I dumped cable TV, and still have loads to watch

Marsman wrote:

Pay for them?!? Are you insane? This is the Internet. I want free content, damn it.

I think the logic here is that you can buy a lot of content for what you spend on cable. So if the primary things you watch can be bought, it might make it easier to ditch the cable.

I've thought about it because most of my content now comes from an HD ATSC antenna signal (recorded in Windows Media Center where I can watch it anywhere I want to plug in an Xbox and use extender mode). I just can't quite get past live content for sports, news, and the occasional cable surfing.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

Then you know where to look if you want to have your cake and eat it, too.

It's dark and scary in there.

I do appreciate the links in your previous post. Thanks. Looking at iTunes right now.

Stylez wrote:

Yeah it's pretty crap that we have no options for a lot of US content.

I probably shouldn't link it, but a google search for EZTV might point you in the right direction.

I'd cancel cable TV if the internet half without the bundle price didn't jump up to $5 less than it costs with TV. For the last few years, most of my TV watching has been through Windows Media Center streaming AVIs to the 360, made much nicer by Windows 7.

I may or may not be watching Season 1 of The Wire at work right now.

@ iTunes Store

The Venture Bros.: Season 1 : $1.99 per episode (13 total) or $19.99 for the season (with bonus 14th episode). DAMN!

LeapingGnome wrote:

If you like sports you still have to have cable. Sad but true.

Comcast has this free online sports channel if you use their broadband service. Looks like it has pretty much everything. I'm not a sports fan so didn't pay much attention to it.

Tanglebones wrote:

My building gives me free basic cable, including the local channels in HD, so we're covered there. I'll watch Jeopardy, and a few other shows when I remember to catch them, but I'm more likely to just Hulu them the day after. The only channel I miss is SNY for Mets games, but they've been so abysmal the past few years that I'm saving myself a lot of misery by not watching :)

I'm in the same boat, so I don't have to make the choice yet. But ESPN would be the only thing I would really miss if I cut the cable cord. OTA networks still cover all the local games.

I love ESPN360, but they don't show some games, like the ones on ESPNU. Frustrating as hell when my alma mater is on there.

Marsman wrote:

@ iTunes Store

The Venture Bros.: Season 1 : $1.99 per episode (13 total) or $19.99 for the season (with bonus 14th episode). DAMN!

On the other hand, it's discounted to $17 on DVD on Amazon.

I haven't had pay TV for at least 6 or 7 years now.

I like it. TV no longer seems like a boredom crutch -- if you want to watch something, you have to go out of your way to acquire it. Can't just sit down and "watch whatever". Maybe you miss out on some good stuff by not browsing, but word-of-mouth and social networks are pretty good at spreading the word.

And I support the shows I enjoy by buying the DVD box sets.

Been Cable free (DirecTV actually) for 17 months now. Sports is really the only thing that is a pain. ESPN-3 helps, because Kansas basketball is on ESPN all of the time. But I am blocked from getting the internet packages for hockey and baseball, because they will only let me watch any game, except for the Blues and Cardinals.

My set-up is based on TivoHD with an OTA antenna. With that, we have Netflix streaming (actually, we can now stream on the 360, the Wii, any of our three computers, my wife's iPad, as well as the Tivo. Tivo has access to Amazon and Blockbuster for rentals, and of course the 360 has the Zune service. Anything we can't get, we get by physical DVD from Netflix. We have more to watch than we have time. Tivo plus Netflix runs $21 a month. The DSL is something I would have regardless.

Another bonus was that when we ditched the DirecTV DVR in favor of the TivoHD, it also allowed us to update the DVR via the internet. So we cut our home phone, as well. We were basically using it as a way to update the DVR, and rarely used it ourselves. So it has been 17 months without a home phone, as well.

Thirteenth wrote:
slazev wrote:
LeapingGnome wrote:

If you like sports you still have to have cable. Sad but true.

Not necessarily....

Might as well wring your hands and snicker evilly while you say it.

I did think of putting a picture, but... I'm just too lazy for that.

slazev wrote:
Thirteenth wrote:
slazev wrote:
LeapingGnome wrote:

If you like sports you still have to have cable. Sad but true.

Not necessarily....

Might as well wring your hands and snicker evilly while you say it.

I did think of putting a picture, but... I'm just too lazy for that.

There is not a good, even illegal, method for watching live sports on the internet. If ESPN-3 has it, that works. But the quality is really, really bad. Like going fullscreen is not an option. But the games you have to play to get hockey and baseball make it not worth the effort, at all.

Jayhawker wrote:
slazev wrote:
Thirteenth wrote:
slazev wrote:
LeapingGnome wrote:

If you like sports you still have to have cable. Sad but true.

Not necessarily....

Might as well wring your hands and snicker evilly while you say it.

I did think of putting a picture, but... I'm just too lazy for that.

