Cutting the cord...

[moves]

Is the BD subscription through Netflix? I live in Canada so I don't have that option.

Hi there, welcome to modern television!

Joking/trolling aside, I ditched the cable tv subscription a long time ago and I haven't looked back. To me, paying for shows on Netflix (subscription) or iTunes is worth it even if purely for the absence of advertisement!

In my current setup, I have an appleTV (3rd gen, I don't play games and it's been fine so far), I have an HBO Now subscription and a Netflix streaming+Blu-ray subscription as well (yes, I also have a Blu-ray player and a Mac mini HTPC with all my DVDs ripped while the discs themselves take on the dirt in the basement). I got the BD subscription mostly because I got tired of iTunes' US movie rental restrictions (the fact that you only have 24 hours to watch a movie is incompatible with my less than 2 year old kid who seldom gives us 2 full hours to sit down – French rentals allow 48 hours!). The other advantage of the disc rentals is that things come out fairly quickly, especially compared to Netflix streaming.

One thing though, I very rarely watch sports, usually just the soccer World Cup every four years but that streamed to the Apple TV so that worked out fine.

Cheers!
Alex.

 

[jmalecki05]

I made the conscious system to not get cable when I bought my home 7 years ago and never regretted the decision. Aside from having more channels than days in the year, I don't find the value in television / media packages, eg. triple play. Plus, random TV is distracting.

I detest commercials; I think I am smart enough to seek information on a product as apposed to slanted advertisements telling me how to think.

I have more movies and TV than I will ever enjoy and the internet is just a click away. Plus, only a fraction of my free time is devoted to video. I will listen to music (and nothing else) for an hour or more at a time and find the experience peaceful.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

At this point in time, I haven't watched live/dvr cable TV in about 4-5 years. A small exception would be xmas night transmission.
However, I kept around my triple play cable package since I was basically the same price (on once a year renewed promotion) as internet alone. Very recently my cable company Optimum, now owned by Altice, decided to copycat Comcast and add new "Broadcast TV" fee. As result now the difference is $20/month and I no longer need the analog phone line at home (used heavily for faxes earlier this year (boring dealing with large insurance/benefits management companies)
$84.95+taxes would be my bill going forward for 200/35Mbps service. Thank god for the speed actually real and no caps.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

Nice one Splicer.
People tend to underestimate the capabilities of tiny FireTV Sticks - it's actually quite powerful htpc client.

JFC, I can't believe that I said these words 4 years ago. Not long after that comment Amazon released a new software update which made the original gen1 stick perform as agile as trying stirring stale peanut butter. Completely ruined it. I now use Fire TV 3rd gen "Ultra" 4k model and I still won't call it particularly fast.
To be honest short of building one yourself, probably once decent stock/factory HTPC client would be the Nvidia Shield TV.

 

[afterlife2]

JFC, I can't believe that I said these words 4 years ago. Not long after that comment Amazon released a new software update which made the original gen1 stick perform as agile as trying stirring stale peanut butter. Completely ruined it. I now use Fire TV 3rd gen "Ultra" 4k model and I still won't call it particularly fast.
To be honest short of building one yourself, probably once decent stock/factory HTPC client would be the Nvidia Shield TV.

They eat up all the space with these useless updates I wish I could disable or delete them. I have deleted files only to get updated again. There is a way to install a SD card to put the apps on though on YouTube. I wish they could add 10 or 20 gigs on the next firestick.

 

[Gmoney]

Well I cut my cable and internet from Cox a few months ago. Went with Unlimited data from AT&T. Well AT&T lies! it's Not really unlimited data they cut back on the speed or you only get 20 or 30 g's for Tethering. Than after that you got Nothing! Your cell even gets Throttled back. So I have Cox internet again with their Basic cable package all for 103 a month. Oh now I have AT&T lowest data plan only 38 bucks a month. After lowering my AT&T bill and getting Cox internet and cable back the extra cost a month for my very fast internet is 65 bucks more a month.

 

[bruin62]

At least you guys in the states have decent cable and satilight which sounds affordable.here in Canada it’s just a ripoff I pay over a 100 a month for crap on satilight. I bought a amazon cube and started to figure out how to download and use sideway apps.
Just need to figure out how to watch hockey on this cube