Is TV Over the 'Net Really Cheaper Than Cable? 285
jfruh writes "More and more people are joining the ranks of 'cord-cutters' — those who cancel their cable TV subscriptions and get their televisied entertainment either for free over the airwaves or over the Internet. But, assuming you're going to do things legally, is this really a cheaper option? It depends on what you watch. Brian Proffitt contemplated this move, and he walks you through the calculations he made to figure out the prices of cutting the cord. He weighed the costs of various a la carte and all-you-can-eat Internet streaming services, and took into account the fact that Internet service on its own is often pricier than it would be if bundled with cable TV."
Quality and quantity (Score:5, Insightful)
Lets do the math. The most my ISP (Suddenlink) will sell is 250GB/mo at up to 15mbps. Put two TVs in a home, that is pretty minimal these days. So you can't expect to stream more than six or seven Mb/s and have any hope of keeping a second set going. Now an hour of HD programming on my MythTV system scarfs down GB/hr when recording HD and perhaps one GB/hr for standard def.
Add it up and if you stream you are going to settle for a lot lower quality and still be watching the bandwidth counter the last part of the month. The bandwidth caps ended cord cutting as a viable tactic for any home where the TV runs a lot, i.e. children are involved.
Re:Quality and quantity (Score:5, Interesting)
My ISP still gives me the "all you can eat" unlimited transfer per month. They are a DSL offering, bundled with landline telephone.
I cut the cord years ago. I work secnd shift, and the only thing on cable that late is porn, informercials, and shit like ancient aliens.
Streaming let's me pick what I want to watch, at the times I want to watch it. For me, the choice is clear.
Re:Quality and quantity (Score:4, Insightful)
Good, nice to learn some people still get all you can eat Internet. Here the choice is AT&T's 200GB cap or Suddenlink's 250GB cap.
As for nothing on at night, that is what my MythTV is for.
But with a CableCard in a Homerun Prime I get the full bitsream and they are pushing some bits on cable for HD. 4-6GB/hr fills up hard drives but it looks so much better than standard def I hate to record that if I can help it.
But ya know what? Cable HD looks really good and most movies would fit on a DVD9 without the commercials. Really makes ya wonder if BluRay was really worth it. They could have just tweaked DVD.
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A few DVDs wre released with MPEG4 encoding for HD, but they are still not as good as Bluray. There's a huge difference between the DVD's average 6 Mbit/s and the Bluray's average 35 Mbit/s stream, which gives the DVD with HD artifacting.
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obversely, i would like to see blu-ray's space utilized for older, standard def tv shows, fitting a whole season on 1 disc.
Maybe we should be asking (Score:2)
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Probably because they're multiplexing most of that data (TV) on their internal network. 6GB/hr of unique data requires a connection to the outside internet.
Re:Quality and quantity (Score:4, Insightful)
A well mastered DVD is also a suitably good "tweak" for a lot of use cases. Not every DVD is created equal (or BD for that matter).
Some discs are wonderful advertisements for their particular formats and others are not.
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You cant really assume that Cable and Internet are interchangable.
For me, Internet can replace cable, while cable can never replace the internet.
If I consider it mandatory to have internet, and I get more TV than cable for from Hulu & netflix, then its a no brainer to ditch cable.
said and done, $55/month covers cable, internet, TV entertainment, and phone (Magicjack+).
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True, but as the story points out, if you just want mindless old movies and no Live sports, or current programming you might be happy streaming crap quality shows onto a small tablet. Save the TV money for quality Blueray disks. But you can't be a sports fan very easily unless you settle for 1960's era image quality.
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My question to this is... why be a sports fan? I just don't get sports fans. I mean, truly, is any year all that different from any other year? How many different ways can a ball be hit, or carried, or thrown. Not to mention, sports players are by and large, douche-nozzles.
I'm not trolling, this is a serious question. How can you honestly give a rats ass about a bunch of millionaires chasing a ball around and complaining that they're not being paid enough?