There is not a good, even illegal, method for watching live sports on the internet. If ESPN-3 has it, that works. But the quality is really, really bad. Like going fullscreen is not an option. But the games you have to play to get hockey and baseball make it not worth the effort, at all.

Sports are meant to be watched on a bigass hdtv. It's just a fact of life.

iaintgotnopants wrote:
Jayhawker wrote:
slazev wrote:
Thirteenth wrote:
slazev wrote:
LeapingGnome wrote:

If you like sports you still have to have cable. Sad but true.

Not necessarily....

Might as well wring your hands and snicker evilly while you say it.

I did think of putting a picture, but... I'm just too lazy for that.

There is not a good, even illegal, method for watching live sports on the internet. If ESPN-3 has it, that works. But the quality is really, really bad. Like going fullscreen is not an option. But the games you have to play to get hockey and baseball make it not worth the effort, at all.

Sports are meant to be watched on a bigass hdtv. It's just a fact of life.

Yup, its why I'm shelling out the $$. Also now my roommate can watch Ice-Road Truckers on the "History" channel.

SallyNasty wrote:

I did this about 3 years ago, and have rarely regretted it. I miss the Colbert Report and CNN, but other than that - everything ca be gotten over the interwebz for free.

Year three for me as well, though I went with the Netflix/Roku route. With so many fantastic movies and TV shows that have been made over the years, why would you spend your time watching mindless filler? Just cherry pick the good stuff.

If sports is really the only reason you're paying $120/mo for cable, I imagine it would be much more cost-effective to find a good sports bar near your house and buy yourself a drink there whenever there's a game on that you want to watch.

I've never paid for cable. Had it for a couple years when I was living at an apartment that included it as part of the rent, and I used it while I had it, but I wouldn't pay extra for it even back before Netflix and streaming made for such a great alternative. It's just plain too expensive compared to what I'd get out of it.

It's true that streaming doesn't get you quite the same "just works" channel-flipping experience, but it's getting there. The Netflix app on the Wii is very intuitive, and the recommendation feature does at least as good a job as channel-flipping did of surprising me with something I didn't know about before but might be interested in.

I have DirecTV because of NFL Sunday Ticket. If I look at it that way, then NFL Sunday Ticket is really, really expensive. You know what? It's worth it. I can watch every football game while sitting in the comfort of the basement. If I could get all the NFL games live online, I'd drop DirecTV. I can't, so I'll suck it up.

Jonman wrote:

I not only cut the cable TV, I dumped Comcast entirely as they're an utter shower of bastards.

There are a few of us who actually care about customers. Try not to lump us in with the other dirt-bags just here to pull a paycheck.

SpacePPoliceman wrote:

I do wish the Cable companies would start offering single channel plans. I know they never will, because there are so many specialized channels that only can exist because they're part of a package, but I killed my cable, or rather didn't get it when I moved, because it's a tough expense to justify when I only use FX, Comedy Central, and Cartoon Network.

While I've had a ton of customers ask for the same thing, it really comes down to the contracts we have to negotiate with the networks. Disney, for example, is one of the biggest reasons that cable bills jump up from year to year. They know they can push their prices higher, because they own the ESPN networks. So if we want to broadcast ESPN, we have to take some crap Disney channels too. Last year we came very close to dropping Disney/ESPN all together because they couldn't agree on a contract. Anyway, there are several companies that push this way, and the cable company is contracted to give customers all the channels for that company, or none. So you could ask for single channels, but you'd still be paying the same rate.

Thankfully the employee package is pretty decent, so I haven't had to worry about the bill much. I have a DVR, all the channels, internet, and phone, and I think my bill is around $30 a month. It's one of the few reasons I've been trying to move up and stay with the company, given the sh*t we put up with on a daily basis.

I've gotten so acclimated to controlling what I want to watch that it just weirds me out when I sit down to watch cable, both from the relative lack of control and the vast swathes of commercials. Whenever there's a commercial break I get a very strong gut urge to just up and leave the room and do something else. Of course, I'm not much of a cable person. I didn't have it growing up, except for a year or two, and we only have it at my house because my roommate's a big basketball fan (though he certainly abuses the cable plenty otherwise, too.)

I dumped DirecTV 2 months ago.

We use a central disk array to store Blu-ray content and any TV shows that we purchase and then rip down to the array. I have media extenders set up in the house connected to the HDTVs and the wife or I can pull up whatever we want in any room. We use Netflix instant watch for the kids shows. I plan to never pay a cable bill (or DirecTV bill) again.

I've been given full clearance by the wife to go to a buddy's house that has NFL Sunday Ticket every Sunday of football season. I'm going to be doing a lot of laundry to pay off that debt. Oh what an awesome debt it is though!

