Seriously considering cutting the "cable" cord.

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wab
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I've had DirecTV for over a decade...but I've found that we really only watch a handful of things on TV anymore. Most of what we watch is on Hulu/Amazon/Netflix... but admittedly, I've kept the service primarily for three TV shows and Football purposes.

For $285 a month, I can live with not watching those three shows until they show up on Hulu...but I can NOT lie without football.

So...my question for you guys is, those of you that have cut the cord...how do you get by? I'm not quite sold on streaming games yet... seems fairly unreliable to me I guess. Unless I'm missing something...if so, I'd love some tips or tricks y'all have for streaming NFL stuff like games and the draft and whatnot.

I've got a wedding on the way, an added toddler to the mix, and a new house to shop for. So cable seems like an unnecessary expense.
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UOK
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If you want to watch sports in crystal clear, no breakups, ultimate quality HD amazing blah blah blah, you will keep cable and enjoy paying out the ass for it.

If you want to watch sports and not pay more than what you do for your internet service, you can absolutely do that, but you'll deal with relying on finding a stream that works, a stream that's of decent quality, & 7 times out of 10 watching a really shit-quality stream because it's the only one that reliably functions. This is obviously cost-free, which is it's primary benefit.

I can help you in this endeavor, but note that I'm not happy to watch shit-quality sports streams. I simply can't argue with the price.
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It doesn't have to be crystal clear 4K HD. I just don't want 5 minute lags and bouncing from stream to stream wasting a ton of time trying to find a stable one. I just can't justify paying $300 a year for Sunday Ticket and another 250 plus per month for the Walking Dead.
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Otis Day
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In the process of cutting the cord. Right now iit is just severed.

1) I can watch the Bears on the local Fox and CBS feeds. Alls you need is an antenna. Channels come in crystal clear.

2) I purchased a roku. Love it so far. Lot of free shit on there. Through roku there is a channel/service called Sling TV. You get some cable channels (History, DIY, ESPN and ESPN 2 to name a few) for $20 a month. That way you can get MNF.

3) I only pay $111 and that is to fucking much. Dish has a deal currently where they lock the price in for 3 yrs. You can get 140+ channels for $49.95. They will give you Netflix for a year for ree.

4)Thru roku you can get the NFL package I believe, for what ever price they charge.
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Unfortunately for me, in Dallas there are no local channels that show Bears games.
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only reason I still have cable is for internet access ... our local cable provider seems to be the most reliable game in town
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First of all, $285/month? I have DirecTV with HD, record shows, all that crap, and before football season it was like $89/month, with Sunday Ticket payments its at $131. Granted, we upgraded from their standard def package in the summer so we're still on an introductory price, but if it jumps up to nearly $300 a month I'm going to be cancelling service, or at least threatening to until they offer me the good price for another 6 months or something (I've heard this tactic is used a lot with cable companies).

As far as life without TV and going pure internet, I did it for a little while. No Bears game on TV was the worst part by far. The streams blow and they've only gotten worse with the ads popping up, decoy X symbols to click on constantly. Its easy to say that Sunday ticket aint worth the price this year with the Bears being such a letdown, but you know if they can get back to at least that 2010-2012 level, it will pain you physically to miss games (how I feel anyway).

Keeping current with shows being the other main issue, well I don't really know how to legally help you with that one. Just become friends with someone who will let you watch their TV I guess. Or do like I said and hope threatening to cancel will bring down the price of TV.

Of course I gotta say... Walking Dead? So not worth that much money man. I watched 3.5 seasons before I had no further desire to keep watching. I cant really explain what exactly went wrong for me, but I'd simply rather spend my time watching something else or playing vidya games (much more of the latter).

Sometime in April I'll have to see if they'll let me have another 3 month "trial" of HBO that just happens to run the course of Game of Thrones season.
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I have DirecTV, and am considering cutting it. I have about six months left on my 2-year contract with them. I only use it to watch sports and reruns of shows I can easily access on the internet/Netflix/DVD to watch whenever I want.

Of course I just invested in a 55" 4K smart TV in December. I'd feel kind of weird spending the money on a TV like that, then not having something like satellite or cable TV.