Re:Quality and quantity (Score:5, Insightful)
I feel pretty much the same about movies.
So, you watch what you want, and I'll ask for no explanations from you, an provide none of my own.
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I never grew up around sports and nobody in my family was really interested in them at all, I was the music and computers person.
At some points in my life I was even down right hostile towards sports (maybe having a college roommate who listened to baseball on the radio while watching 20 year old games all night on cable had something to do with it).
Anyway as I got older and moved a lot, in particular to big cities with huge team followings I finally get it. It's not about the guys who get paid way to much
Re:Quality and quantity (Score:5, Insightful)
ISPs need to waive the caps during off-peak periods, similar to free unlimited nights and weekends on cell phone plans. Let people download all they want overnight. A megabyte of data transfer doesn't cost the ISP nearly as much at 3am as it does at 7pm. Then we'll stream our videos less and download more, but planning ahead like that is only a minor inconvenience.
Re:Quality and quantity (Score:5, Interesting)
If children are involved, you can stream as low as 300 kbit/s (like I do) and they won't care. That's about equal to VHS or youtube-360p in quality.
I watch about 2 hours a day... 8 on weekends. So that's 16+2*5 == 26 per week or 111 for the month. 250GB/111 hours == 5 Mbit/s. Most streams don't come anywhere near that amount so I'd not worry about going over the limit. And just to be sure I'd watch everything in SD (which is what comcast cable serves anyway).
Re:Quality and quantity (Score:5, Interesting)
If children are involved, you can stream as low as 300 kbit/s (like I do) and they won't care. That's about equal to VHS or youtube-360p in quality.
I watch about 2 hours a day... 8 on weekends. So that's 16+2*5 == 26 per week or 111 for the month. 250GB/111 hours == 5 Mbit/s. Most streams don't come anywhere near that amount so I'd not worry about going over the limit. And just to be sure I'd watch everything in SD (which is what comcast cable serves anyway).
All you'd do with your internet connection is watch TV?
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If children are involved, you can stream as low as 300 kbit/s (like I do) and they won't care. That's about equal to VHS or youtube-360p in quality.
I watch about 2 hours a day... 8 on weekends. So that's 16+2*5 == 26 per week or 111 for the month. 250GB/111 hours == 5 Mbit/s. Most streams don't come anywhere near that amount so I'd not worry about going over the limit. And just to be sure I'd watch everything in SD (which is what comcast cable serves anyway).
All you'd do with your internet connection is watch TV?
In terms of bandwidth ... yes.
You can download a new Ubuntu distro ever day, if you are willing to watch 4Mbit/s TV. But not many people do that.
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Comcast says that they have a 250mb cap, but I have never noticed any change in my service from lots of video downloads.
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If you look at the files themselves on the backend, it should be representative (there could be some extra audio tracks, etc). For part of the London Olympic thing, which was 1080i at 50 fps, I got 15.2 GB for 3 and a half hour. 9.6Mbit/s on average. A couple of those streams can be done over a fast connection.
I'm sure about one thing... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I'm sure about one thing... (Score:5, Funny)
I think a depressingly large number of folks these days would be shocked and amazed to find that they can put a pair of rabbit ears on that fancy new TV and get local HD broadcasts...
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Except that I live in BFE, and need way more than just a pair of rabbit ears.
I have an amplified HD rabbit ear antenna, and it is not sufficient to get more than about 6 channels, in spotty quality. To get efficient OtA, I need to set up an actual roof antenna. I don't like TV sufficiently enough to have considered doing that. Streaming is fine.
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BFE?
Amplified rabbit ears are basically worthless for digital reception (unless you live within 10 miles of the broadcaster). Anyway: Just because you buy a "roof" antenna does not mean you have to put it on the roof. My CM4228 sits right next to the window, aimed towards the nearest major city 55 miles away. It was a piece of cake to setup & then run the cord under the rug to the TV.
