Cutting The Cord!

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redcloud
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Location: Portland, OR.

Cutting The Cord!

Post by redcloud »

We did it....today we officially cut the cable cord! As of Monday our bill was going to rise to $220 for basic cable, internet and phone! :shock: We had no special movie or sport channels just the basic package of 250 channels (!) and approx. 235 of them shit and 12 or so free. Decided to call Comcast and said we needed a lower bill and they immediately offered to drop to $170, which we said was still too much and we were going to move to a competitor. They put us on hold and still couldn't bring it down any more so we told them to pull the plug. Yesterday we got wired for Century Link who offer a package with Direct TV for $115 but because of the hills and trees in the Portland metro area they said the satellite tv wouldn't work in our area. So, we decided to connect just phone and 40mbps internet service at $70p/month. Going out today to buy a decent indoor tv antenna. There are several radio/tv towers on top of the hills in Portland, which we can tap into and my research shows we could get anywhere from 12-40 free channels, and most will be a hi-def signal.

We'll stream certain things not available on terrestrial via Netflix/Hulu and I'll still go to the pub to watch my football team. To watch any other sports only shown on cable (basketball, baseball, World Cup etc.) I'll stream from a variety of free internet sites. Enough's enough with the fucking monopoly on cable and ridiculous rising prices. Not to mention the endless shite that is shown. Crap reality tv that all follows the same format, poorly written comedies and appalling 24-hr news (fucking CNN are STILL endlessly talking about the Malaysian Airline plane. WHAT more is there to be said? Honestly?). ENOUGH!

We feel FREE! :D

Oh, and we'll probably read more too!
semisynthetic
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Re: Cutting The Cord!

Post by semisynthetic »

I use a satellite service because I am in the middle of nowhere; but the Televison has always been a big "night light" for me; my parents had them all over the house as I was growing up, but I rarely watched Televison. Today, with a large screen HD TV, it is a fun way to enjoy (my own Films and Movies without the need to go out, which for me is some distance) and a way to enjoy movies and special programming with an excellent sound system.

I agree with redcloud about the endless worthless shit on TV. I flipped through the channels last night, and except for one movie I liked, it was a complete waste of my time. So, I went into the Library and read until about 3:00a.m.

I read far more than anything else; there is only one other site I enjoy on the net enough to log onto it.

Between the Internet and all of the OTHER gadgets available today, it seems a person could waste an enormous amount of time staring at screens or "tweeting" and all the rest of it without ever actually getting anything done, or learning much of anything of importance.
"Everything is a Poison; it is the amount or degree that separates one Poison from another"
Paracelsus
redcloud
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Location: Portland, OR.

Re: Cutting The Cord!

Post by redcloud »

UPDATE: Ok, so I bought a $60 indoor antenna and I now have nearly 40 channels coming in with perfect picture and several at HD! All of them free! Just briefly flipping through I see some local channels I have never seen before (maybe they were on the cable but got lost in the 250+ options), one channel looks like re-runs of old tv shows (Andy Griffith, Leave it to Beaver, Brady Bunch etc.), a few Spanish speaking channels, three or four PBS channels, all the main terrestrial channels (NBC, CBS, ABC, FOX, CW etc.), a couple home shopping channels and a few "god tv" channels.

Between these free channels, streaming and internet sports streams/hdmi cord I think we have beat the cable monopoly and have just saved ourselves $150/month!

:D
davedecay
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Re: Cutting The Cord!

Post by davedecay »

redcloud

could you share the model number of the antenna you bought for those of us in the USA?

thanks!
redcloud
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Location: Portland, OR.

Re: Cutting The Cord!

Post by redcloud »

davedecay wrote:redcloud

could you share the model number of the antenna you bought for those of us in the USA?

thanks!
http://www.radioshack.com/product/index ... d=12349516

It looks like a tablet, lies flat and looks no different sitting by our tv than our blue-ray streamer.

Portland has several radio and tv aerials on top of its highest hills surrounding the city. So, the signal is strong. I thought the many trees and hills might weaken it but it doesn't seem noticeable. Once I fiddled with our tv's setup (programming it to receiving radio waves via antenna rather than cable) my tv automatically searched for channels, found them and then immediately brought them up. As with anything there are good and bad reviews online. Honestly, the picture quality on my tv is literally NO different than cable! I'm amazed. After a bit more tuning or the antenna settling in to the signal it now seems to have given us a little over 40 channels. Sure, there are several that we wont watch but at least I'm no longer paying for it!

I will add that our tv is digital (as is this antenna). If you have an older tv you will need a digital to analog converter box for the antenna to speak to an analog tv.
Dreamweapon
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Re: Cutting The Cord!

Post by Dreamweapon »

Sorry - I read the title of this thread and was about to offer you hearty congratulations on the birth of your first child! Obviously this is a very different type of cord!
jwilder
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Re: Cutting The Cord!

Post by jwilder »

We cut the cord a little over year ago and love not having a cable bill much like yours. We purchased a Roku box and stream from Hulu, Amazon, and Netflix. There's some other channels we check out via free channels like Crackle. I got MLB.tv to as well.

The Amazon pays for itself as we would have spent that on shipping.

If I want to watch a sporting event that isn't available over the air, I will go somewhere to watch it.

I'll never go back to cable.
davedecay
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Re: Cutting The Cord!

Post by davedecay »

we do have digital TVs.

problem is my wife and mother in law (live in) really love cable TV and would be hard to talk into giving up some channels they love.

if it were only me, i could do it, no problem.
redcloud
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Re: Cutting The Cord!

Post by redcloud »

Looked more into Hulu and it seems they only bring up broadcast tv, which we are getting now for free. I guess it is really a service for those without a tv? No point in it for us. We also have a Sony blueray streamer which allows us to get Netflix, Prime etc. Because of the issue of a lot of streaming on websites needing Flash we bought an older macbook completely reimaged for $100 and got an HDMI cord and adapter for it as well as an audio cord. Got it all hooked up and we are now able to stream a handful of cable only tv shows from Mac to TV in HD for free! The only cable channel we used to watch fairly regularly but still can't get is Discovery. But, I'm sure there are ways around that too even if it means paying a bit for a stream.

I've been pointed in the direction of Vipbox tv for sports too. I've yet to fully investigate it but will do. Anybody stream from it?
jack white
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Re: Cutting The Cord!

Post by jack white »

Dreamweapon wrote:Sorry - I read the title of this thread and was about to offer you hearty congratulations on the birth of your first child! Obviously this is a very different type of cord!

TV >>>>>>> children. it can give you so much more joy! & you can turn it off once you get bored..
gonna burn brightly
for a while
olan
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Re: Cutting The Cord!

Post by olan »

jack white wrote:
Dreamweapon wrote:Sorry - I read the title of this thread and was about to offer you hearty congratulations on the birth of your first child! Obviously this is a very different type of cord!

TV >>>>>>> children. it can give you so much more joy! & you can turn it off once you get bored..
That is so wrong and set so right at one and the same time.... :lol: :lol:
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