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Ditching cable

holdnorth

holdnorth

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With so many internet TV options I decide to rid myself of Cable TV. Are you guys able to view Watch ESPN with internet subscription only?
 
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holdnorth said:
With so many internet TV options I decide to rid myself of Cable TV. Are you guys able to view Watch ESPN with internet subscription only?
Click to expand...


Go forth boldly, my friend, you are the future.

The entire country is not ready for this because of bandwidth issues, but as bandwidth increases, this option becomes more viable.

I long for the day where I have strictly a la carte selection, but until I have fiber optic straight into the house, and fiber optic in the house, it’s not viable for me with all the devices I have.
 
NOOOOOOOO...DON'T DO IT!!!!

Just kidding, cable sucks. Got rid of it a few years ago, but I use a family member's info to get ESPN. If you can't do that, I'm not sure how you watch ESPN games.

Good luck.
 
holdnorth said:
With so many internet TV options I decide to rid myself of Cable TV. Are you guys able to view Watch ESPN with internet subscription only?
Click to expand...

I use my dads cable login via watch espn app. Tbh the app is not very good and you have awkward blackouts during commercial breaks.
 
I wanna quite cable so much. I currenty have att uverse with the fiber optic internet and I know as soon a my contract expires att gonna pull a Enron price hike
 
Just went with a velop mesh Home WiFi system to increase internet speed in the entire house and cut cable. Have PlayStation vue on 3 TVs. One upstairs and two downstairs. Have two kids with ipads. With them on YouTube wife on her phone and a tv streaming have had no problems in the two months with freezes or lags. As long as your internet speed is adequate, cut cable and save the money.
 
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SinisterCane said:
I wanna quite cable so much. I currenty have att uverse with the fiber optic internet and I know as soon a my contract expires att gonna pull a Enron price hike
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You have fiber optic att?

Supposedly that’s coming soon for us

We still have shltty coax in house. Max 25 mbps.

What’s your max. You have fiber optic in house? Fiber optic from substation to house?
 
OriginalCanesCanesCanes said:
You have fiber optic att?

Supposedly that’s coming soon for us

We still have shltty coax in house. Max 25 mbps.

What’s your max. You have fiber optic in house? Fiber optic from substation to house?
Click to expand...

Not 100% sure but I believe it 1k mbps, it the fastest internet I’ve ever have to date
 
kryptonite said:
NOOOOOOOO...DON'T DO IT!!!!

Just kidding, cable sucks. Got rid of it a few years ago, but I use a family member's info to get ESPN. If you can't do that, I'm not sure how you watch ESPN games.

Good luck.
Click to expand...

If he cant do that, espn is coming with their own streaming service this week for 5 bucks. Their are many other ala carte services available that might be better value but they will have their own offering too.

https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/02/espns-streaming-service-espn-to-launch-april-12/
 
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SinisterCane said:
Not 100% sure but I believe it 1k mbps, it the fastest internet I’ve ever have to date
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So that’s 100 mbps or 4x what I have. Sounds right.

I’d love to have it.

That should be enough to cut the cord or close enough.

Edit: wait, what? 1k? 1000 mbps. My mistake. That’s 40x what I have. Wow. I’m living in the stone ages.
 
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skyman said:
If he cant do that, espn is coming with their own streaming service this week for 5 bucks. Their are many other ala carte services available that might be better value but they will have their own offering too.

https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/02/espns-streaming-service-espn-to-launch-april-12/
Click to expand...

What I got from that article is that you'll still need a cable/sat subscription to get any of their TV channels. I would presume the same would be said for any games that would only air on Watch ESPN app (like Bethune Cookman type games, although with the team now pretty much remaining a ranked entity, I think we were on TV every game last year and I would expect that to continue).
 
ditched cable a few years ago and I never regret it. I have playstation vue, as long as you have good internet there's no need to pay for cable anymore.

also check out set tv.
 
So, with our move to Jacksonville, we bought an older, 1950's home. Long story short, the seller was supposed to upgrade the wiring, but didn't and offered us a cash credit at the last minute instead. We could either back out or take the credit and go forward, we decided to go forward. I say that to say that Uverse wouldn't install cable because we don't have a grounding system at this point, will get around to it...

So, we were basically forced into trying out the cord cutting thing. We are trying out a 3 month trial of DirecTV Now for $35/month, which came with a free Apple TV (look it up, the deal I think is still available and is well worth it for a new cord cutter who doesn't yet have a smart TV). Apple TV is great if you don't already have a really good smart TV, I recommend it. We rarely actually use the DirecTV Now and won't continue it once the free trial is over. Aside from sports, we rarely watch live TV (we purposefully shun the "news"). We also have my parent's Uverse login which we can use with the network apps and with Watch ESPN, so basically, we can get all the programming we enjoyed before. We have a $10/m Hulu subscription, which is nice to have because commercial free, but we could live without it.

The big difference with cord cutting is the viewing experience.

Here are the drawbacks:
  1. I really really miss my DVR. Just for normal, everyday viewing, it's nice to just click your available recordings and pull up whatever you want to watch. It's also really nice to pause your TV, go do something for a minute, come back and not miss a thing and fast forward through commercials.
  2. You have to know what you're looking for. When you have your DVR set up with season passes on the shows you want to watch, it's way quicker and easier to sit down and veg out for 30 minutes or an hour and not have to spend 10 minutes trying to find something to watch.
  3. I really just don't see how I'm going to get through football season without a real cable subscription, again, because of the DVR thing. I have to be able to pause and replay whenever I want. When watching a game, how often do they glaze right over a controversial call while talking about the ******* third string center or something? Also, the commercial breaks are ridiculous. I want to be able to get up, go fix a drink or take my wings out of the oven and come back and not miss any of the action, then just speed through the commercials. The last part is, I've found the sound, image quality, etc to simply be subpar on Watch ESPN.
  4. I also like to keep recordings of Canes games and be able to replay critical calls or big moments days later. Sure, you can usually find the videos online, but not always, and why have to search for something when you can just record it on your own box?
I think we have 50mbps Uverse fiber connection. Our home is all plaster walls, and the main TV has the fireplace between it and the wifi router, so I need to figure out a way to get a signal booster or repeater, but aside from that, the signal appears to be plenty robust.

Any other cord cutters out there that like to time-shift their watching and have tips on that or anything else? Aside from watching the Canes, I'm willing to deal with the other drawbacks of cutting the cord and saving $200/m+ (not joking, our DirecTV bill for three fricking TV's was in that range). I'm just not willing to compromise when it comes to watching the Canes. I do plan on attending most if not all the home games this year, my first with season tickets in many years now that I'm back in FLA, but still, gotta have that seemless game day experience that I'm used to for the road games.
 
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