Re:I'm sure about one thing... (Score:4, Interesting)
I have the smaller 2-bay version of that antenna [amazon.com], and I do basically the same thing as you. It's awesome. Now I get about 10 digital channels where I used to receive only one with my indoor Terk amplified antenna.
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++ to that.
I put a huge DB8 antenna inside the peak of the attic in my two story suburban home, using a piece of 2" PVC conduit as a mast. I used good quality rg6 cable (I chose belden 7915a tri shield, it terminates like normal dual shield cable) and compression fittings (snap n seal SNS6). You just need a coax stripper tool and a compression tool to install the fittings.
My home has all of the cable connections home run to a single location with convenient access to A/C power there, so I ran the cable fr
Re:I'm sure about one thing... (Score:4, Informative)
BFE?
Bum Fuck Egypt... a.k.a the back of beyond or the middle of no where.
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From what I understand, an amplifier reduces loss at the cable. So, if you can somehow get a clear signal, but only by putting your antenna a hundred metres from your TV, the amplifier will boost the signal so it's not degraded further by running down 100 metres of cable. If your antenna doesn't have the right sort of elements, or it's pointed in the wrong direction,or it's simply too small to receive the signal, the amplifier won't do much.
Poorly made amplifiers also add a certain amount of noise.
There are
Re:I'm sure about one thing... (Score:4, Interesting)
Not communism. Ad-supported entertainment broadcast over AM, FM, and ATSC:
- 40+ TV channels through my antenna (CM4228)
- supplemented by free Hulu so I can watch Syfy
And yes it's VASTLY cheaper than the ~$900/year that Comcast wants to charge to hookup two sets. (Another alternative is Dish TV which only costs $23/month for two sets... still much less than comsucks.) I've been watching lots of old movies, retro-shows like Dragnet, Cheers, and 24 hours news via RT. Also PBS World which airs lots of documentaries..... ya know, like History and Discovery used to do. ;-)
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I admit it.
Re:I'm sure about one thing... (Score:5, Interesting)
What I admit is that there is no way on fucking Earth I would every pay for it ever again.
Just one simple realization.
I'm paying over $100 per month for a company to sell my ass like meat to the advertisers.
If I am going to bend over and get fucked on a regular basis, I'm sure as hell not going to smile and hand over my money while they do it. All that "quality" programming infected with commercial advertisements everywhere is not anywhere near the definition of a reacharound.
Add to this the further realization that these companies are suing with twisted logic like skipping commercials is theft & copyright infringement (both). So that the same time they want me to be a paying customer each month, they hate me and treat me like a dirty criminal and lobby for laws to progressively eliminate any semblance of choice and free will in my home.
I wish I figured that out sooner instead of spending nearly 10 years paying exorbitant fees to these ass clowns.
Cut the cord nearly 10 years ago now and I don't care how expensive they make the Internet. I'm only going to spend up to $100 per month on it, and it will include everything. Period. Otherwise, I will just go without.
Hard drives are getting bigger all the time. I can download 1 or 2 shows and just arrange get togethers with friends on the weekends to sync up hard drives. Say hello to the sneakernets again.
Providers aren't dummies (Score:5, Informative)
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> Same story applies to cell phones.
Stop whining about the government being needed. Just shop a little and then stop bundling a loan into your monthly cell bill for the iPhone (or top of the line Android). I only pay $100/year for 2000 minutes or texts, work the math out to get the monthly. I supplied my own handset though, they aren't expensive at all if you know where to shop and don't need the latest features. Now AT&T has a cheap ass GoPhone you can get a similar $100/yr plan on.
Oh, you want
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> Eh - T-Mobile has a $30/mo unlimited data and text plan...
T-Mobile won't sign up customers in my zip code. No towers so all traffic would be roaming. But yea, they had a $100/yr voice/text plan at least a year ago.
My story.. (Score:5, Insightful)
I used to pay just over $100 for Internet and Digital Cable - 90% of which I never watched.
I now pay $54 for internet, $8 for netflix, $8 for hulu, and OTA is free.
