expansive channel selection. Of course, we only watch about 15 channels (she watches popular shows on the major networks, I watch sports, and we both watch the news in the morning).

I've been researching alternatives for the inevitable cutting of the umbilical chord. We have Netflix with streaming, and there is of course Hulu and Joost. I've heard of a website called Channelsurfing but it seems infested with clickjacking stuff and other nasties. Moreover, googling popular phrases like "online tv" or similar mostly leads to various scam-based websites claiming to offer thousands of channels for a low-low one-time fee. In short, it seems difficult to find bonafide alternatives to cable tv in online searches (we rent in an apartment complex so satellite tv is not an option).

So, after all that rambling my question is essentially this: Does anyone here know of actual "good" sites to watch your favorite content at a more reasonable rate than your cable provider? I don't mind paying some, for example to watch the NFL or English Premier league, as long as the service is dependable.

Further, for those of you that made the switch from cable to, er... just watching stuff online, how do you like it? Where do you get your tv fix after the switch?

Thanks for any comments!

Broadcast TV still exists and it's free.

But if you want broadband TV, how are you going to receive it without a cable company?

And yes, Times Warner will charge anything they can if they have a monopoly. How about $399 a month for 13/3 broadband cable internet with no fixed IP, no TV, and no phones? The speed is not guaranteed either.

[mamamia88]

i know i use my ps3 mostly to catch up on shows i miss. shows are $2 a piece and they upscale beautifully.

[LowSky]

i know i use my ps3 mostly to catch up on shows i miss. shows are $2 a piece and they upscale beautifully.

Which is such a waste of money when most of the same shows are on Hulu, netlfix, or the broadcaster website for FREE or a lower cost.

The best thing to do is to cancel the additional channels, just ask for basic cable, or if you live close go with over-the-air. keep the internet and build a mythtv box with a TV tuner to record shows.

I don't really watch much on cable TV, and like most things if you get rid of it, after a while you really don't miss it.

Netflix is great for movies and streaming content, so that should fill the voids. As for the sports, well go out and join a local league and get some exercise instead of sitting around just watching it. It will be good for you.

[cascade9]

Broadcast TV still exists and it's free.

But if you want broadband TV, how are you going to receive it without a cable company?

And yes, Times Warner will charge anything they can if they have a monopoly. How about $399 a month for 13/3 broadband cable internet with no fixed IP, no TV, and no phones? The speed is not guaranteed either.

I dont know how much different thing are there, as I'm not in the US. But here (.au) I get a few IPTV channelsfor 'free' (yeah, I know) from my ISP. I'm not on cable, but ADSL2+, and BTW, it is much faster than the cable I had before.

Perviously I was on 12Mbit/256kbit up/down cable, and now I've got 24Mbit/1MBit (at the exchange, normally about 19MBit/800kBit once its got to my house). The cap is a lot bigger as well...and its a Lot Cheaper.

[HermanAB]

Well, you could install a cantenna on the roof and hook into a WiFi connection over on the next hill...

[Shakz]

I would keep the cable for internet only as its the fastest and most responsive type of service available next to fios but if your like me fiber is a distant dream. No one even thinking bout lighting my hood right now. Price i pay for living in the burbs I reckon.

Anywho with HD you can prolly get away with a crappy outdoor antenna in the attic, You can catch everything on network television like that. In Houston we get a great HD reception...thats the good thing bout digital is it either works or it dont. I actually use a piece of tin foil as a backup in the living room and it picks up the major networks just fine ( left there from Ike taking down our dish )

Solution if my wife was even slightly flexable:
Crappy outdoor antenna. $9 antenna from walmart will prolly work too so long as your tv has a hd tuner in it.
You could get yourself a cheap HD tuner and setup myth tv for DVR. Similar functionality is available in Media Center if your still running windows. Netflix streaming gets you showtime and stars shows. As well as several network shows plus a ton of movies....
That plus all the hulu type websites already mentioned...I dunno why anyone really needs cable anymore.

My wife hates change so we are sticking with our dish and comcrap for internet. It CAN be done with minimal sacrifice though. Might take a bit to setup but would prolly be worth it in the end.

[Ric_NYC]

Cable: expensive... endless 24/7 reruns... "Fat chefs cooking greasy food"... "ETs, Mysteries, Ghosts" on "Geographic Channel" and Discovery Channel... "News" on Foxnews. The Kardashians and other "celebrities"...

[dearingj]

Further, for those of you that made the switch from cable to, er... just watching stuff online, how do you like it? Where do you get your tv fix after the switch?!

I haven't completely made the switch yet, but most of the tv shows I watch are either on Hulu or bought on DVDs. You should see the collection my family is amassing :)

[samalex]

bpm07,

We're in a similar situation as you, except we've been forced to go 'off the grid' because our new house which we've only been in for two weeks won't have Time Warner available for another 3 weeks (so they say). In our old house we had Dish for TV and Time Warner for broadband, but we're debating on whether to drop cable all together or to stick with TW once it's available for just basic cable.

