I'd say something like 60 to 70% . Everyone who did not grow up with antennas for TV and/or never really played around with them. I raise the percentage of those that think an HD or 4K antenna is needed or is a thing.
Cord cutting on the cheap!
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I'd say something like 60 to 70% . Everyone who did not grow up with antennas for TV and/or never really played around with them. I raise the percentage of those that think an HD or 4K antenna is needed or is a thing.
- Nov 29, 2003
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-at a much higher cost for not much new content since the majority of those channels have nothing more then reruns most of the time.
A lot of that extra content I can get for free via the sub channels and/or the free streaming services like IMDB, Tubi, Crackle, etc., but I don’t watch those either, I want new content.
The majority of cable channels should be combined, look at BBC America ( the Next Generation rerun channel) and AMC ( the not classic movie channel) for example, those two can easily join together since neither of them have enough new content, call it ABN, American British Network.
But they won’t do that because they will lose out on revenue being two channels, sub fees from providers and advertising.
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I place a pretty high value on the music channels available through my DISH subscription. Their MUZAK channels along with SIRIUS channels is an excellent alternative to paying for a music service on the side. The bonus being that it uses no broadband bandwidth to have background music.
Anything you haven't seen yet is new to you so I'm not sure that's a valid argument.
It comes down to what you need to see and it can be hit or miss however you choose to go about it. Spending minutes a session just trying to find something you want to watch among several services is a negative. Time spent jumping in and out of apps is time wasted.
- Nov 29, 2003
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Same could be said about going up and down on a guide trying to find something to watch.
How much time do you think it takes to stop and go to a new app, when I go home my wife will be watching Food Network on Hulu, I will hit the Netflix button and then click on Locke and Key and we will watch.
When I click on a app I know exactly what to watch, I do not scan forever just to find something, that is the beauty of binge watching, start, finish, move on to the next.
Same for OTA, knew to watch Evil and Emergence last week since their 13 episode seasons was done, binged them and move onto the next thing to watch.
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I subscribe to Amazon Prime for the shipping, they throw in the video and music for free. And as long as I can stream both video and audio as much as I want during the month without exceeding my data cap, I don’t care how much bandwidth it uses.
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I've had an Apple ID for almost a decade and I've never owned an Apple device in my life. The only reason I got one is because I received some iTunes gift cards. I was able to access the iTunes Store via a PC web browser and purchase whatever content I wanted, including music and TV shows. The music I had to get transferred to MP3 format so I could use it on other devices, and the TV show I was able to watch by connecting my PC laptop to my TV.
No. It comes down to what you are willing to pay for. It's true thing can be hit or miss, if you are locked into a single service with a static offerings. With DirecTV, I chose my package based upon whether the channels in the next package up was worth the added cost. At one point in time, I thought I needed Food Network.
I find now that I can watch pretty much everything I want.
As an added bonus, I haven't watched a competitive cooking show in months!
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Yep, it always comes down to the benjamins! But to actually do a fair comparison you have to factor in things that don’t show on the bill.
Like convenience. How much is the convenience of cable/sat compared to the inconveniences of streaming worth in dollars? That’s purely subjective.
Inconveniences like using more than one app to get what you want to watch. Or the difference in how the DVR functions. Or how ad-tolerant are you since with streaming you can’t always skip ads or even pay to not have them.
For younger folks already doing most, if not all, their video on their phones or tablets, those inconveniences aren’t there. For us older folk used to the grid guide, relative simplicity of the DVR functions and search that covers all the channels we subscribe to, it is inconvenient.
One thing I noticed is that YTTV has excellent search, but it only covers those ‘channels’ it has. AppleTV and some others have a more unified search but don’t track those things you watch on YTTV and other cable/sat replacements. If you watch on the channel’s app then in most cases it does track that. That’s handy, but what’s not as handy is how they present ‘up next’ as your list of watched shows grows.
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Like convenience. How much is the convenience of cable/sat compared to the inconveniences of streaming worth in dollars? That’s purely subjective.
Inconveniences like using more than one app to get what you want to watch. Or the difference in how the DVR functions. Or how ad-tolerant are you since with streaming you can’t always skip ads or even pay to not have them.
For younger folks already doing most, if not all, their video on their phones or tablets, those inconveniences aren’t there. For us older folk used to the grid guide, relative simplicity of the DVR functions and search that covers all the channels we subscribe to, it is inconvenient.
One thing I noticed is that YTTV has excellent search, but it only covers those ‘channels’ it has. AppleTV and some others have a more unified search but don’t track those things you watch on YTTV and other cable/sat replacements. If you watch on the channel’s app then in most cases it does track that. That’s handy, but what’s not as handy is how they present ‘up next’ as your list of watched shows grows.
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Audio streaming bandwidth is relatively negligible and shouldn't be factored in unless you have a really low data cap. If you're just barely exceeding your data cap, cutting a few hours of HD streaming will probably make up the difference. If you're blowing past it, you have other areas to focus on for cutting back. (Amazon Music uses ~115 Mbps/hour, so if you stream music 12 hours every day, that's only 40 GB a month or 4% of 1 TB — the cap most people have). Source.
I literally spend zero minutes looking for something to watch when I fire up a streaming app like Netflix, Hulu, and Prime. Everything I want to watch is already at the top of my list ready to go. Sure, sometimes I kill five minutes before I shut everything down for the night browsing the "Just Added" or "Recommended" categories. But if I want to jump right into watching something, I already know what I'm watching and can access it quicker than punching in the buttons for a TV channel number and scrolling through the guide listings. By the same token, "jumping in and out of apps" doesn't take any longer than punching in a channel number either. Either you have a really slow older streaming device and need to upgrade, or you have a very twisted sense of how long it takes to return to a device's home menu and select a favorite app.