Yup, its cheaper.
Re:My story.. (Score:5, Interesting)
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It's mostly inertia; older people (like 30+) are set in their ways and think cable is a requirement for modern life. (I say this as someone almost 40; I don't think most of my peers are as up to newer technologies as me.)
What do you think of black people?
(This should be interesting.)
Re:My story.. (Score:4, Interesting)
The drawback is that most of the stuff on netflix is a little older. However, it's so much easier to watch stuff on demand, I actually end up using it more.
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And how much of the 10% you did watch did you lose in the switch?
Seriously who cares. There are tons of things on TV that I'm not even aware of. Anyone who actually watches anywhere near 10% of all the programming available on cable TV needs to check into a tubal detoxification clinic ASAP. My life is better because I am unaware of all those time wasters. I watch about 1 show a day, (lately Breaking Bad) and I find plenty on netflix to feed my small need for watching the screen. I may be missing shows, those shows may even be really good. If they are then someday I
Short version. (Score:3)
It depends upon how much you're being charged for cable and for Internet and what you watch.
YMMV
Void where prohibited
It's not "cheaper"... (Score:5, Insightful)
...unless the total bundled cost is LESS than the price of internet alone. That's never the case.
I cut the cord almost two years ago, and have Netflix and Hulu+ ($17/month, I believe, for both). I was paying nearly $70/month for cable. The $50+/month difference paid for my three Rokus, my $50 tuner, and my $300 HTPC in the first year after I cut.
Between OTA, Netflix, Hulu+ (which you can suspend easily if you're not using it) and all the free channels on Roku, I'm never lacking for anything to watch, and I'm still saving $50/month over the cheapest cable plan. It's not going to work for everyone, but it's absolutely the right choice for me.
Re:It's not "cheaper"... (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, and I'm going to have internet access even if I throw away my TVs and never watch a movie again, so I don't think adding it into the equation is fair. I need a house to watch my TVs in as well, but that doesn't mean I count my mortgate as part of the price of television...
Re:It's not "cheaper"... (Score:4, Interesting)
^^^ This is my story, exactly. It's not the same kind of entertainment, but it is good entertainment for ridiculously cheaper. And as a 4th year cord-cutter, I've become spoiled by the idea of watching ENTIRE shows that I've never seen before and didn't program in advance.
It's rather surprising how annoying it is to watch a half show when you are used to entire episodes on demand...
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Often overlooked is that the "internet bill" is a necessity these days. If you can get more out of that bill per month, sufficiently that you can cut a different bill per month, the money you save is through the cutting of that second bill.
Eg, you don't include the cost of internet with the cost of cable, unless you would suffer a rate hike by unbundling. (In which case, you count the rate hike as a negative savings figure for your assessment.)
In my case, the ISP is DSL, and is bundled with the landline. It
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the best way to keep your tv/internet cost down is to switch back and forth. In my area you can get tv/internet through ATT or comcast if you know where to look you can often get 1-2 year promotions through their alternate sales channels (.com/field agents) and just go back and forth after your promotions run out you will save far more than any install fees you may occur once a year.
You don't even have to disconnect entirely, if you drop your services to basic levels for a couple months you can often get
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Yeah. I have a buddy who keeps flipping back and forth between Comcast and Astound. As soon as the promo period runs out he calls them up and demands they continue the discount. If they refuse he calls up the other company and gets their promo rate. He's been paying promo rates for years and years now.
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When prospective employers contact me through the Internet and current employers expect me to work through the Internet then it is no longer a "convenience".
Same goes for the phone (land line or cell).
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Do not confuse highly desirable with necessity.
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Even if we speak only about electricity in homes, the lack of it means old people and people with
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"or letting your neighbor do the work and killing him after" -- ironic isn't it that that is exactly what the very richest in our society are doing, with the governments in their pockets making wars of choice not necessity.
