Living without cable TV

[child of wonder]

My family and I are moving to a home about 20 miles from the outskirts of Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN. My hope is to get my wife enrolled in college when we move since she supported me while I went to school. In doing so, I've been trying to get our monthly expenses as low as possible and one of the ideas I'm considering is not getting cable TV and only cable internet.

We have 3 TVs, two WDTV Live's, and a central server that acts as a file server and VMware server. My hope is to purchase software like Playon to stream Hulu, Netflix, etc. to the two WDTV's via a virtual machine, and all other TV viewing would have to be done OTA. We should be able to pick up about 10 stations via antenna.

Any else done this? What kind of problems did you run into? What do you miss from dropping cable TV? What solutions did you use to get access to TV shows?

 

[OILFIELDTRASH]

Maybe learn to have a life outside of tv?

 

[I Saw OJ]

I havent had cable TV for about a year and a half now and have been perfectly fine with it. Never watched much TV anyway and the stuff I do want to watch I either download or watch on hulu. No point in paying 60+ bucks a month just so I could channel surf and not really watch anything.

 

[Ns1]

I moved from top of the line DTV package w/HD-DVR to HD-antenna + hulu + netflix

The only shows I miss are top chef + sports (NBA playoffs)

FWIW I find myself watching a similar # of hours every week. I also now know the primetime TV schedule, which I did not previously.

Oh, and 6pm - 8pm is the worst block for tv ever.

 

[GoPackGo]

If your TVs support QAM you may get the locals for free.

 

[Blackjack200]

I don't have cable because I can't justify the cost. I don't watch much, but what I do want to see I can usually stream from Netflix or Hulu. For sports you can find 1000k internet streams all over the place.

PBS uploads almost all their shows onto pbs.org and you can stream them, you can find all kinds of stuff.

I'm honestly amazed at the number of people that continue to pay for cable at the prices they charge.

 

[child of wonder]

I'm also finding that there are a lot of plugins for Playon that enables it to stream PBS, SyFy, etc. media to a WDTV Live.

I'm really liking the idea of having a $60 bill just for internet each month instead of a $140 bill with internet, HDTV, and DVR.

 

[lxskllr]

I don't have TV at all, but it may be worth looking at prices before you ditch the cable TV. Around here you can get bottom end cable plus internet for about the same price as internet only. I don't want TV, so I haven't done that, but that may get you local channels for only a little extra money.

 

[M0oG0oGaiPan]

You can torrent/stream almost everything.

Where I live it's actually cheaper to get basic comcast tv service which is horrible + internet vs paying for only internet.

 

[Poulsonator]

I haven't had cable TV in almost 2 years now. Even as a huge sports fan, and love HD sports, I don't miss cable one bit. I can watch every single sporting event I want, online, live. Sure, it's not in all its HD glory, but I don't really care.

 

[TwiceOver]

Depending on your carrier you may be able to get basic cable for ~$10/mo. When I was on Charter in minnesota basic cable was $11 on top of my cable internet. Both were ~$55/mo.

 

[child of wonder]

The only carriers in my new town (New Prague) is Comcast and Bevcomm. Neither are ideal.

 

[SaDiZTiKStyLeZ]

Yep, I haven't watched cable tv for like 5 years. Not counting when at someone elses place. It's awkward when they can't find anything interesting to watch, then give me the remote and tell me to pick something, when I won't want to watch anything either.

 

[Yeem]

My family and I are moving to a home about 20 miles from the outskirts of Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN. My hope is to get my wife enrolled in college when we move since she supported me while I went to school. In doing so, I've been trying to get our monthly expenses as low as possible and one of the ideas I'm considering is not getting cable TV and only cable internet.

We have 3 TVs, two WDTV Live's, and a central server that acts as a file server and VMware server. My hope is to purchase software like Playon to stream Hulu, Netflix, etc. to the two WDTV's via a virtual machine, and all other TV viewing would have to be done OTA. We should be able to pick up about 10 stations via antenna.

Any else done this? What kind of problems did you run into? What do you miss from dropping cable TV? What solutions did you use to get access to TV shows?

Go read a book.

OH NO I DIDN'T!

 

[Tifababy]

We dropped cable about 4 years ago and rarely miss it. We get basic cable (just the networks) since we can't get all channels with an antenna and it's only around $16 after taxes. We got a tivo with lifetime subscription, so there was some upfront cost, but no monthly costs from now on.

The only thing I really miss is sports on ESPN, TNT and TBS. More an more sports are being legally streamed online like mlb.tv and espn3.com, so I'm starting to miss it less and less.

I called and asked about specials for expanded basic cable and the only special offer was $5 off/mo bringing it from $54.99 to $49.99 for 6 months.

I don't think our life has significantly changed since we dropped cable. Although I do notice that on weekends we might turn on the tv, surf through the 10 channels and realize nothing is on and then go outside and enjoy the day with a bike ride or something. Seems like when we had cable we used to get sucked into a VH1 living in the 90's marathon and before you know it, you'd wonder where the whole day went.