Hockey is the only reason I have cable, and being able to watch it on my own giant HDTV rather than crammed into a bar with the unwashed masses is worth it. If it weren't for hockey, I'd just have my broadband connection through Comcast (whom I've actually found to be generally pleasant and helpful) and call it good. My Blu-ray player lets me effortlessly stream from Netflix to my television without any dicking around with computers, and I already find myself faced with far more options than I could ever have time to watch.

Now if Netflix would just stream HD hockey, I'd never watch regular television again!

I have been cable free since I moved out of my Dad's house in '02. That being I did spend a few years at college and there it was a video store by just walking down the hall and saying you wanted to watch a movie. Then I lived out of my jeep for two years... so no cable there.... then I moved to China and well I had access to a lot of low cost legally questionable movies and tv shows... and then when I moved back to the states and bought a house three years ago I still have not gotten cable tv. I built a small pc for my tv and got a remote and watch most things over then internet like said all over this thread and I also got in-touch with my local library, home to thousands and thousands of dvds. The rental is cheap (free) and I can take 10 at a time and renew them over the internet if I don't get them done. Oh and whole tv seasons count as only one. They get new dvds the day they are released and will let me create a waiting list on the internet.

Going on year 28 for me. Graduated high school, joined the Marine Corps, gave my TV to the family. Since then, I watched Babylon 5, and maybe 20 or so hours of other shows, kept a cheap TV around just for the VCR, once I started watching things on the PC I haven't turned it on since. Netflix and boxed DVD collections have allowed me to sample some of the stuff I've missed across the decades, and frankly, I haven't missed much. Ya, never was interested in watching sports.

hbi2k wrote:

If sports is really the only reason you're paying $120/mo for cable, I imagine it would be much more cost-effective to find a good sports bar near your house and buy yourself a drink there whenever there's a game on that you want to watch.

This is true but you're not factoring the fact that I hate people.

iaintgotnopants wrote:

This is true but you're not factoring the fact that I hate people.

lol, ftw

PurEvil wrote:
Jonman wrote:

I not only cut the cable TV, I dumped Comcast entirely as they're an utter shower of bastards.

There are a few of us who actually care about customers. Try not to lump us in with the other dirt-bags just here to pull a paycheck.

Fair point. My gripe is with the company and it's services, not the employees themselves.

Jonman wrote:
PurEvil wrote:
Jonman wrote:

I not only cut the cable TV, I dumped Comcast entirely as they're an utter shower of bastards.

There are a few of us who actually care about customers. Try not to lump us in with the other dirt-bags just here to pull a paycheck.

Fair point. My gripe is with the company and it's services, not the employees themselves.

No matter why, Comcast does have THE worst customer service (they just got a golden turd award or something for being #1!). The employees I've dealt with in person either hate their jobs or simply don't care. Telephonic customer service is just as bad, unless you get a real TECH, then they seem to be pretty good, as long as they actually know what they're talking about, and I get the impression the ones that do it's because they take a personal interest in the stuff, not because Comcast trained them.

Also, when your plan is about to expire and they're about to double your bill they hire solicitors to call you, or at least they sound like one. Can't someone call me and talk to me like a person instead of "pitching" me to lock in for another two years? There's a way to treat a customer, and it's not ignoring them until it's time to pitch them a new contract.

I really wish Netflicks and Hulu were available in Canada. I dont even care for the mail order service. All I want is the streaming capabilities. I am very willing to pay a monthly bill for something like that, but NOT cable. I hate commercials, schedules, and the interface in general. The only real options for digital consumption is iTunes which is rather expensive if you are following 3 or 4 shows per a week @ 3.49 an episode.

Sad as it is, until they offer a subscription based service like Netflicks in Canada all my tv will be had via torrents and movies by the local Block Buster. I want to pay, they just aren't letting me!

I find that not having cable means I only really watch good shows since they need to be suggested to me by enough people to get me to buy the DVD's or stream an episode or two to my PS3.

Sure, I might miss a good show here and there but the really good ones having staying power. I never watched BSG or Firefly while they were still on the air but I sure did love them when I did watch them. I also bought the boxed set, no commercials and no buffering. Its great.

Not watching so much TV also gives me time to do more reading and for other hobbies. What started off as a position forced by poverty has become a lifestyle decision. I could easily afford it now, but I just don't want to.

DanB wrote:

I literally can not remember the last time I sat down to watch any broadcast TV.

This, sort of.

I haven't sat down to watch anything aside from the X-Games (and only when I remember, which is less than 1/4 of the time at this point) on my TV in years. The only other stuff I watch is from other countries, but that stuff isn't on cable TV anyways.

It took my wife a little less than a year after we got married to realize that she didn't even really watch anything worthwhile. We did, however keep the very basic cable as it was only $3 / month more than removing it entirely and having just internet, which currently DL's at about 1.4MB/s, (via Steam when getting a game, or DL'ing podcasts) which is still below the 2MB/s I'm paying for. I really wish there were truely viable and competitive alternatives. FIOS is anything but competitive.

I admire all of your strength.