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I think what he meant to say was "It is only cheaper if the cost of cable and internet combined is less than the cost of internet alone". I agree with this as one may have to subscribe to a much more expensive internet plan to be able to access all the TV programs. If the necessary internet plan costs more than cable and internet combined then one is losing money.
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...unless the total bundled cost is LESS than the price of internet alone. That's never the case.
Not true, at least where I live. "Basic" cable + internet is cheaper than just internet. The reason is basic cable includes all the broadcasters (like HSN and QVC) that pay the cable company to include their content.
Country-dependant (Score:3)
In my country a-la-carte works like this: the price per channel scales depending on how many channels you buy, such that the total cost you pay is always at least equal to the cost of the traditional bundle packages. It's totally pointless. Also in my country, over the Internet broadcast licencing hasn't really been established (for the most part).
The result is that over the net tv is far cheaper, but in no way legal.
Apples and Oranges. (Score:2)
I did the math... (Score:4, Interesting)
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...and got a divide by zero error.
I kept cable internet and dropped cable TV service for a year.
I reconnected last night. 1000 channels including HD service.
Searching for "Nova" returned no instances of the PBS show; if I want to watch my favorite show, I still need to buy it from iTunes and download it.
Jury is still out on the other reason I dropped cable TV; I want to watch WWE Summer Slam in HD, live when it broadcasts (not three months later on DVD).
It's not showing up in the listing yet; I'll try again two weeks prior to the event.
Haven't tried to find a 2012 BBC Top Gear; had to 'torrent last winter's shows because they won't even sell those to us yanks.
The funny thing is, Comcast never asked why I dropped TV service in the first place.
You can get the WWE PPV the next day, in 720p for free, and oddly enough, it's quality will be way better then any HD on Comcast. I have HD Comcast (I get it for free, would never pay for it) and depending on how many of your neighbors is using cable at the time, the quality of fast moving stuff goes from looking great in still scenes, too looking like a overly compressed mess of squares during action. When people aren't using Comcast when you are watching a fast action show like WWE, then it tends
I did it... (Score:3, Informative)
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Legally ? (Score:5, Insightful)
assuming you're going to do things legally
This is where things go south. If I could get the shows I like from a streaming service like Netflix or Hulu, I would not mind waiting a few weeks or months after the original airdate, but I can't. A lot of the shows I watch, I can't get at all without paying $120+ for the "everything" cable package. They simply aren't available anywhere else, so I choose option C: Usenet/torrents.
If I were living in the U.S., things would be different, as the vast majority of popular TV programming is stubbornly geo-blocked as soon as you cross the border. I can't even begin to describe the stupidity of locking your content to a mere 5% of the world's population, but that's precisely what these media companies do. Fuck 'em! I have money, I want the content, but they won't sell it to me unless I agree to a 3 year contract with a cable company I absolutely despise, a fixed schedule that does not work for me, and invasive advertising wasting one fifth of my time. Fuck 'em. Fuck 'em dead!
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Why is parent modded insightful? Not liking the terms of a product doesn't give you the right to find an illegal alternative.
I disagree. If the terms are unconscionable [wikipedia.org], you have every moral and ethical right to do what you feel is the most fair and just. If a $120 cable package and an $8 Netflix package have the same value, the $120 cable package does seem "excessively unfair to one party", specifically, a "gross disparity in values exchanged". This is not about your relationship with the cable company, or with Netflix, but with the ultimate producer of the content you are trying to consume. This is not an edge case, it's ab
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I think you completely missed what I was saying. First, I wasn't arguing legality, but rather ethics and morality. Second, I wasn't saying that $8 for Netflix is unconscionable. I actually think Netflix is very fair and reasonable. If you follow the thread up, we were discussing places where Netflix isn't unavailable. I'm saying that forcing people to pay $120 for the content is clearly unconscionable, when you consider that the content producers themselves agree that the same content is worth $8 when
Cheaper to own (Score:5, Interesting)
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> Most of the stuff on Netflix is HD where as cable is all highly compressed HD which looks like crap.