For sporting events I didn't want to miss, like some of the BCS bowl games, I went to BW3's to watch the game. I can buy a lot of wings and beer by saving $540/year ($45/mo x 12).

 

[child of wonder]

We dropped cable about 4 years ago and rarely miss it. We get basic cable (just the networks) since we can't get all channels with an antenna and it's only around $16 after taxes. We got a tivo with lifetime subscription, so there was some upfront cost, but no monthly costs from now on.

The only thing I really miss is sports on ESPN, TNT and TBS. More an more sports are being legally streamed online like mlb.tv and espn3.com, so I'm starting to miss it less and less.

I called and asked about specials for expanded basic cable and the only special offer was $5 off/mo bringing it from $54.99 to $49.99 for 6 months.

I don't think our life has significantly changed since we dropped cable. Although I do notice that on weekends we might turn on the tv, surf through the 10 channels and realize nothing is on and then go outside and enjoy the day with a bike ride or something. Seems like when we had cable we used to get sucked into a VH1 living in the 90's marathon and before you know it, you'd wonder where the whole day went.

For sporting events I didn't want to miss, like some of the BCS bowl games, I went to BW3's to watch the game. I can buy a lot of wings and beer by saving $540/year ($45/mo x 12).

That's my hope, too. We don't really let the kids watch much TV and my wife and I only watch a little at night once the kids are in bed. It'd be nice if less available TV got us off our butts and outside more often.

 

[Krynj]

Haven't had cable for over a year, and I don't really miss it at all. Just about any TV show I watch, I can get on TVTorrents within minutes after it airs. Can't really beat a 720p rip with no commercials.

 

[Ramma2]

TED + HTPC = Cable who?

 

[Kev]

My family and I are moving to a home about 20 miles from the outskirts of Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN. My hope is to get my wife enrolled in college when we move since she supported me while I went to school. In doing so, I've been trying to get our monthly expenses as low as possible and one of the ideas I'm considering is not getting cable TV and only cable internet.

We have 3 TVs, two WDTV Live's, and a central server that acts as a file server and VMware server. My hope is to purchase software like Playon to stream Hulu, Netflix, etc. to the two WDTV's via a virtual machine, and all other TV viewing would have to be done OTA. We should be able to pick up about 10 stations via antenna.

Any else done this? What kind of problems did you run into? What do you miss from dropping cable TV? What solutions did you use to get access to TV shows?

I went without cable for over 2 years and honestly didn't miss it. You can get an antenna to get the local HD channels.

 

[JEDI]

My family and I are moving to a home about 20 miles from the outskirts of Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN. My hope is to get my wife enrolled in college when we move since she supported me while I went to school. In doing so, I've been trying to get our monthly expenses as low as possible and one of the ideas I'm considering is not getting cable TV and only cable internet.

We have 3 TVs, two WDTV Live's, and a central server that acts as a file server and VMware server. My hope is to purchase software like Playon to stream Hulu, Netflix, etc. to the two WDTV's via a virtual machine, and all other TV viewing would have to be done OTA. We should be able to pick up about 10 stations via antenna.

Any else done this? What kind of problems did you run into? What do you miss from dropping cable TV? What solutions did you use to get access to TV shows?

havcent had cable for 10+ yrs.

and when the series finale of LOST ends in may, i'll be down a 0hrs of TV!!!

downside:
I've been going out 5-6 times a week.
Cable TV costs less... lol

 

[Jeff7]

Something else fun to keep in mind: Around 25-27% of the time allocated for a show is just commercials. (2hr show = 0.5hr of commercials, 30min show = 8min of commercials).
And it seems to keep increasing.
So around 1/4 of your bill is paying for the privilege of receiving advertisements.
And of course, with increasing use of product placement, you're also getting ads in the program. Plus the stations also like to be dicks and use large animations within the show to advertise more of their own crap.

So, no more of that. If I know of a show I might like, I buy the DVD set. Then I get just the show I want, no ads*, and better quality than I'd get over cable.
*ads - some DVDs do come with previews and ads and such at the beginning, flagged with PUOs so you can't skip them. Stuff like that deserves a kick in the face, but I am more forgiving, as VLC doesn't seem to care about PUO flags.

And yes, some stuff is available online for free.

 

[NutBucket]

Basically I share the sentiments above. I miss sports the most but I really don't have time to watch most of it anyway.

I'd much rather spend the money on some good blu-ray movies. I also find myself watching less TV.

 

[olds]

eztv.it

 

[evident]

i considered getting rid of cable when i get my own house, but all of the sports are broacasted on comcast sports net in the philly area. will be pretty tough to have friends over when there are no sports =\

 

[KaOTiK]

I've never had cable and wouldn't waste money on it either, especially nowadays. Whatever show I want to watch I either stream it or download it the next day. I watch some OTA stuff. All my friends have cable and they all watch maybe a half dozen of the channels out of all the ones they have anyways.

I always hear them bitch every few months that the bill went up another buck or two lol.