Getting Rid of Cable TV?

[akaTheDude]

Roku 3 + Netflix + Hulu Plus = Winning


Dropped cable and NEVER looked back

[Djuntas]

...Actually use my laptop purely as a HDMI slave now for months. I bought it cheaply as it could get for school w/e. So yea, HDMI from my laptop to my TV screen, just a older modest 32 inch, works great for me.

[NoRest4Wicked]

Hows the quality on Chromecast From PC to TV?

Honestly, I've never been able to tell the difference in picture quality as technology has progressed, but I've never had anyone mention it was poor. I think it has the same quality as running the HD channels on Dish.

[Xargoth6634]

I have the bare minimum cable package. It's an extra $10/month on top of the internet bill, and it has ~25 or so channels, only of which 5 or so are actually tv and not garbage 24/7 marketing crap. It's nice to be able to watch college and pro football on the weekends and I split the bill with my roommate, $5/month is a pretty good value for getting to see some sports. Even when they're off, sometimes it's nice just to be able to turn the tv on in the background and let it run while you're doing something else.

Sucks you can't pay for individual channels, say $50/month for your top 10 channels. I enjoy watching HGTV/Cooking Network/Discovery/History/MSNBC (For "Lockup" and "To Catch a Predator" don't judge me!) from time to time, but the jump from $10-100 is not even close to worth it for the 10 or less channels I'd want to watch. I don't even want shit channels like TLC/Lifetime/MTV/Hallmark/etc. coming into my house.

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Roku 3 + Netflix + Hulu Plus = Winning


Dropped cable and NEVER looked back

I don't know what Roku 3 is, but I actually enjoy live tv/sports/news, not canned rebroadcasts later or having to search for streams. Fuck that noise.

[PACOX]

Netflix gets better and better all the time.

Other streaming services aren't terrible either, even Hulu is okay.

Amazon's comes with a Prime subscription and has what I call HBO Lite.

A lot of stations also stream their primetime line up for free if you watch it within a couple of weeks of the first airing.

So if you want to cut cable its pretty simple.

If you want to stream to your TV get a smarttv or some kind of streaming device like a Chromecast, Roku, or whatever. I've had a Chromecast and Roku and they both get the job done nicely. For all its worth, this is a gaming site, throw a PS4 into the list of devices as well.

[Orlong]

HBO saying they'll sell episodes like GoT outside of cable means the death of the cable companies, imo.

Yeah, because HBO is the only reason cable companies stay in business Less than 5% of cable subscribers pay for HBO

[Othraerir]

tv is free in australia, unless you wanna watch espn or fox sports for epl etc, then you need cable/satellite, not really worth it though.
we get some american stuff on one of the digital sports channels.

[lockedout]

Yeah, because HBO is the only reason cable companies stay in business Less than 5% of cable subscribers pay for HBO

Citation needed. Last I heard the only thing keeping people paying for cable was HBO Showtime and sports channels. Does no one have a smart TV? No need to hook up a laptop with a HDMI. Both my TV's are smart TV's with WIFI.

[phitness]

I haven't had cable TV for like 10 years. I pay for internet and can get anything someone with cable TV gets and more.

[Forgettable]

My friend lets me use his Netflix for free. I haven't had cable since I moved out, good riddance commercials.

[Evil Inside]

I dont have cable tv so I use netflix. Our cable tv here in Aus is limited to 1 company and is $100/month for all the channels. And its also riddled with so many ads that it's not funny.

[Wildtree]

Hulu isn't in Canada...not without some shenanigans I cannot be bothered to do...not to mention I watch TV on a TV

I am with you brotha......
They can say what they want, the quality of the picture is still not rivaled yet.
There's some severe quality difference between something I get via cable/sat onto my DVR, and some stream from the net.
If the tech is equal one day, then maybe I switch too. But for now... any display of 36"+ size shows a dramatic decrease of picture quality of streaming vs cable/sat.