You must have a terrible cable system. I'm deep in flyover country and I get good HD streams. Broadcast channels appear to be full bitrate and even channels like FoxNewsHD and CNNHD at 10+Mbps. Rates no streaming provider is going to reliably send. And even if they could the cap would limit you to an hour or so of daily viewing at those bitrates. Netflix is usually much lower rate streaming balanced
My TV is free (Score:2)
- it comes in through my antenna (40+ digital channels)
- supplemented by Hulu so I can watch Syfy
And yes it's not only cheaper, but a VASTLY cheaper than the ~$900/year that Comcast wants to charge to hookup two sets.
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Another alternative is Dish TV which only costs $23/month for two sets.
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$20 for year one, and $25 for year two. Averages out to ~$23 per month. The DishTV equipment is free w/ the contract.
>>>Turns out that his bill went from $10 to almost $100 and that is only for cable
Cancel. I inquired about cable for my brother and his four sets, and it started at $75 for one year, then jumped to $96, and finally $110 in year 3 (normal monthly rate). It was like pulling teeth to get the answer. They didn't want to tell me how much years 2 and 3 cost.
Not about price (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm sorry to say that it isn't about price. It's a philosophical issue to me - to subscribe to a 'push' service or a 'pull' service. I choose 'pull' where I have control on what garbage can or cannot enter my life.
TFA missed the most important consideration (Score:5, Insightful)
Not having to deal with the cable company ever again?
**PRICELESS**
YES! (Score:2)
I've been doing this for quite a while now. Between HULU and Netflix, you're pretty much covered. And you can watch whenever you want without needing to record shows on a DVR. Also, many shows are available on network websites.
Fallacy on top of fallacy (Score:5, Insightful)
First he assumes that whatever shows you watch, you NEED to watch, and you need to watch them NOW.
For example, his wife likes Amazing Race, and (apparently) none of the streaming premium services carry it, so it would "have to be written off"...well, except for the fact that in about a 5 second search, I found it at least 3 places. Certainly, it wasn't current-broadcast, but it's still there.
And of course, he talks about the 'broadband internet cost' - as if most people considering this don't ALREADY pay for that.
So really, not much of a comparison, or analysis. Save yourself the read.
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For example, his wife likes Amazing Race, and (apparently) none of the streaming premium services carry it, so it would "have to be written off"...well, except for the fact that in about a 5 second search, I found it at least 3 places. Certainly, it wasn't current-broadcast, but it's still there.
CBS.com streams Amazing Race same day, with about a 3-hour delay from air time. No premium service needed.
Except for Sports... and AMC (Score:4, Insightful)
Another key thing is that I just really fucking hate the cable and satellite companies and I don't think they deserve another dime from me.
Their service sucks, their policies suck and they're way overpriced.
It's not about cheap (Score:3, Insightful)
We've pointed this out in so many blog entries and whatnot. It's not about cost. I'm ok with paying more on video entertainment through streaming than I might have through a cable bill. It's not about cheap. It's about choice! I want to purchase only the shows I care about, I want to watch them exactly when I have time to, and I want to do it on whatever device I feel like. I don't want to pay for MTV or the Home Shopping Network. I'll never watch Real Housewives of Wherever-the-fuck. I just want my GoT fix, a few shows from PBS and the Discovery channel, and the occasional interesting sci-fi series. Everyone will have a different set of choices. We're tired of being bundled-to-death. I need high speed internet regardless, and I like paying for it separately from my occasional on-demand streaming purchases from Amazon (or my Netflix subscription. while netflix *is* a bundled service full of shows I'll never watch, it's also dirt cheap).
The article in a nutshell (Score:5, Informative)
The author took 4 pages (you start on page "1" and click through 3 other pages ... ads at each step) and basically he says this:
Open a spreadsheet. Enter in all the shows that you like to watch on cable. For shows that are available on HuluPlus, assume you'll subscribe to HuluPlus ($8/mo). For a show that is available on Amazon, enter it's cost per episode (less than $2). Same if your show is only available on iTunes or some other media center. Add up the costs, calculate a "monthly" cost to stream your shows. Compare to your monthly cost for cable TV.
