Cord cutting on the cheap!

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So of course as soon as I post this, I get a TV offer from Cox: $55/mo. which includes one premium of choice (HBO, Starz, Showtime, etc.) Price good for 24 months and includes 1 (one) receiver rental.

Sounds pretty good, right?

HOWEVER, it does not include the DVR fee, RSN fee, any channel tiers beyond the basic cable package, along with various other taxes and fees. So with just one more receiver, the whole home DVR service fee, and the Sports and Info channel tier (which includes the channels I'd need for my home team's college football/basketball games - all included with YTTV) I'd be looking at least $100/mo. For a limited time promotional offer. And they can raise the RSN fee at any time (according to the fine print).
That’s always the problem with traditional providers, added fees.

OTT will definitely raise prices (as will traditional), but the fees are where streaming saves many a fair amount of money.
 
That’s always the problem with traditional providers, added fees.

OTT will definitely raise prices (as will traditional), but the fees are where streaming saves many a fair amount of money.

There are very few stations offered by YTTV that I would actually mind them dropping if it meant my monthly fee not increasing. As it is, I exclude about 1/3 of the stations from the guide, and I only watch about 10 of them regularly.

YTTV's selling point is low cost.


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In the posts you’ve quoted and replied to, I’ve yet to see that notion put forward.

This is the reason he got kicked out of Directv forums here. He never used the service but put his “expert” reasons for his advice for using Directv and his views made no sense for the most part.
People here need to be heard for sure but when someone keeps telling people that something is black when clearly white, it’s time to move on.
He either believes everything he post here or he trying to show everyone how smart he is and make you “think “.
The ladder type are easy to deal with. Repeat after me everyone and say.... you are right.
Either way most of his post make no sense because he clearly doesn’t read the post he is replying most of the time.
 
They're not creating a market as much as using monopoly powers to shift how viewers shop.

Monopoly powers... That's laughable. There are no monopoly power in play.

This market is pretty much as Laissez-faire free market as a market can get. Streamers acquire or develop the rights to content and make it available to customers. Customers choose streamers based upon content and cost.

There is a separate Laissez-faire free market for streaming inventory.

Customers can change streaming service at will at essentially no cost.

The entry cost for new streaming providers is minimal.


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This is the reason he got kicked out of Directv forums here. He never used the service but put his “expert” reasons for his advice for using Directv and his views made no sense for the most part.
People here need to be heard for sure but when someone keeps telling people that something is black when clearly white, it’s time to move on.
He either believes everything he post here or he trying to show everyone how smart he is and make you “think “.
The latter type are easy to deal with. Repeat after me everyone and say.... you are right.
Either way most of his post make no sense because he clearly doesn’t read the post he is replying most of the time.

edit: correct spelling latter for ladder:)
 
Ok, cable TV is cut off. Set Tivo for OTA.

AppleTV for all else. Stayed with Sling Blue/Hulu no ads/CBS no adds. Cancelled Tivo guide service on the two Tivos that still had annual payments.

I was surprised when I connected the Tivo and ran the setup. I had used a different one for a test, but the one I’ll use going forward has better OTA tuners. So I get ABC, CBS, Fox and their subchannels. NBC is a no go, but Hulu covers that fine. I’m very pleased with that.

Overall savings of about $45.

A little follow up. I ended up keeping YTTV too for another month. Now that they billed for it, I found that my Tivo has decided it likes ALL my local broadcast channels just fine. So paying the $15 extra for YTTV to gain the locals and a few more lesser cared about channels seems a bit wasteful.