I've gotten DirecTV for the NFL Sunday Ticket. Living in Iowa, I never know who's going to be on the local broadcast. Bears, Packers, Rams, Vikings. Well, I shouldn't have to worry about the Rams anymore, but now with any game being able to be on CBS or FOX (Bears were on CBS four times in 2015), I have to worry about the Chiefs being on locally over the Bears. Even then, I don't know if it's worth the $150 a month. I'd almost rather have that money in my pocket and go eat at a Buffalo Wild Wings for three hours on a Sunday afternoon that I'd need the Sunday Ticket to see the Bears.
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I was able to get my bill down to just a shade under $100, so I'm keeping it for now. Little did I know I had about a thousand hidden "extras" that I'd been saddled with that increased my bill significantly. Equipment protection, HD channels that I didn't even know existed, random other things that I didn't even know I was paying for...

So after calling and ridding myself of those, changing my programming, and threatening to cancel (literally as soon as the words "Netflix" and "Streaming" come out of your mouth, they start rattling off promotional pricing they can suddenly give you), I was able to whittle it down to a reasonable amount.
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wab wrote:I was able to get my bill down to just a shade under $100, so I'm keeping it for now. Little did I know I had about a thousand hidden "extras" that I'd been saddled with that increased my bill significantly. Equipment protection, HD channels that I didn't even know existed, random other things that I didn't even know I was paying for...

So after calling and ridding myself of those, changing my programming, and threatening to cancel (literally as soon as the words "Netflix" and "Streaming" come out of your mouth, they start rattling off promotional pricing they can suddenly give you), I was able to whittle it down to a reasonable amount.
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Giving this a bump... I've decided I'm fucking fed up with Xfinity and cancelled their services.

My question to you all is... Now what?

RCN in my area has 50 Mbps internet for like 30 bucks a month. In terms of streaming packages, is there anything people here use/like/recommend?

I have a buddy that likes YouTube tv and another one there swears by Hulu Live TV
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The Marshall Plan
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I cut the cord a while ago and am loving it. I wouldn't go back even if Comcast matched the cost.

My setup is Hulu with Live TV and the Cloud DVR, Starz Premium Add-In which I'm probably going to cancel because I never use it, (All of the premium movie add-ins have been garbage. I cycled through them all just to try and nothing is worth a damn.) Amazon Prime Video, Netflix and Shudder. When Disney Plus comes out I'll be getting that because I need to see what Mandalorian is all about.

When I buy a movie now I do it digitally through Prime. It's so much better than swapping Blu Rays in and out and I can also download the Prime movie onto a tablet.

I use all of that through a 4K Fire Stick. With the money I saved I increased my internet speed to the max that Comcast offers which costs me an additional $20 per month. I'm still up over $100 per month after that.

Yeah the money savings is nice but the really nice thing is I don't have 500 channels I never use and all that bullshit hardware laying around.

Just in case I have a digital TV antenna which I've used only once. You'll also want to download the ESPN app onto your Fire Stick if that's what you do and sign in using your Hulu login. Hulu had drama on Monday night (nationwide slowdown) but I used the ESPN app and there were no issues.
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I have Xfinity for internet, and that's all. I don't have cable and if there were any other option beyond AT&T at my address, I'd take it.

For games, I have a Mac Mini hooked up to my TV in the basement where I watch games. Use a wireless keyboard/mouse combination to navigate from the couch. I go to reddit and watch streams.

We split a Netflix account, Hulu/HBO are shared with a friend, and we're Prime members. I don't see us expanding our streaming library to Disney or any other other networks anytime soon.
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Similar to UOK, I have Xfinity for internet since they're the only game in town. It's bundled with basic cable because that package was the cheapest (I think it's now like $70/month after fees) but the channels are only standard definition (4:3 ratio) so I don't even have the cable box hooked up, it's just sitting in a closet somewhere collecting dust.

For regular tv/movies, my brother lets me use his Netflix and Amazon account through Roku free of charge and when I signed up for Xfinity, they included HBOGo for free. For games, I'm lucky to be in the Chicago area so I can pull most of them in over-the-air with a cheap indoor antenna.

