Cutting the Cord…

[turtleback]

7 minutes ago, dennyjones said:

Recommendations?

I just bought a cheap one from Best Buy.  They really are very cheap.  Mine is an Antennas Direct, but I can't seem to find my model on the BB nor the AD website.  I recall paying something like 30-40 bucks for it.  I think I bought the second cheapest one the store had, figuring that I could always get a better one if necessary.  And maybe with a better one I might get more channels.  But I never found it necessary to get a better one.  I imagine a lot depends on how close you are to the actual broadcast tower.

 

[dennyjones]

I bought a cheap one from Best Buy and was only able to get one local station.   That about two years ago.   I'm thinking about going to a tower and a digital antenna

[nevets88]

3 hours ago, dennyjones said:

Recommendations?

If you're near the antennas, have a direct LoS, then the flat ones will do. But farther and stuff blocking, it's iffy.

Use this to find out where the signals are coming from:

https://www.antennaweb.org/Address

Wirecutter recs:

https://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-indoor-hdtv-antenna/

 

[gregsandiego]

On 3/29/2018 at 5:53 AM, dennyjones said:

@gregsandiego,  Does that work with multiple TVs within the house?  Can I watch one thing in the den and my wife another in the living room?  Each of my TVs has a Roku.

YouTube TV allows 3 devices.  It actually seems to run smoother on a PC. It's not as polished as NetFlix on ROKU for some reason.

 

 

[nevets88]

Have gone through like 5 indoor antennas. Recently got this one, a Clearstream, for forty something on Amazon. It doesn't require a power source and gets better reception than the others I had before. Nonetheless, if one station is not LoS from your room, you're still not going to get it. It has an outdoor mount in the photo but it can be used indoors, you can hang it. That said, antennas are a depends on the situation thing and sometimes that cheap antenna that looks like garbage will do just fine.

[gregsandiego]

On 3/29/2018 at 8:52 AM, NCGolfer said:

Playstation Vue.  Big and significant enough that DirecTV uses them as a comparison.  Don't know of anyone that uses them though.

I started with Sony VUE. Their web interface and support drove me nuts. Account wold get killed for various reasons and would take me an hour to retrieve it. DON'T.

 

[Club Rat]

Has anybody ever heard or tried  "Ace Stream" it is a video application that lets you stream live sports and other content.

[fishgolf]

On ‎11‎/‎18‎/‎2014 at 6:44 PM, turtleback said:

When I retired a few months ago we moved, so we bought one of those Blu-Ray players that lets you access a variety of online streaming services, including Amazon Streaming.  And since we already have Amazon Prime, there is a lot of the Amazon streaming we get for "free".

 

And now I can see how people can talk of cutting the cord  Like a lot of others about the only holding me is live sports, NFL, BPL, and golf.  Other than that my wife and I prefer watching stuff we pick out.  So far we've had no need to venture beyond Amazon for video and Pandora for music.

 

Anyone out there cut the cord?  Anyone solved the live sports problem?

We have Roku and Sling via our Wi-Fi internet service.  I think the Roku was about $50 (one time cost) and the Sling is $40/mo. I opted for the Sling sports package which includes Golf channel.  I have always enjoyed watching PGA and LPGA golf (often when tying flies), so this works just fine for me. Other than it being excessively PAC12 centric, it has enough non-golf sports to fill my tank.  Besides, I did not retire early to spend time watching excessive amounts of TV.

 

[dennyjones]

5 hours ago, Club Rat said:

Has anybody ever heard or tried  "Ace Stream" it is a video application that lets you stream live sports and other content.

Haven't heard of it.

[jamo]

I took the plunge and signed up for the YouTube TV trial last week. Really liking it, so I called today to cancel my Comcast TV and phone and keep the internet.

They decided to cancel everything, so I just spent an hour on the phone trying to get back up and running. Got lucky that the work order had only partially go through so they could salvage my account. I'm back up and running until Thursday when I'll take my cable box down to the Comcast store.

I figure worst case I can always switch back.

YouTube TV has a much better DVR than Comcast. Comcast stopped allowing you to set DVR recordings when not on your home network, which really annoyed me. I think I'll end up saving a little money, but not a ton, and I'll lose a few channels than I seldom watch. The biggest downside is probably that everything's a little less seamless. We'll see. 

[jsgolfer]

I just switched from the PS Vue to Fubo TV.  I really like it a lot, has more sports than the other streaming services.  

[Archie Bunker]

Streaming services are the way to go, although you can't lose by adding a OTA antenna to the mix. We used YouTube TV for several months, then switched over to PlayStation Vue just recently. Why? It seems that the "unlimited cloud DVR" that YouTube TV advertises is, in fact, quite limited. If you record a first-run network show (CBS, NBC, FOX, etc) and try to play it back when a VOD (Video On Demand) version is available, access to your recording will be blocked for months. And you CANNOT fast-forward through commercials on the VOD playback. The amount and repetitiveness of these commercials will drive you nuts. A deal-breaker for me, as well as many others. 