Another thing I fiddled with was the audio. Currently almost every streamer that offers live channels only offer stereo audio. That kind of sucks! Most do offer DD 5.1 for at least some of the VOD. But I found that if I use the Xbox One for streaming I get much better audio. That’s because I have the Dolby Experience app on it which supports Atmos if the source has it and fakes it if it doesn’t. Fortunately my Samsung K950 soundbar does Atmos just great! :)

Unfortunately on the Xbox One all apps stand on their own, there isn’t any unified searching for video at all. Currently on the AppleTV I can find all the VOD stuff across a wide range of apps inside the AppleTV app itself. Not any live streams though and none of the cable/sat replacement streamers. Because of that, management of video sources is easier on the ATV.
 
Reprising this thread a bit.

I’ve been twiddling with the various live streaming services, and while they are all pretty good in many ways, the one thing they are all missing for me these days is many shows of real interest. I’m not into the inane game shows, the ‘contests’ with overacting ‘judges’, nor the ‘reality’ shows which aren’t reality in any real sense of the word.

I’ve acquired 2 OTA DVR boxes, Amazon’s Recast and Sling’s Anywhere. Both have really good tuners and I get all the local channels and subchannels.

In the realm of cable channel shows, I’m recording a total of 3 each week which makes spending much money on them seem a little idiotic since I can get most of them with a VOD service. While I do enjoy some sports, I usually don’t watch much of it.

So in light of all that when my current month’s subscription to a live streaming service ends I’ll be switching to all on demand services and reducing my TV watching bill by $65/month! I already sub to the on demand services now for about $50/month and I like that cost a lot better!
 
I have Amazon Prime for the free shipping so to me Prime Video is free. Now add Acorn TV, Britbox, Discovery +, and Ownzones Best TV Ever channel for a total of $24 a month. My OTA antenna gets about another 70 channels. I still have the Dish Flexpack for grandma but I could loose it in a second and not really miss it. She likes the convenience so I keep grandma happy. :) Even with the Flexpack my total monthly expense is right around $75.
 
I have Amazon Prime for the free shipping so to me Prime Video is free. Now add Acorn TV, Britbox, Discovery +, and Ownzones Best TV Ever channel for a total of $24 a month. My OTA antenna gets about another 70 channels. I still have the Dish Flexpack for grandma but I could loose it in a second and not really miss it. She likes the convenience so I keep grandma happy. :) Even with the Flexpack my total monthly expense is right around $75.

I’ve got Prime for the same reason, so it is essentially a zero cost video source.

The others:
Netflix = $14
Paramount+ = 4.17 ( 1/2 off annual deal)
Peacock = $5
Hulu basic = $5
AMC+ = $9
HBO Max = $12 (prepaid deal)
Showtime = $5 (prepaid deal)
 
I'm fortunate to have great OTA in my area. Thanks in part to a 10,500' mountain 12 miles east of me where the antennas reside. Add Prime, Netflix and some of the ad supported apps mentioned here and that suits our needs.
 
I'm fortunate to have great OTA in my area. Thanks in part to a 10,500' mountain 12 miles east of me where the antennas reside. Add Prime, Netflix and some of the ad supported apps mentioned here and that suits our needs.

While I don’t have great OTA here, it is good enough. Covers ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox and the CW and a few of the more popular smaller subchannels. And these days I generally use the FireTV Cube because the Recast only works with it, and the Recast supports DD5.1 audio for those local channels with that.

The reason for some of those I sub to is because of the cable channel shows I like which Hulu, Peacock and Paramount+ cover reasonably well.
 
I'm fortunate to have great OTA in my area. Thanks in part to a 10,500' mountain 12 miles east of me where the antennas reside. Add Prime, Netflix and some of the ad supported apps mentioned here and that suits our needs.
For years we had no local OTA. But in 92, we got three analog translators, ABC, CBS, & IND. After 2010 they added PBS and NBC, switch IND over to FOX. That gave us about 10 OTA. As stations added diginets, it went to 16. Now with the stacking, they added CW, and we are up to 27. About 2/3 of what Portland has. Except for an LPTV or two, Rel, and ION, we have the rest. Add in streaming, that gives us other diginets like Buzzr, Circle, Charge, Stadium, etc.
 

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