When games are on ESPN or CBS, I usually sign up for a free trial of whatever streaming service offers them and use a burner email and create a burner credit card with a charge maximum of like $1, so if I ever forget to cancel within the free trial period, the credit card won't work and they just cancel the service themselves. Rinse and repeat each time a game is on one of those channels.
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Appreciate the replies! I'm going to give Hulu plus Live TV a shot first, they have a 7 day free trial we can use. I think wifey will like the on demand content and I'll like being able to watch sports and stream whatever else I want.
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I made this thread in 2016 and I still haven't pulled the plug. I'm hoping after this season, the options for watching out of market games on streaming services like Hulu and Amazon open up so I can get rid of DirecTV once and for all. I know I can stream games on Reddit, but it's super inconsistent.
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So far I'm digging the experience... the ONLY knock I have is that I was a consistent 30-45 seconds behind everyone else in the chatroom while watching the game. I hated that more than I thought I would :lol:

Found an antenna on Amazon I'm going to try out, I live in the city and the signal is about 4 miles from my home so I'm hoping this should be the icing on the cake for this cord cutting experience.

@wab you should look into it man... I think YouTube TV allows you to have 3 television sets watch at once without an extra charge.
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@The Marshall Plan so I got my antenna today and plugged it in -- works like a charm! I did a test to see how far behind Hulu plus live TV was compared to the antenna feed, it was 50 seconds!

I'll be back to being live with everyone in the chat again, thank God :lol:

PM me if you want me to send you a link to the antenna... it was $8.99 off Amazon with free shipping.
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G08 wrote: Wed Oct 02, 2019 7:18 pm @The Marshall Plan so I got my antenna today and plugged it in -- works like a charm! I did a test to see how far behind Hulu plus live TV was compared to the antenna feed, it was 50 seconds!

I'll be back to being live with everyone in the chat again, thank God :lol:

PM me if you want me to send you a link to the antenna... it was $8.99 off Amazon with free shipping.
Glad that its all working great. I've never looked back after getting Hulu. PM will be sent.
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I will be switching to Hulu Live shortly. Sling lost NBCSports Chicago. Gotta see the Blackhawks play and Hulu has that channel
Last edited by Otis Day on Thu Oct 03, 2019 9:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Otis Day wrote: Thu Oct 03, 2019 1:01 pm I will be switching to Hulu Live shortly. Sling lost NBCSports Chicago. Gotta see the Blackhawks lay and Hulu has that channel
I've enjoyed it thus far... they give you a week trial for free so give it a whirl!
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Hulu live is great if you are in-market. I however, am not. If I still lived in IL there's no way in hell I'd still have DirecTV.
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I cut the cord many years ago. I'll never go back to the $150 DirecTV bills again. My wifes biggest miss was her shows on Bravo. I did not miss them. My biggest miss was sports. I tried Kodi for a while, but it was about as fun as the Reddit streams.

My setup is a Tivo box hooked up to an OTA antennae, Netflix, Amazon Prime and I get Hulu for free from Sprint. We tape the shows on network TV we want to watch and Hulu the stuff we don't get over the air.

For football, I found a kinda underground streaming Sunday Ticket. I have to buy $25 in bitcoin a year to pay for it, but I have had zero issues with it for the last 4 years.
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I finally did it. It took a global pandemic for me to give up DirecTV. Feels weird honestly.
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wab wrote: Tue Mar 31, 2020 9:35 am I finally did it. It took a global pandemic for me to give up DirecTV. Feels weird honestly.
Congrats. How much you figure you'll be saving per month?
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Xee wrote: Tue Mar 31, 2020 12:01 pm
wab wrote: Tue Mar 31, 2020 9:35 am I finally did it. It took a global pandemic for me to give up DirecTV. Feels weird honestly.
Congrats. How much you figure you'll be saving per month?
$250 or more.
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wab wrote: Tue Mar 31, 2020 12:04 pm
Xee wrote: Tue Mar 31, 2020 12:01 pm

Congrats. How much you figure you'll be saving per month?
$250 or more.
What route did you go? I'm fucking with SlingTV right now... not bad!
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Otis Day
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G08, weren't you doing hulu live? I did Sling before. Loved it until the lost NBC Sport Chicago. I had to go to hulu live just for that channel. Can't miss the Hawks.
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Otis Day wrote: Sat Apr 04, 2020 6:18 pm G08, weren't you doing hulu live? I did Sling before. Loved it until the lost NBC Sport Chicago. I had to go to hulu live just for that channel. Can't miss the Hawks.
I missed NFL Network honestly.
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G08 wrote: Sat Apr 04, 2020 10:30 am
wab wrote: Tue Mar 31, 2020 12:04 pm
$250 or more.
What route did you go? I'm fucking with SlingTV right now... not bad!
Right now we are just doing Hulu, Prime, Netflix etc. We don't want much live TV and the only thing I'm having withdrawals on is NFLN. Does Sling have that?
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