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Cable TV Alternatives

MacTexas744

MacTexas744

New Member
Here is my story of why I will become a cable cutter. I have had Directv since 1996 and have watched the price go up and up over the years. When I learned AT&T bought them I knew we had problems. Well, the straw that broke the camels back came in last months bill. They added a "Federal Cost Recovery" fee of 67 cents. I have had it with Directv/AT&T. I live 44 miles from the towers so I just put up a Mohu Sky on the roof, works great. Now I am researching what I need to do to get all the college football channels. By football season Directv will be history.
 
French Frog

French Frog

Active Member
MacTexas744 said:
Here is my story of why I will become a cable cutter. I have had Directv since 1996 and have watched the price go up and up over the years. When I learned AT&T bought them I knew we had problems. Well, the straw that broke the camels back came in last months bill. They added a "Federal Cost Recovery" fee of 67 cents. I have had it with Directv/AT&T. I live 44 miles from the towers so I just put up a Mohu Sky on the roof, works great. Now I am researching what I need to do to get all the college football channels. By football season Directv will be history.
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Good for you Mac, I had DirecTV since 1998 and dropped them in December 2016.
 
MacTexas744

MacTexas744

New Member
French Frog said:
1. If you have a cell phone, dump the home phone.
2. Call around for small independent home security/monitoring companies for the best price to monitor your already installed system.
3. Dump your cable TV.
4. Get the fastest internet available in your area. I have 350Mbps in Oklahoma. Some areas of DFW have 1 Gbps service.
5. Get a high speed modem with a powerful multi-channel router such as an ASUS brand router.
6. Get wifi extenders to place in or near the most distant TV rooms from the main router.
7. Purchase Roku, Fire Stick or Box, Google Chrome Cast, or other suitable streaming device for each TV.
8. Decide on a streaming service, such as Playstation Vue, Sling TV or the new YouTube if available. (I have PS Vue.) You can also use the streaming services from Amazon if you have a Prime account.
9. Don't forget to get a high definition over the air antenna to get live TV from all your local stations. This is a must if you live in an area with bad weather, (like Oklahoma), or to view network sports on ABC, CBS, and NBC, etc., along with other local news if you care about that stuff.

Any questions, please ask.
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I have 3 tv's and I have run my OTA antenna to one of the tv's. I have two other tv's I would like to get the OTA signal but I cannot run an antenna wire to them. I have searched for a solution but all seem complicated. My question, what streaming device would you use to get OTA channels to other tv's.
 
French Frog

French Frog

Active Member

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PHSFROG09

PHSFROG09

Member
MacTexas744 said:
I have 3 tv's and I have run my OTA antenna to one of the tv's. I have two other tv's I would like to get the OTA signal but I cannot run an antenna wire to them. I have searched for a solution but all seem complicated. My question, what streaming device would you use to get OTA channels to other tv's.
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I mentioned the Tablo earlier in this thread and it's great. Hook it up to the antenna and it can stream to pretty much any device on the same wifi network. Also serves as a dvr for OTA too.

https://www.tablotv.com/
 
TxFrog1999

TxFrog1999

The Man Behind The Curtain
Still happy with my PlayStation VUE subscription since cutting DirecTV over the summer. As long as you have a decent internet connection just buy an Amazon FireTV or, if you don't mind the added cost and like games, a PS4 and you're good to go. $45 a month is a lot cheaper than the $160 I was pay through DirecTV and we get all of the same channels I used to subscribe to (that we actually watch). Side note, we never subscribed to any premium channels and seeing the bill go from what was $90 a month to $160 in the last few years was just ridiculous. Also, now that I've updated my business' AT&T cell plan I get HBO Go for free, add in Netflix for $12 a month and the video services I get through my Amazon Prime subscription and I'm as happy as can be.
 
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Sebastian S

Active Member
You would probably need a playstation on every tv? I do have 1 ps4. You are saying fire tv has the vue app?

Google chromecast is fairly cheap to put on numerous tv's.
 
TxFrog1999

TxFrog1999

The Man Behind The Curtain
Sebastian S said:
You would probably need a playstation on every tv? I do have 1 ps4. You are saying fire tv has the vue app?

Google chromecast is fairly cheap to put on numerous tv's.
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Right now, unless they've changed it recently, you can only have one PS4 in your household tied to your Vue account (odd I know), but the FireTV (not the stick) has the Vue app (so does the AppleTV, but that doesn't have the amazon app) and you can use as many of those in the house as you need with your one Vue subscription.
 
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Sebastian S

Active Member
Gotcha, youtube tv looks like you can have 3 devices streaming at the same time, which is doable in my house.

You get all the major sports channels including locals?

#1 is I need to be able to watch all TCU games I can watch with Dish Network. ESPN and Fox sports channels should cover most of that.
 
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Paradoxotaur

Full Member
Unless it's changed recently (and admittedly I haven't checked), PS Vue was the only streaming service that included all of the local broadcast stations when I signed up for it a few months ago. You can also stream on up to 5 devices at a time, which is great but rarely comes into play for us.

The thing that really sold me on PS Vue over the others that I tried were the guide and the last channel abilities (on Amazon FireTV). We have 2 FireTV boxes and 2 Roku boxes and honestly the Roku setup with PS Vue kind of blows, but FireTV is fantastic and extremely quick. I get every single channel that I, my wife, or my daughter would ever watch, and we have absolutely no complaints about it after a having used it for a few months.
 
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Sebastian S

Active Member
You can sign up for youtubetv now and get a week free(i think it was a week), it has the 4 main local channels.

I dont have a streaming device to test it on because only google chromecast has it but it works fine on my phone, tablet and laptop.

This trial made me think of cutting the cable because I was able to watch the TCU game and almost all of the major college football games.

Watching the baylor basketball game now on (regional?) fox sports .
 
MinerFrog2409

MinerFrog2409

The offseason sucks
Sebastian S said:
You can sign up for youtubetv now and get a week free(i think it was a week), it has the 4 main local channels.

I dont have a streaming device to test it on because only google chromecast has it but it works fine on my phone, tablet and laptop.

This trial made me think of cutting the cable because I was able to watch the TCU game and almost all of the major college football games.

Watching the baylor basketball game now on (regional?) fox sports .
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Why would you watch Baylor do anything?
 
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BoondocksFrog

Active Member
We will probably cut the cord next year. I have done test runs with multiple streaming services, the issue I have found is a huge delay between cable and streaming. Delayed enough that I would get texts like "did you see that catach!?" a couple of minutes before I saw it.
 

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