Replacing cable/fiber TV service....with online and other services

[FoolishTech]

You keep using that word... I do not think it means what you think it means.

Great, it's been quite a while since I had a "The Princess Bride" quote stuck in my head. Thanks

 

[SAG]

Great, it's been quite a while since I had a "The Princess Bride" quote stuck in my head. Thanks

And yes, I have that movie too.
In fact, making that comment prompted me to watch it last night over my wife's best wishes.

 

[uprighttech]

The legeality of it I'm aware of. My professional business life is... what's the term, "purer than Caesar's wife". But what I do with what is mine in my own home and never leaves there.... well, that's my personal business.

From Kentucky? I grew up in Breathitt Co.

I'm not trying to tell anyone what they can/can't do. Not even saying that I agree with the law. Just stating what US law says for people who want to be sure they stay within those bounds.

I'm across the state from where you grew up - Hopkinsville. You happen to be a UK basketball fan?

 

[uprighttech]

You keep using that word... I do not think it means what you think it means.

This made me smile too. One of my all-time favorite movies.

 

[SAG]

I'm across the state from where you grew up - Hopkinsville. You happen to be a UK basketball fan?

Was when I lived there, even went to UK.
Only time I watch them is when they play Louisville now... just for old time's sake and all.

 

[SilverLeaf]

Being the "frugal" individual that I am, I haven't had cable/satellite for years. Non-premium cable programming has really gone to hell over the past several years anyway (SyFy, wtf?), and outside of a handful of shows, cable /satellite TV really doesn't offer anything I'm interested in (at least not enough to justify the monthly premium).

What complicates this whole thing for me is that I don't have broadband available at the house. So, I put up an antenna and bought a converter box for my old analog TV to get OTA local programming (local news, sports, PBS, etc.). I have Netflix with the DVD-through-the-mail option. Anything else, I can get via my internet connection at the shop.

Now, if the cable provider in my area decided to string wire down my road, I'd sign up in a heartbeat....not so much for the programming, but for the bandwidth. Then I'd look at cobbling together an HTPC.

 

[1aComputerServices]

I have contemplated dumping DirecTV in favor of a Roku for little while. My wife won't let me though - won't even let me try it along with directv. We have Comcast Blast which is 50x10. My biggest concern is that in the future when Comcast decides to reinstate that 250GB/month cap on our account that we could end up going over if we rely strictly on the Roku.

 

[TenYardFight]

We did this 18 months. Gave it up because we are sports fans. We used existing wiring to pipe the ota antenna all thru the house. Used a TiVo in the main room for DVD and guide. Had (still have) a roku or appletv on every other tv.

 

[tankman1989]

I don't know why many of the cable channels haven't released their own streaming channels? This would be great as you could subscribe to the channels that you watch - maybe they could have 2 pricing structures - one with commercials one without.

I'd find out if you have a bandwidth cap. I found that I was hitting mine @ 250GB/month when I did a lot of Netflix streaming. If you have a cap or a lot of people streaming, you should go to your netflix settings and select the lowest video quality (if you don't mind the lower quality). The lowest quality vs highest quality is about 1/10 the amount of data.

If you want to do torrents there are some private torrent trackers that are pretty awesome. They fully scan the files for viruses & malware when they are uploaded. If you want to find good sites check out torrentday.com, IPtorrents.com, TVtorrents.com & HDtorrents.com. A good public tracker search site is torrentz.eu