[jamo]

1 hour ago, Archie Bunker said:

Streaming services are the way to go, although you can't lose by adding a OTA antenna to the mix. We used YouTube TV for several months, then switched over to PlayStation Vue just recently. Why? It seems that the "unlimited cloud DVR" that YouTube TV advertises is, in fact, quite limited. If you record a first-run network show (CBS, NBC, FOX, etc) and try to play it back when a VOD (Video On Demand) version is available, access to your recording will be blocked for months. And you CANNOT fast-forward through commercials on the VOD playback. The amount and repetitiveness of these commercials will drive you nuts. A deal-breaker for me, as well as many others. 

By "blocked" you just mean it makes you watch the VOD version, right?

I've been doing the trial for a week now and haven't found that particularly annoying. I usually forget to fast forward through commercials with cable anyway. Honestly, I'd rather watch a commercial than the weird waiting screen ESPN gives you.

[Archie Bunker]

18 minutes ago, jamo said:

By "blocked" you just mean it makes you watch the VOD version, right?

I've been doing the trial for a week now and haven't found that particularly annoying. I usually forget to fast forward through commercials with cable anyway. Honestly, I'd rather watch a commercial than the weird waiting screen ESPN gives you.

It doesn't block all shows on CBS or NBC for example. But if you record, let's say, "America's Got Talent" and try to watch your DVR recording the next day, you cannot because the VOD version is available. Your recording will become "available" about 8 months later (!) for you to watch. On the VOD programs they tend to run the same commercials over and over until you want to tear your hair out (if you have any). No fast forwarding through commercials on VOD. I find that PlayStation Vue doesn't have this annoying shortcoming. Nice thing about streaming - you can switch often with no hassle from a cable company. FYI - PlayStation Vue works on both Roku and Amazon Fire devices (YouTube TV doesn't). The interface for PSVUE on Amazon Fire TV is much nicer than it is on Roku IMO.

[nevets88]

I'm using Hulu TV now and mute and second screen when the commercials come on.

If you subscribe to any of the live plans for just these two months, June, July, you really got your money's worth - USO, WC, Wimbledon, Open Championship, Tour de France, MLB, MLS, etc...

I've never found the dvr interfaces to any of these services to my liking.

[brocks]

On 7/3/2018 at 6:33 PM, jamo said:

YouTube TV has a much better DVR than Comcast. Comcast stopped allowing you to set DVR recordings when not on your home network, which really annoyed me. I think I'll end up saving a little money, but not a ton, and I'll lose a few channels than I seldom watch. The biggest downside is probably that everything's a little less seamless. We'll see. 

I'm using Youtube TV for the golf channel.  $35/mo is half the price of the 3,000 stations I would have to get from my cable company in order to get a tier with TGC included.

The picture is great, the content is great, the interface sucks donkey dongs.  They don't even have numbers for the stations, so I have to hunt for TGC among all the other stations.  Setting something to record in advance is either clumsy or impossible, depending on the show (e.g. for last week's tournament, it could only find the CBS broadcast of the third round in the shows available to record, not TGC's). And if you want to freeze the frame to look at something, a big black banner comes up to cover at least a third of the screen.  I've sent feedback on these and other problems, and they say great idea, we'll look into it, with nothing further.

Sometimes I wish I wasn't so cheap.

[nevets88]

The smartphone apps imho for live streaming services are better than the apps provided by cable/satellite, especially when you're away from home.

[Archie Bunker]

29 minutes ago, brocks said:

I'm using Youtube TV for the golf channel.  $35/mo is half the price of the 3,000 stations I would have to get from my cable company in order to get a tier with TGC included.

The picture is great, the content is great, the interface sucks donkey dongs.  They don't even have numbers for the stations, so I have to hunt for TGC among all the other stations.  Setting something to record in advance is either clumsy or impossible, depending on the show (e.g. for last week's tournament, it could only find the CBS broadcast of the third round in the shows available to record, not TGC's). And if you want to freeze the frame to look at something, a big black banner comes up to cover at least a third of the screen.  I've sent feedback on these and other problems, and they say great idea, we'll look into it, with nothing further.

Sometimes I wish I wasn't so cheap.

I had no problem recording Golf Channel or CBS PGA events when I had YouTube TV. Just add "PGA TOUR" to your recorded show library. Records all Golf Channel rounds as well as the weekend CBS broadcast. And you can re-arrange the program guide to put Golf Channel on top. No need to scroll through the guide.

No service is perfect, but $40 per month makes more sense than $80 (or more) per month from the cable tv thieves. YouTube TV made some bad deals with the local networks that may block plenty of your DVR recordings. It is the single reason I switched to PlayStation Vue. My advice is to "free trial" them all to see what works for you.