[Deleted]

I am with you brotha......
They can say what they want, the quality of the picture is still not rivaled yet.
There's some severe quality difference between something I get via cable/sat onto my DVR, and some stream from the net.
If the tech is equal one day, then maybe I switch too. But for now... any display of 36"+ size shows a dramatic decrease of picture quality of streaming vs cable/sat.

You can stream in full 1080p, so I've no idea where you're thinking that cable is better.

[Mukor]

http://kodi.tv/

everything you need, and you just youtube it on how to set everything up.

[phitness]

You can stream in full 1080p, so I've no idea where you're thinking that cable is better.

Just being 720p or 1080p doesn't mean you are getting a quality bitrate. Thats why there are 1080p BR rips that are 1gb and then for the same BR you have 10gb and 20gb rips. Theres a huge difference between the quality of streaming and what you can get thru other means.

[Daethz]

I've been doing just fine without television for 6 years now, and even before I hardly used it (I am 25 atm). Whenever I heard an average member of a nation X spends Y hours in front of the TV every single day, I just couldn't understand how was that even possible. But, if you start to think how much time you spend in front of the monitor, it all evens out, I guess.

Televisions are mostly strict entertainment.
While "Monitors" or computers can be extremely educational.
Just typing improves your typing skills.
Watching a television sadly has no pro's, now it might have pros if you watch alot of things like jeopardy.

Anyways, I had netflix for like 6 months, dropped it, pretty much watched everything on it that interested me, kept looking through it and finding nothing interesting.
I currently have no television other than public channels.
Go hang out with people to watch the walking dead.

[Tradewind]

You can stream in full 1080p, so I've no idea where you're thinking that cable is better.

If you're using Netflix though it's only 720p unless it's marked as a "Super HD" title and you're using a supported device (and your ISP isn't shit). Amazon and Hulu are only 720p still.

[Orlong]

You can stream in full 1080p, so I've no idea where you're thinking that cable is better.

Its compressed and not blue ray quality. Unless you have google fiber you cant get enough bandwidth to stream uncompressed 1080P (Even Google fiber at 100GB DL speed may not be enough). Netflix 1080P looks shitty, and the sound on Netflix is awful. They dont stream DTS Master Audio streams

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Citation needed. Last I heard the only thing keeping people paying for cable was HBO Showtime and sports channels. Does no one have a smart TV? No need to hook up a laptop with a HDMI. Both my TV's are smart TV's with WIFI.

Im unable to find a citation. l However Comcast, DirecTV, and Verizon have a combined 100 million subscribers http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-19/u-s-pay-tv-subscriptions-fall-for-first-time-as-streaming-gains.html

Time Warner has 30 million http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/02/13/the-comcast-time-warner-deal-by-the-numbers/, and there is likely another 100 million subscibed to smaller regional cable companies

HBO doesnt release subscriber numbers but its estimated they have 28 million http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/21/netflix-hbo_n_4138477.html

That gives us a percentage of a little over 10%. I was a little off but even 10% of subscribers leaving wont kill cable companies. In addition the odds of every single HBO subscriber dropping cable in favor of their cable free app is 0%. Most HBO subscribers watch things other than HBO too and would likely keep their cable subscription

[Priya-tan]

In the apartment complex I live in now, we are required to have cable... (mandatory $56 extra a month, with another $71 on top of that for internet). I can't recall the last time we watched anything on TV. We usually watch Netflix, Hulu, or YouTube stuff (various podcasts) on our Chromecast. Can't wait to move out of this place and pay for ONLY internet ($50 for 75down FIOS, yes please).

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I don't have a laptop Any solution currently for "getting rid of cable" would involve more cost than what cable is currently costing me lol. Well short term anyway...idgaf anyway. More than satisfied with my packages and I have like a bajillion free on demand stuff from my channel subscriptions that rotate every month.

Then there's sports channels etc.

Buy a Chromecast http://www.google.com/chrome/devices/chromecast/