That's pretty much what the article is about. I've just saved you a bunch of clicks and ads.
It is what I have been saying about my own television watching. When my wife & I moved two years ago, we opted not to sign up for cable TV, choosing to stream everything instead. We have Netflix for movies and "TV on DVD", HuluPlus for most of our current shows, Amazon for a few others. We bought a Roku ($99) to stream everything to our television - and it effectively paid for itself over a couple of months. Our monthly cost for all that is way less than the monthly cost of cable TV. And as long as the math continues to be in our favor, we'll keep streaming.
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> When I had hulu+, it was only $4 a month not $8... And I just canceled it about a month or two ago... ?
Not sure what deal you were getting, but the Hulu Plus page [hulu.com] shows the cost at $7.99/month. That's what I'm paying.
Dumb term (Score:2)
I hated that term since the first time I heard it. I don't know why anyone calls it "cord cutting" when it's really just "cord switching."
And if anyone thinks those in control are going to let millions of subscribers save millions of dollars this way, they've never heard of "equilibrium." Or "greed." They'll throttle you, or cap you, or charge more, or all of the above, until it's not worth it.
And yeah, long story short: for some people, it'll work great; for others, it won't. It depends how much TV gets wa
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Have you heard about competition? Ok some places don't have that, but that problem is much easier to fix for the internet than for cable.
No longer slave to the marketing overlords... (Score:5, Interesting)
My daughter summed it up best in a tweet to her friends: (paraphrase)
"wow, now the television doesn't tell me what I want to watch, I tell *it* what I want to watch". Unfortunately, she skewed my Netflix preferences so now I have a bunch of 'one-tree-hormoneville' shows suggested to me...
AND my son has his pick of whatever anime he could ever desire.
It takes a little time to adjust (you can't just plop in front of the tv and turn it on for 'whatever'), but everyone I show it to loves it. And I save US$60 a month!
Other than the quality of my OTA channels going down (a problem I had for awhile with DTV as well), I haven't missed my sat/cable stuff.
However, it DID take me over a week of arguing with the satellite company to get it disconnected. (go ahead...ask me about it...please...).
Re:No longer slave to the marketing overlords... (Score:5, Funny)
However, it DID take me over a week of arguing with the satellite company to get it disconnected. (go ahead...ask me about it...please...).
So, how'd disconnecting the satellite go? Was there arguing, and did it take a week?
There is no good way to get content legally (Score:5, Informative)
Netflix streaming has a poor selection (for my tastes anyway), and Amazon is only slightly better, and even then only if you are willing to pay to rent on top of the Prime membership. You can get a broader selection on disk from Netflix, but not on a whim.
Hulu has a terrible selection as well. When you want to pick up a show from the beginning, and it's been playing for a while, they have only a few episodes of most shows, even on the paid side.
You can get a lot from Apple, but expensively (about double the DVD cost to see a TV season). And even then, they don't have a long tail for those who prefer more obscure stuff. Probably because content providers are afraid Apple will do to them what Apple did to the music industry.
But you can get anything you want, even foreign or obscure material, by torrent easier than you can get Finding Nemo. So the bottom line is content providers suck at giving people what they want when they want it. Until they stop sucking or get disintermediated, there will not be a convenient and legal way to get content.
Re: (Score:3)
> Even DVRs only help a little, because it depends on you knowing what you will want to watch later.
You only have that problem once. Then it goes away. That's kind of what the whole point of a PVR is.
I have recording rules as old as my current PVR setup.
You can even program a PVR with your personal preferences so it goes out and finds things you might not have sought out by name.
Reward those that are providing cheap content! (Score:5, Insightful)
I cut the cord. Installed HD antenna's for the local news and use Netflix for the rest. I was paying > $200 for high speed (50Mbit) cable internet and HD tv. Now (with a new higher speed lower cost product available) I'm paying about $85 for 100Mbit access with a 1 TB cap.
