Leaving cable TV behind (discussion for Sling TV, Playstation Vue, HBO Go, etc)

wonderfly

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With the forum mod's permission - Let's try this again:

Who else here has signed off of cable, and is not looking back?

I haven't had cable since 2008. Sci-Fi went dead around then (when it became SyFy). Toonami disappeared. While I miss having Cartoon Network, I'm happy to find many of those shows have come to Netflix (maybe it helps that it's mostly the older shows from my younger years - the glory days of Cartoon Network to me). And this may sound strange, but Hell's Kitchen and Master Chef on Fox have filled the void left behind from not having Food Network.

The only thing I'm regretting is being unable to watch "The Walking Dead" with each episode premiering on AMC. But I get to watch new episodes each year on Netflix, so that's okay.

The only other thing I'm missing is sports, which I'm hoping will change in the coming years (why is baseball/basketball almost always shown on cable for the most part?)

And it's occurred to me: Are Hulu/Netflix/Amazon the new "channels" for viewing what we want? I believe I heard HBO is coming out with an exclusive streaming website for some of their material. And once those Marvel (Daredevil, etc) Netflix series premiere, I think that'll be the true kick off of these online services being true "channels"...

And with Saturday mornings being dead, and the regular channels that I can pick up with my antenna (ABC,NBC, etc) not really featuring cartoons anymore, I was worried that my kids wouldn't get to enjoy "new" TV episodic animation. I thought they'd never get to experience "Saturday mornings" without cable (I know, it's nostalgia talking).

Hulu was seemingly devoted to adult animation (Family Guy) or reruns of stuff from my childhood (He-Man - which the kids enjoy, by the way), but I was wondering where they were going to get "new" material at. But I recently realized my kids have the "Netflix" channel to turn to: They've been watching "Oscar's Oasis", "Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures", and "Transformers: Rescue Bots"! So how long till the online "channels" start featuring original animation exclusively for them?

So is this the future? And who here is ready to embrace leaving cable behind? :)
 

Dudley

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I tried to convince my family to get rid of cable. Unfortunately, Comcast is the only one that provides internet in the area (except Verizon), and it's cheaper to have the cable / internet bundle, than just the internet alone.
After several attempts to explaining the cord cutting process, I gave up. I wish we could get rid of it. With streaming sites and iTunes, everything that's on TV can be watched online.
 

Darklordavaitor

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My apartment complex comes with cable as a part of utilities, so even if I didn't want it, I'd still have it.

But when I think about it, the only thing I'd really miss if I didn't have cable was TCM. Not only do I like having the channel to discover and rewatch a plethora of movies that I'd likely never buy, but sometimes it's just mediating to hear Robert Osborne and Ben Mankiewicz's voice. Otherwise, in this age of iTunes and legal streaming media, it isn't hard to play catch-up on my shows.

Still, it is nice to have access to them on a nice, big TV, which is why I don't regret keeping cable, even if I could ultimately live without it.
 

GWOtaku

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If Sony's Playstation Vue idea works, I could see myself going for that when paying for programming just for myself. However, the lack of channels under the Disney and Time Warner banners would be a deal breaker (no Cartoon Network? Blasphemy, I say). It's early days though. Within a year of launch that thing could be a real cable killer if it goes well.
 

Wonderwall

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I live in Canada so our options are far more limited than you guys so I'm still pretty much tied to my cable. I do watch stuff on my computer though.
 

Dr.Pepper

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I live with my parents and they have cable, so yeah. If I was on my own I still might get basic cable. I know that I would never get all the premium movie channels.
 

Silverstar

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We haven't had cable since 2005; we have satellite, but that's just me mincing words.

Anyways, my house is a mixed bag. My father mainly watches TV, though he constantly complains that there's nothing on, he's never going to cut the cord.

My younger brother doesn't watch TV at all; he streams everything or watches it on Netflix.

Myself, I only watch a few shows on TV,mostly comedies (The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, @ Midnight, Conan, Comedy Bang! Bang!, The Birthday Boys, Portlandia, Friends of the People) and cartoons. The only sitcom I watch is The Big Bang Theory. The main shows I watch on the internet are short videos and stuff that I can only see online, like ThatGuyWithTheGlasses, Normal Boots, Game Overthinker, Black Nerd Comedy. I usually don't watch a TV show online unless I've missed an episode. I could possibly see myself cutting the cord and watching everything online, but as long as I live with my dad that's never going to happen since he's a TV person.
 

Dantheman

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Since I live with my dad and he's retired, he has cable because he's too old for anything else (he's the kind of guy who gets flustered with unfamiliar technology) and some of the stuff he likes to watch probably wouldn't be on Netflix or Hulu. I just don't see us as the kind of people who would "cut the cord", as it were.
 

CoolEric158

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Honestly, I can't see myself giving up cable. Granted I live with my parents who I doubt will "cut the cord", but I have other reasons. While streaming sites are cool and all, I love the feeling of sitting on the couch with the remote in my hand, and wasting my brain to commercials and reruns. Looking at a computer or watching on a tablet just doesn't have the same feeling to me.
 

dumbfoolkid5

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If Sony's Playstation Vue idea works, I could see myself going for that when paying for programming just for myself. However, the lack of channels under the Disney and Time Warner banners would be a deal breaker (no Cartoon Network? Blasphemy, I say). It's early days though. Within a year of launch that thing could be a real cable killer if it goes well.

