Cord Cutters

[DT]

I doubt we’re saving any money at this point, but it’s nice not to lose tv every time it rains. My greatest fear is that the ISPs suddenly decide they are the new version of the cable company and double their rates to cover our media consumption.

Yeah, I did some initial cost analysis, it CTC'ing was cheaper, but we've added services, some "cable" packages have come down, etc.

I've seen people toss internet costs, well, that's a fixed thing for us, and it's never been bundled, so that didn't change. We've always had Netflix, with or without cable/sat (since 2001), we'll always have Amazon Prime for non-video perks, so that's sort of a "fixed" cost. So without any other streaming services, that would be $0 vs. the previous cost

Er, but of course, we do have others: Hulu+, D+, HBOMAX, Funimation, other premium services (digital purchases here and there). It's probably a wash[?]

Regardless, I prefer this model way more though:

1) Our own equipment, that's better, smaller, faster, integrated with our other devices (really that means AppleTV or iPad)

2) Ability to add/remove services on-the-fly, no calling, no terrible CSR, click, done

3) Kind of ala carte? I mean, we don't really do network, there's always plenty to watch, hell, I could spend the next year on my Netflix backlog and be more than happy.

We do have an antenna setup, and it's routed through an HDHomeRun, so basically any device on our network can access the OTA HD signal, including AppleTVs.

 

[Eric]

How far out in the boondocks do you live? You should be able to get PBS at least. PBS is EVERYWHERE!



That's dredging up some bad memories for me, man. Watching some half-scrambled show on Cinemax, getting all involved, then hearing the door open behind me...

Antiques Roadshow baby!

 

[JBaby]

How far out in the boondocks do you live? You should be able to get PBS at least. PBS is EVERYWHERE!



That's dredging up some bad memories for me, man. Watching some half-scrambled show on Cinemax, getting all involved, then hearing the door open behind me...

I’m in the country surrounded by trees. The trees have to be cut back every couple of years. My Internet is fixed wireless and the antenna isn’t on my roof like you’d expect. It’s on a pole that’s on my roof and it has plenty of cable because my local ISP knows they will have to continue to put it up higher. Before it was on my roof it was on a pole in the ground. But that still wasn’t high enough. So pole the on roof is the standard out here now. I don’t have many neighbors but each of them tried to do OTA with good antennas. It just never worked. One family is still trying to make it work. The rest gave up and went back to satellite. Cable isn’t even available out here. It’s not worth it to me to even try. It may have been worth the effort if Hulu didn’t exist.

I donate to my local PBS so my gift was transitioned into Passport. This was before they were offering Passport to everyone.

 

[Eric]

That's dredging up some bad memories for me, man. Watching some half-scrambled show on Cinemax, getting all involved, then hearing the door open behind me...

Is... that a nipple... or a knee cap? Oh well, time's running out!

 

[Renzatic]

Is... that a nipple... or a knee cap? Oh well, time's running out!

It can all be side boob, so long as you believe in yourself.

I’m in the country surrounded by trees. The trees have to be cut back every couple of years.

It doesn't sound much different from my setup. I'm not in the middle of the forest, but it is fairly woodsy. Plus, my antenna isn't mounted on my roof, but off from the house, next to a bank with a bush up above it, and a number of trees standing just beyond it. I slapped it on a 10 foot pole I had lying around (that bends slightly to the right), used the cabling from my old satellite, ran it to an amp in the basement, and split it off to two TVs.

All things considered, it's a fairly jank setup, but it works perfectly. As long as you can get the antenna up a bit, and you have a couple of stations within a 20 mile radius of your house, you should be able to get something.

edit: hell, may as well show a pic of it.

I originally intended to put it up on a 20 foot pole, but used what you're seeing here to test out the waters when I first got the antenna. It ended up working so well, I just tidied it up, and left it as is.

If I can get this to work, you should be able to do the same.

 

[JBaby]

It can all be side boob, so long as you believe in yourself.



It doesn't sound much different from my setup. I'm not in the middle of the forest, but it is fairly woodsy. Plus, my antenna isn't mounted on my roof, but off from the house, next to a bank with a bush up above it, and a number of trees standing just beyond it. I slapped it on a 10 foot pole I had lying around (that bends slightly to the right), used the cabling from my old satellite, ran it to an amp in the basement, and split it off to two TVs.

All things considered, it's a fairly jank setup, but it works perfectly. As long as you can get the antenna up a bit, and you have a couple of stations within a 20 mile radius of your house, you should be able to get something.

edit: hell, may as well show a pic of it.

I originally expected to put it up on a 20 foot pole, but used what you're seeing here to test out the waters when I first got the antenna. It ended up working so well, I just tidied it up, and left it as is.

If I can get this to work, you should be able to do the same.

View attachment 540

Side boob! I’m so dead. [emoji43][emoji3545]

We’re too far from stations as far as the reports say. The family still trying to make it work doesn’t believe the report. And we are surrounded by land that isn’t ours so putting it away from our house isn’t an option. We’re just happy streaming works for us. Our speeds suck though. We can only get 15Mbps down so no 4K for us. But on the plus side my ISP doesn’t have data caps. I’m keeping an eye on Starlink.

 

[Renzatic]

We’re too far from stations as far as the reports say.

Eh, that sucks. Guess your only hope is to wait for satellite internet to pick up a bit. Right now though, it seems like it's too much money for not enough bandwidth.

 

[SuperMatt]

My building gets Comcast and RCN cable and now Starry Internet if you just want internet. I get Starry and then watch tv on antenna. My T-mobile cell plan includes Netflix so I watch that too. I used to alternate between RCN and Comcast using my own HDHomeRun with cablecard and my own cable modem to avoid the equipment fees. I gave up because Comcast kept increasing “fees” above and beyond the contract price they quoted, and RCN was missing channels I wanted if I’m gonna pay for TV,

 

[JBaby]

Eh, that sucks. Guess your only hope is to wait for satellite internet to pick up a bit. Right now though, it seems like it's too much money for not enough bandwidth.

I totally agree. Only one of the neighbors have it and it’s way slower than what the rest of us have. And I know they are paying way more and we pay a lot.

 

[Renzatic]

I totally agree. Only one of the neighbors have it and it’s way slower than what the rest of us have. And I know they are paying way more and we pay a lot.

I've heard Viasat is pretty speedy, but damn, they bend you over on those data caps.

I still wonder to this day how a scheme that has no point to it other than to rip people off for crossing an arbitrarily set limit is legal. I could understand setting a limit for peak hours for cell services, when you don't want people saturating your services, but for home based internet? It's there just to screw people out of their money.