I canceled my cable! See my setup. Save money to buy wood or oil or gas or pellets.

[Jukeboxfun]

I feel very self righteous telling the cable co. to go stick it.

 

[midwestcoast]

:cheese: Nice. I've been without cable for a good 10 years now. Netflix, Hulu, Youtube & other sites make it way better now. Who needs another monthly bill?

 

[Highbeam]

So for those of us that can't watch a movie..... You now have a UHF antennae and use your playstation or laptop to access netflix, youtube, hulu. etc. That is great and I am happy for you.

Here is the rub for my family, we need internet for everything but the OTA broadcast. We also "need" phone service since it is cheaper than cell phones and the bundled price of cable, phone , and internet is less than just phone and internet. Making it cheaper to have cable than to not have cable.

Do you still have phone service too?

 

[webbie]

We did that at our beach place - Apple TV for $99 and internet service (which I obviously need for Biz anyway).......
We only used to have the cable there for 5 months anyway, but now it is O.

We did away with the landline for good now at home - although we still have the cable because, frankly, my wife is addicted to all the Showtime Chit (shamelss, Californication, etc. etc. etc)....... I don't watch the tube much...not because I am special, more because I am ADD. I do like Boardwalk Empire, though.....

 

[madrone]

Right on! Dumped Comcast last year. I refuse to contribute to the monopoly. Wife and kids watch Netflix piped from the laptop to the TeeVee, or library DVDs. Getting my internet from the phone co. for a fraction of the cost. It actually seems a little faster.

 

[gpcollen1]

good for you. I applaud anyone who can lower their monthly bills if it works for them. This does not work for many of us though. For ESPN, local sports and some other stuff I will keep Directv.

 

[firefighterjake]

TV . . . local HDTV to watch football, The Amazing Race, Survivor, 60 Minutes and the evening news . . . and DirecTV -- mostly for my wife who hates Maine winters, but I must confess that I do enjoy watching Dr. Who, Top Gear and a few other programs. That said . . . I find myself gravitating more towards Netflix and the instant viewing movies and TV shows most often these days.

Internet . . . get it bundled through the local phone company with a land line . . . don't use our cell phone much . . . heck, I don't even know the number . . . it's an annual payment Tracfone.

 

[Jukeboxfun]

So for those of us that can't watch a movie..... You now have a UHF antennae and use your playstation or laptop to access netflix, youtube, hulu. etc. That is great and I am happy for you.

Here is the rub for my family, we need internet for everything but the OTA broadcast. We also "need" phone service since it is cheaper than cell phones and the bundled price of cable, phone , and internet is less than just phone and internet. Making it cheaper to have cable than to not have cable.

Do you still have phone service too?

We still have landline phone service as well as uncapped 6mps dsl internet broadband through Windstream.

 

[nate379]

I don't think anything comes on antenna here. When I moved in a few years ago I barely had cell reception, no land line run to the house. They just ran cable to here this summer. I got dish but had to cut what seemed like 1/2 the darn woods... trees like 300-400ft away.

 

[WhitePine]

We are strictly OTA for TV. The Hi Def quality is better, since it isn't compressed. I get weekly spam snail mail from DirecTV trying to get me to sign up. Yes, once a week, every week. What a waste of paper.

 

[Dr.Faustus]

no cable here either. cancelled it when they kept hiking the price. little by little each month. 99 cents here, 1.99 there.


when the bill hit $167/month i cancelled tv and the landline, kept internet only. they cried and cried even sent a rep to the house. they lowered the price to 99 for 1 yr. i said no. they said ok 2 years. i said no.

they called a month later and said ok 99 a month for 3 years and i said no stop calling me. i told them i was tired of fees and price hikes whether its now or in 3 yrs and they blew it.

i live fine with a PC attached to the TV. i get netflix, hulu and all the others. never a shortage of anything to watch. put a wireless mouse and KB on the pc and now only pay 50 a month for internet only.

they still call every once in a while with 89.99 a month for 3 yrs. When they call with a price of 50 a month for 3 years i'll take it. then i'll cancel right after the 3 yrs.