And since watching TV is pretty much time wasting by definition, does it matter if it takes a few more seconds to find something new/different to watch?
I often go into Netflix/Amazon/Hulu and roam around looking for something I haven’t yet seen and might be interested in. I’m almost always able to accomplish that and usually pleasantly surprised.
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I often go into Netflix/Amazon/Hulu and roam around looking for something I haven’t yet seen and might be interested in. I’m almost always able to accomplish that and usually pleasantly surprised.
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Search is a tool that comes in pretty handy when you aren't subscribing to multiple services. There are search aggregators but that often involves using a web browser.
If you watch more than two networks or don't know what you want to watch, it is likely considerable. Your straw men are always based on your household's unique preferences and while that's fine for you, it may not play in Peoria.
The act of watching TV shouldn't be a relatively complex process. There's little entertainment value or relaxation to be had from searching.
If that were the case, why are so many paying $60 or more per month for phone service?
IYO of course. I don’t agree. In fact watching TV, regardless of how you do it, very often does include searching. Or do you just watch the same shows year after year?
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Because they are willing to and find value in their choice.
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More cogitating. I was leaning towards shifting to YTTV since it covers all the channels I would watch. But the SlingTV, Hulu, CBS All Access has its allure too.
YTTV - Could be cheapest way to go if I cancel Hulu & CBS All Access since because of the way the YTTV DVR works I could watch recent shows via either VOD or DVR easily. Downside is the VOD versions have non-skippable ads. Another is seeing individual episode descriptions easily. With YTTV you actually have to be in the episode to be able to see that. And I like not having ads and having episode descriptions prominently displayed.
SlingTV, Hulu, CBS All Access - slightly higher that YTTV solution.
For the SlingTV app - Has a better guide which includes episode info similar to what cable/sat does. Has a DVR that is similar to cable/sat boxes, and all shows can use manual skip for getting away from ads. And you can delete DVR’d shows which cannot be done on YTTV. Much fewer channels and no locals at all. SlingTV now has included ‘Sling Free’ which is a collection of some channels and shows of widely varying interest and quality.
For the Hulu App w/basic Hulu w/no ads - Of course no ads is a plus, covers those channels not in YTTV with the exception of CBS stuff. Can make a ‘My Stuff’ section so you can keep track of the shows you watch. Shows watched will track in the AppleTV app on my AppleTV and Hulu is one part of the unified search on with that app.
CBS All Access - Again, no ads. Has live CBS from my local area. Also has some excellent original stuff. And like with Hulu, the AppleTV app will track shows I watch on CBS and the shows in CBS are part of the unified search with that app.
I’ll admit that I’ve been spoiled by the auto ad-skipping with my Tivo for many of the shows I watch so the Sling combo is really of interest and only slightly more complicated to deal with. But to be fair in my evaluation I just spent a week only using YTTV so I could get a real feel of it. This next week will be using only the Sling combo along with my Tivo for a couple local channels to catch the local news. Other local interest stuff isn’t interesting to me. Since I always watch shows the next day this should work out fine.
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YTTV - Could be cheapest way to go if I cancel Hulu & CBS All Access since because of the way the YTTV DVR works I could watch recent shows via either VOD or DVR easily. Downside is the VOD versions have non-skippable ads. Another is seeing individual episode descriptions easily. With YTTV you actually have to be in the episode to be able to see that. And I like not having ads and having episode descriptions prominently displayed.
SlingTV, Hulu, CBS All Access - slightly higher that YTTV solution.
For the SlingTV app - Has a better guide which includes episode info similar to what cable/sat does. Has a DVR that is similar to cable/sat boxes, and all shows can use manual skip for getting away from ads. And you can delete DVR’d shows which cannot be done on YTTV. Much fewer channels and no locals at all. SlingTV now has included ‘Sling Free’ which is a collection of some channels and shows of widely varying interest and quality.
For the Hulu App w/basic Hulu w/no ads - Of course no ads is a plus, covers those channels not in YTTV with the exception of CBS stuff. Can make a ‘My Stuff’ section so you can keep track of the shows you watch. Shows watched will track in the AppleTV app on my AppleTV and Hulu is one part of the unified search on with that app.
CBS All Access - Again, no ads. Has live CBS from my local area. Also has some excellent original stuff. And like with Hulu, the AppleTV app will track shows I watch on CBS and the shows in CBS are part of the unified search with that app.
I’ll admit that I’ve been spoiled by the auto ad-skipping with my Tivo for many of the shows I watch so the Sling combo is really of interest and only slightly more complicated to deal with. But to be fair in my evaluation I just spent a week only using YTTV so I could get a real feel of it. This next week will be using only the Sling combo along with my Tivo for a couple local channels to catch the local news. Other local interest stuff isn’t interesting to me. Since I always watch shows the next day this should work out fine.
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you would be surprized how many people belive the old antennas ain't HD
. now there pushing this 4k crap on consumers so they will run out and buy another one. wait till the OTA 3.0 boxes come out wonders how many people will run out and buy em that don't have a 4k set... should be interesting. though the reception will be better than with the 1.0 we have today!!!
yea but 60.00 for the phone. your getting bent over!!! i pay 9.99 a month taxes and fees included with unlimited everything!!! that's for my landline...