I would say stick with just an OTA antenna, but unfortunately most of what I watch is on PBS and our local PBS station is going off the air (http://www.kwbu.org/news.php?action=story&story=73487) as of June 1st (which SUCKS!), so I might have to go with basic cable at least to get another PBS station.

At any rate I'd say 90% of what we watch is available for free via Hulu or the various network websites, through Netflix/Redbox, or even through AppleTV for a cost or free as podcasts. At the very least if we do drop cable I might try to find a MacMini or something small to stick behind the TV so we don't have to connect our laptops whenever we need to do something.

I'm curious to see what others are doing since this does appear to be a trend. Too bad the networks can't find a common format for video so a single aggregater could be written to pull it all together. I thought Hulu was about to do that, but they've gone corporate unfortunately.

Sam

[Old_Grey_Wolf]

People on this thread have already mentioned some websites, and using over-the-air digital TV.

We cut our Time Warner cable TV about a year ago. We still have their Internet service; because, it is the best available where I live. They did increase my Internet bill by about $10 a month; however, that increase was offset by the removal of the cable TV bill. Netflix doesn't come close to costing as much as the cable TV service. You can also watch NBC, CBS, FOX, etc., using the Internet.

If you don't watch a lot of TV to start with, you will probably be able to adjust.

One thing I didn't expect was that some of the on-line TV and movie sources require proprietary formats and DRM that are not available on Linux. At least to my knowledge. For example, Netflix streaming does seem to require the use of Microsoft Windows.

I've got 6 computers with 2 of them working as media servers, and are connected to big screen TVs/Monitors for watching TV and movies. One runs Vista and the other runs Window 7 almost exclusively. There are 3 generations of family trying to use the 2 media servers; so, they run almost constantly.

As you can see from my signature, I don't care what OS is used. If you do, it many limit your choices.

[northwestuntu]

i cut my dishnetwork out a few years back and went to HD antenna. best move i ever did. most the best shows are on major networks anyway. then whatever i miss out on the other channels i just buy the blue ray discs when they come out. i like watching shows together anyway instead of waiting week by week.

[doorknob60]

I need my live sports (NBA, NFL, College Football, etc.), so getting rid of cable is a no-go for me :P Plus I like Discovery channel (though I could manage without it) and some other random cable channels. It's too bad you get all these random channels you never watch, but oh well.

Also Antenna is kinda spotty in Bend (at least in the SW part). No CBS at all in the city (I think there is but right now it's a low power analog broadcast of the Portland station that barely comes in). NBC and PBS come in good for me in HD, and FOX sometimes does. But my cable service is a local company with great customer service, reasonable prices, good picture quality, and a great selection of HD channels (better than Satellite IMO, since Directv doesn't get locals here, and neither DTV or Dish Net has Comcast Sportsnet which I need), and also has the best Internet in town.

[malspa]

I ditched cable years ago. The last time I had it was in the mid-90s. I really don't watch much tv at all, so it wouldn't be worth it to pay for cable or satellite or whatever. I'm a sports fan, but these days if I catch a game on tv, I almost never sit and watch the whole game. I'd rather go sit and watch high school sports or the local AAA baseball team. I rarely watch movies -- I don't like to sit through them. I feel like I'm wasting time. I'd rather take a walk outside, or browse the internet, or just go do anything but sit there. Most news I get comes from the internet, the radio, and newspapers. We can go weeks here without the tv ever getting turned on.

[jetsam]

But then how would I get such a plethora of choices in exercising (or losing) my self (or remote) control?

[sydbat]

fios but if your like me fiber is a distant dream.Y'know, I've seen the commercials on US TV about this FiOS thing and really didn't get what the big deal is about. A quick Google told me that it is the implementation of fibre optic networking in select US locations (right now, with expansion coming).

This blew me away. We have had a fibre optic network in Alberta since the mid-80's. Of course we also had voice pagers at that time too, something that was only introduced to the US market in the mid to late 90's.

Weird.

[uRock]

I miss Time Warner. High speed internet was unlimited on my node. There was no pay for different speed levels that Cox has here. We now pay twice as much as we did for TW's network and have half the speed. We only get the 13 or so local channels with the net for about $65 a month.

You can always ask your neighbors if they want to pitch in and get internet as a group and install a strong router. This just requires using a firewall on each machine to keep privacy running. Maybe set up snort with some rules to make sure internal IPs aren't trying to connect with one another.

I use Netflix for watching movies and Hulu for watching TV shows and such. Of course that means keeping Windows around to run Netflix, but it is better than paying for those channels I never use.

We have friends that are paying hundreds a month for HD channels with all the sports packages and HBOs and such. Half the time they go to the sports books to watch the games anyway so they can place bets.