 

[Jukeboxfun]

We are strictly OTA for TV. The Hi Def quality is better, since it isn't compressed. I get weekly spam snail mail from DirecTV trying to get me to sign up. Yes, once a week, every week. What a waste of paper.

You are so right, the quality of their HD is not even as good as the OTA signal. Then they start with this free HD for life bit. HD is the standard not a premium thing.

 

[gpcollen1]

We are strictly OTA for TV. The Hi Def quality is better, since it isn't compressed. I get weekly spam snail mail from DirecTV trying to get me to sign up. Yes, once a week, every week. What a waste of paper.

DirecTV is full HD...1080...Compressed or not. They upgraded everything when they put the new satellites up. DirecTV has the best HD service of any provider. You guys must have all old equipment. On some older receivers you cannot even get the HD channels anymore. I applaud you for getting rid of your bill but there is nothing wrong with DTV HD signal.

PS - you can get them to stop sending that stuff too.

 

[gpcollen1]

We are strictly OTA for TV. The Hi Def quality is better, since it isn't compressed. I get weekly spam snail mail from DirecTV trying to get me to sign up. Yes, once a week, every week. What a waste of paper.

DirecTV is full HD...1080...Compressed or not. They upgraded everything when they put the new satellites up. DirecTV has the best HD service of any provider. You guys must have all old equipment. On some older receivers you cannot even get the HD channels anymore. I applaud you for getting rid of your bill but there is nothing wrong with DTV HD signal.

I have read some of the stuff on the signal degradation and how OTA is better than DTV but that is all old prior to the switch to MPEG 4. That date is all years old...

PS - you can get them to stop sending that stuff too.

 

[WhitePine]

We are strictly OTA for TV. The Hi Def quality is better, since it isn't compressed. I get weekly spam snail mail from DirecTV trying to get me to sign up. Yes, once a week, every week. What a waste of paper.

DirecTV is full HD...1080...Compressed or not. They upgraded everything when they put the new satellites up. DirecTV has the best HD service of any provider. You guys must have all old equipment. On some older receivers you cannot even get the HD channels anymore. I applaud you for getting rid of your bill but there is nothing wrong with DTV HD signal.

PS - you can get them to stop sending that stuff too.

I never said I had DirecTV of any kind. I said they send me weekly spam mail. Most if not all cable and satellite providers compress their HD signals and deliver HD picture quality that is inferior to an OTA HD picture. Having a 1080 output doesn't mean a full quality hi def picture if the source for the signal has been compressed using a lossy codec, which is what DirecTV does.

In the case of a cable or satellite provider retransmitting a local station's HDTV signal, the absolute best they could do is equal it in quality. Usually, they are not even close. If you can get an OTA signal, the only benefit to using a cable or satellite provider is their exclusive content that isn't offered by the local station. Most of that is garbage, in my opinion. What little good stuff there is isn't worth the huge bill that accompanies it, which is pretty much the thrust of this entire thread.

 

[gpcollen1]

We are strictly OTA for TV. The Hi Def quality is better, since it isn't compressed. I get weekly spam snail mail from DirecTV trying to get me to sign up. Yes, once a week, every week. What a waste of paper.

DirecTV is full HD...1080...Compressed or not. They upgraded everything when they put the new satellites up. DirecTV has the best HD service of any provider. You guys must have all old equipment. On some older receivers you cannot even get the HD channels anymore. I applaud you for getting rid of your bill but there is nothing wrong with DTV HD signal.

PS - you can get them to stop sending that stuff too.

I never said I had DirecTV of any kind. I said they send me weekly spam mail. Most if not all cable and satellite providers compress their HD signals and deliver HD picture quality that is inferior to an OTA HD picture. Having a 1080 output doesn't mean a full quality hi def picture if the source for the signal has been compressed using a lossy codec, which is what DirecTV does.