I hope so. I let go of cable a long time ago and haven't been back since. Too expensive to keep up and if I do bring it back it'll be too painful since so much unwanted stuff is on.
 

darkdetective

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I got rid of cable a few months ago. Doing just fine with my roku, using hulu, Netflix, and amazon prime.
 

wonderfly

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Oh. My. Goodness.

This is Dish's Sling TV: An Internet TV service that lets you stream ESPN (and others) for $20 a month.

So after reading this article (and other articles) it appears with this I could:

1. Get sports (which are severely lacking on regular antenna TV channels).
2. Get Adult Swim/Cartoon Network
3. Get Food Network and TBS (hello Conan and American Dad)!
4. Not have to deal with the 700 other channels that I DON'T want!

The only thing missing is the Syfy channel, but hey, this is 95% of what I want - and it's streaming online, and it's only $20 bucks a month!

Please SIGN ME UP NOW!!!

It's still being rolled out now. I went to their website to sign up, and it says they are taking new people "by invitation only" for now. Still, THIS is the future (for me anyway).
 

Peter Paltridge

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Oh. My. Goodness.

This is Dish's Sling TV: An Internet TV service that lets you stream ESPN (and others) for $20 a month.

So after reading this article (and other articles) it appears with this I could:

1. Get sports (which are severely lacking on regular antenna TV channels).
2. Get Adult Swim/Cartoon Network
3. Get Food Network and TBS (hello Conan and American Dad)!
4. Not have to deal with the 700 other channels that I DON'T want!

The only thing missing is the Syfy channel, but hey, this is 95% of what I want - and it's streaming online, and it's only $20 bucks a month!

Please SIGN ME UP NOW!!!

It's still being rolled out now. I went to their website to sign up, and it says they are taking new people "by invitation only" for now. Still, THIS is the future (for me anyway).

I share your sentiment and I signed up for an invite the day it became available. Still haven't heard back from them.
 

Aquadementia

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The ironic thing about that is ESPN is the channel blamed for ruining cable because no matter how much you don't want ESPN, you are paying big money to get ESPN or they don't let you have cable. That's why basic cable packages cost so much. If if they had channels other then ESPN this Sling thing would only cost $14.
You know what is missing from that package? CSPAN. The best thing about cable.

I haven't had cable for years. Frankly, letting it go sucked.
That was when tv was still analog. It took some getting used to doing things the old fashioned way watching network tv only. I started watching more PBS, which probably deserved more recognition then I was giving it.
Once I got over the withdrawal pains that was actually a pretty good time. I had fewer distractions and quiet and no tv to waste my time so I started reading more and that was an awesome period in that way.

It's not like I haven't thought about getting cable back.
I even called a couple of times over the years but somehow it didn't happen. As I remember once I got in this circular argument, maybe because I wasn't "switching" and then couldn't schedule a time to get it connected. Another time they kept up-selling me and it was going on so long my phone gave out. And then there are the satellite systems where I can't figure out how if they send some yahoo in a truck installation is free but if I do it myself I have to pay through the nose.

The worst part is the packaging.
The upside is that when you buy so many channels you get them at a good price per channel.
The down side is that as a whole they cost too much and the one channel that you want is on the most expensive tier so you end-up paying for a bunch of garbage channels in the process.

I'm not too fond of the pay channels like HBO and Showtime either. It sucks that so many good shows are behind a pay wall. Even as far back as Stargate SG-1 I had Showtime and all the other channels but I thought it was a good move that went to Sci-fi.
But with no one watching commercials anymore the only way a show will get made will be if it's behind a paywall like HBO or Amazon.
So, in a way those 200 commercial supported channels which you have but only watch 10 of will become even more unfocused and eventually unprofitable under any circumstances.
 

Peter Paltridge

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I got the invite from SlingTV and started using it tonight. The best thing about it is that it's the East Coast feed, so I can see things three hours early (or in other words, when the entire Internet is watching). The worst thing about it is the buffering every minute, though that's probably because of my lousy DSL.
 

wonderfly

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I got the invite from SlingTV and started using it tonight. The best thing about it is that it's the East Coast feed, so I can see things three hours early (or in other words, when the entire Internet is watching). The worst thing about it is the buffering every minute, though that's probably because of my lousy DSL.

Ah man, you lucky son of a gun...

That means I'll probably still be waiting another month for my invite.

Did you have to pay your $20 or are they letting people test it for free, or something else?
 

Peter Paltridge

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Ah man, you lucky son of a gun...

That means I'll probably still be waiting another month for my invite.

Did you have to pay your $20 or are they letting people test it for free, or something else?

You get it free for a week and then the $20 kicks in.
 

Goldstar!

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PlayStation Vue isn't an option for me because I don't own a PS3 or a PS4 and I'm not going to buy one just to watch TV on it. Sling TV, however, has me curious. I might look into that. If I can get Comedy Central, HBO (gotta watch Real Time with Bill Maher, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver and Silicon Valley), Cartoon Network, and IFC, it may be worth checking out.
 

Peter Paltridge

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New news: AMC will be added to the basic Sling package soon for no charge. AMC owns other networks like IFC and BBC America but it hasn't been announced how those will be spread out.
Sling TV Adds AMC Networks to Programming Portfolio; AMC Included in $20 Core Package | Business Wire

Also! Pre-pay for three months of Sling and you get a free Roku or Amazon Fire stick, to make watching Sling on your TV possible (which is kinda important -- right now I'm stuck with using the PC).
https://www.sling.com/devices/roku
https://www.sling.com/devices/offers

Which one is better?
 

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