Yes, I'm missing a few shows we would like to watch. But, the reality is that we have only so many hours a week to consume TV (or any media.) AND there is more than enough available through Netflix (or Hulu etc.) that it simply makes sense to use them and save a bundle.
The more we reward the low cost providers the more content they will be able to get access to.
Did the same for our landlines two years ago. Went from two old style @ $45 /month each to four VOIP @ $3... (with more or less free North American LD.)
Overall I've reduced my "media" bill from over $400 to just over $100.
The answer is: (Score:4, Funny)
Yes. Next story.
Sometimes I think this is they don't up bandwith. (Score:2)
flexibility on content and timeliness helps (Score:5, Informative)
After the first time I watched an entire season of a show in the space of a single (and very lazy) weekend on a DVD years ago, I was unable to return to waiting for weekly installations. I now prefer to wait until a season is over, or even until a series has concluded entirely, before bothering to spend my time watching it.
Sometimes at the conclusion it will become clear that you shouldn't bother. For example I was waiting for LOST to end before watching it, but based on the non-plot-spoiler reviews I've read, I'm glad I didn't waste my time in the first place.
For quite a while now there has been more video entertainment than a single person could watch in one lifetime. If your primary reason is to be entertained --rather than to be able to discuss current entertainment at the office the way people do sports games-- you'll save time and money being selective about what you watch, as well as by not being in a hurry to catch the latest episode.
the cost of cable (Score:2)
apples and oranges (Score:3)
How do you price the convenience of on demand ?
Also how do you price the convenience of torrents ?
You cant exclude torrents, they are the major disruptor
False choice (Score:4, Interesting)
> ...and took into account the fact that Internet service on its own is often pricier than it would be if bundled with cable TV."
I have to have internet anyway. The fact that I can get internet microscopically cheaper if I buy a bunch of services I don't use, isn't really a choice if I don't use the services.
And so, if I can get internet for $33 instead of $44 if I add $70 worth of TV services the great majority of which I do not watch, how the heck is this in any way a better deal?
Working it the other way. I have internet and a conventional TV antenna. What I can't get through these two mediums, I don't need to watch. There, fixed it for you.
To summarize: (1) Most of us are going to have internet anyway, so whether it can be bundled with cable is immaterial. (2) The great overwhelming majority of what I feel like watching is available either over the air (just like in the old days) or over the internet. (3) Whatever I can't watch via (2), I don't need to watch. (3a) It's JUST TV. It's not, like BREATHING. Talk to your kids; find out what drugs they're into this week, take the dog for a walk; find out what your neighborhood actually looks like, READ A BOOK.
Yes, absolutely... (Score:2, Informative)
It's not the price. It's what they want! (Score:3)
People want what they want. That's the short of it. And when there are options which more closely offer what they want, the will go to it.
Meanwhile various "failing business models" want to continue masturbating while selling their customers' eyes and ears to people who buy commercial ad space.
Business used to be able giving the customer what he wants and prospering. But in the age of monopolies and very low competition, it's more about offering as little as possible while charging the most and selling your customers out to government and advertisers.
It's much much cheaper for us (Score:2)
To cover the TV's in our house, and get the few channels we even cared about having cable for was running over $170 a month. Plus an additional $40 for internet access.
Dropped the cable. Now we spend $40 for Internet and around $20 a month for all the tv that interests us (We pick and choose between what's available on Netflix/Hulu), once in awhile we'll drop the $30 or whatever for a season of something on iTunes.
Even if we buy the seasons off iTunes of every show we watch we're -still- coming in less th
Priceless (Score:3)
Netflix $14/month
Ability to watch my shows without commercials.... priceless
Re: (Score:2)
I don't know about other carriers, but I have T-mobile, and it doesn't matter how bad cell service is inside my house, because it uses WiFi for phone calls if I'm associated to a WiFi AP.
If you have this available, you could just use your mobile phones and ditch the landline entirely.