In the case of a cable or satellite provider retransmitting a local station's HDTV signal, the absolute best they could do is equal it in quality. Usually, they are not even close. If you can get an OTA signal, the only benefit to using a cable or satellite provider is their exclusive content that isn't offered by the local station. Most of that is garbage, in my opinion. What little good stuff there is isn't worth the huge bill that accompanies it, which is pretty much the thrust of this entire thread.

My point was that you CAN get those solicitations stopped if you try.

As far as the HD signal. I do understand that the DTV signal is a compressed version of the original signal. While the DTV signal was not nearly as good as the original or OTA signal back in 2005-7, when HD was growing, there has been a change since then. Whether it is due to the compression/transmission of the original signal, DTVs technology or a combination of both - the quality of DTV HD these days is pretty much equivalent to original signal.

I have followed HD and DTV HD since it first came out. DTVs upgrades were going to be the deciding factor to if I kept their service. I kept the service because they were able do better than they were in the early days of HD. You said the OTA HD was better, when it can indeed be equal. I currently consider it equal - and i have both an OTA HD antennae and DTV.

 

[Highbeam]

So for those of us that can't watch a movie..... You now have a UHF antennae and use your playstation or laptop to access netflix, youtube, hulu. etc. That is great and I am happy for you.

Here is the rub for my family, we need internet for everything but the OTA broadcast. We also "need" phone service since it is cheaper than cell phones and the bundled price of cable, phone , and internet is less than just phone and internet. Making it cheaper to have cable than to not have cable.

Do you still have phone service too?

We still have landline phone service as well as uncapped 6mps dsl internet broadband through Windstream.

Here's the big thing, is 6mps sufficient for streaming video content like netflix? Do you sit around and wait for it? We have phone company DSL available but it was only 7.3 mps and they always have that disclaimer that speeds could vary based on demand. For those of you getting "phone company" DSL does it come through the phone wire on the street or is it via air waves. Just got my 137$ comcast bill last night.

 

[WhitePine]

We had 6 mbs DSL at our last house. We did not stream NetFlix and never tried.

DSL comes in on your regular copper phone line. Some telcos will sell you DSL alone, with no phone capability, sometimes called dry DSL. Some may require that you have both. If you have DSL and the reqular phone service, you will need a DSL splitter, which is a filter that separates the two signals. Google will find you numerous pages on how to wire your house for DSL.

FWIW, we had absolutely no trouble with our DSL. Not all DSL users are that lucky.

We can't get it here. Wish we could.

 

[Hogwildz]

So for those of us that can't watch a movie..... You now have a UHF antennae and use your playstation or laptop to access netflix, youtube, hulu. etc. That is great and I am happy for you.

Here is the rub for my family, we need internet for everything but the OTA broadcast. We also "need" phone service since it is cheaper than cell phones and the bundled price of cable, phone , and internet is less than just phone and internet. Making it cheaper to have cable than to not have cable.

Do you still have phone service too?

We still have landline phone service as well as uncapped 6mps dsl internet broadband through Windstream.

Here's the big thing, is 6mps sufficient for streaming video content like netflix? Do you sit around and wait for it? We have phone company DSL available but it was only 7.3 mps and they always have that disclaimer that speeds could vary based on demand. For those of you getting "phone company" DSL does it come through the phone wire on the street or is it via air waves. Just got my 137$ comcast bill last night.

When I had DSL at my old place, it came through the regular phone line and we had to plug in little filter jacks on each phone cord at the plug. The I got cable which then was cheaper and faster.
Now I am in the woods paying out the ass for Satellite internet, then dif satellite tv, and then 2 phone lines for home/business and the fax.
$222.00 Per month for 2 Verizon freedom plans, satellite tv, and all wire maintenance bs.
$79.95 Per month for Satellite internet, which is better than dialup, but otherwise sucks.
$301.95 per month for phone, tv & internet.

Not directed at anyone in particular, but pardon me if I don't sympathize for anyone whining about having cable tv, phone & internet, which in my area is about $130.00 per month for all.
I could only dream of having cable. Had it at my last place, and miss it lots. I would ven love to have DSL which don't compare to cable. But can get neither here.
One day, one can only hope.