Cutting the Cable/Satellite Cord

[Radbird]

The kid and I are on the phone during Friday night's game. Both of us have Comcast. Her broadcast is about a pitch behind mine. And I'm 2000 miles away.

[pioneer98]

Check it out, lots of people are doing this now. Cable/sattelite TV just had their worst 12 month stretch, ever.

http://qz.com/146664/proof-that-america ... e-tv-cord/

[go birds]

y'all know this was available? basic tv with HBO?

http://homes.yahoo.com/news/how-i-did-t ... 29818.html

[Bo Hart]

I haven't had cable in about 5 years now, but I am tempted to pick up DirecTV again. It is so damn frustrating having all of my online sports broadcasts on a one-minute delay (ultimate first-world problem). My sports-watching buddies constantly text me reactions before I even see what happened.

Now, MLB.tv is great -- I love it. But the online NFL package is bad (I got promotional access to NFL Sunday Ticket online this year). There are 15-16 games a week. Monday Night Football? Blacked out. Sunday Night Football? Blacked out. Local games? Blacked out. CBS/FOX national game of the week? Blacked out. Thursday Night Football? Blacked out. I considered getting NBA League Pass (which includes online access), but I guess it has the same problem as the NFL packages -- games on TNT, ESPN, etc are all blacked out.

Plus, as good as the picture quality of online sports broadcasts are getting, they still do not rival satellite/cable TV. Although they may have a true HD resolution, they lack the fluidity of their TV counterparts. I think, for performance/bandwidth reasons, they strip out some frames per second from these streams. And honestly, it shows. I was watching a football game at my buddies house (DirecTV feed), and I was blown away. It was like I was at the game. At home (internet stream), the picture quality is great, but it still feels like TV. (By the way, we have the same TV make/model.)

So... I don't know. I'm sure to get ESPN/TNT/NFL Network/etc I'd probably be paying $60 a month. Then I'd have to buy/rent receivers for 3 TV's. Okay... nevermind, I remember why I stopped subscribing to cable. Stream-only options are getting there, but they are not on TV's level yet -- at least not in terms of quality.

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

I haven't had cable in about 5 years now, but I am tempted to pick up DirecTV again. It is so damn frustrating having all of my online sports broadcasts on a one-minute delay (ultimate first-world problem). My sports-watching buddies constantly text me reactions before I even see what happened.

Now, MLB.tv is great -- I love it. But the online NFL package is bad (I got promotional access to NFL Sunday Ticket online this year). There are 15-16 games a week. Monday Night Football? Blacked out. Sunday Night Football? Blacked out. Local games? Blacked out. CBS/FOX national game of the week? Blacked out. Thursday Night Football? Blacked out. I considered getting NBA League Pass (which includes online access), but I guess it has the same problem as the NFL packages -- games on TNT, ESPN, etc are all blacked out.

Plus, as good as the picture quality of online sports broadcasts are getting, they still do not rival satellite/cable TV. Although they may have a true HD resolution, they lack the fluidity of their TV counterparts. I think, for performance/bandwidth reasons, they strip out some frames per second from these streams. And honestly, it shows. I was watching a football game at my buddies house (DirecTV feed), and I was blown away. It was like I was at the game. At home (internet stream), the picture quality is great, but it still feels like TV. (By the way, we have the same TV make/model.)

So... I don't know. I'm sure to get ESPN/TNT/NFL Network/etc I'd probably be paying $60 a month. Then I'd have to buy/rent receivers for 3 TV's. Okay... nevermind, I remember why I stopped subscribing to cable. Stream-only options are getting there, but they are not on TV's level yet -- at least not in terms of quality.

Just a couple things. Sunday night football should be available on NBC with a set of bunny ears. It's awesome quality (for me at least) every bit as good as satellite/cable. Same with Fox/CBS Nat'l games of the week. Also, if you can get one of your friends with a cable subscription to share his password, or your parents, or your brother, or whoever, you can watch all espn/tnt games (mnf included, I believe) over the internet.

I really don't care about the NFL or NBA, so I'm no expert. But....those suggestions above are all free.

[Jocephus]

for me, fox and nbc come in the best with the hd antenna. cbs is kinda hit or miss. then i get some really random channels. i actually get like...15 stations even just with an antenna though only 2 or 3 are useful/interesting...

[Bo Hart]

Just a couple things. Sunday night football should be available on NBC with a set of bunny ears. It's awesome quality (for me at least) every bit as good as satellite/cable. Same with Fox/CBS Nat'l games of the week. Also, if you can get one of your friends with a cable subscription to share his password, or your parents, or your brother, or whoever, you can watch all espn/tnt games (mnf included, I believe) over the internet.

I really don't care about the NFL or NBA, so I'm no expert. But....those suggestions above are all free.

Yeah, I've actually tried all of those things. I live in the basement of an apartment complex and wasn't able to pick up any signals with the antenna I bought... but I hardly messed with it at all. Perhaps if I was a bit more diligent I could get some channels through that. I think I tried to do it last October to watch the baseball playoff games on FOX.

And I did have my parents set me up with an online account through their cable provider so I could stream games on ESPN. But then you still have the issue of the subpar framerate and the delayed feed.

Thanks for the suggestions though. And like I said, I know these problems are petty. I still watch every single live sporting event I want (through sports packages or underground streams), it's just seeing live sports at my buddy's house left a lot to be desired.

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

it's just seeing live sports at my buddy's house left a lot to be desired.

I understand. A couple weeks ago a few people came over and I had to set two computers up to get different games on ESPN, switch the HDMI cords going into the TV if I wanted to switch those games, and switch back to the antennae feed if we wanted to watch a game over the air. They were like...WTF. Of course, it worked though and that's all that matters.

I am jealous of my friends who just say ta hell with it and pay the extra $50/month or whatever to get ESPN and all that and can just switch channels.

But....it's just not worth it....especially when all I care about is college football and baseball (which would cost an extra $20/month or so (for FS Cardinals) ontop of the extra $50 or so for cable in the first place)

Also, a friend in KC made one of these and had pretty good luck with it.

http://lifehacker.com/5919128/build-you ... hd-antenna

[Bo Hart]

But....it's just not worth it....especially when all I care about is college football and baseball (which would cost an extra $20/month or so (for FS Cardinals) ontop of the extra $50 or so for cable in the first place)

That's where I'm at. I do think cable sports broadcasts are considerably better, but not $70/month better.

I've had some similar setups to that as well. In fact, my living room TV is fueled by a dedicated home theater PC that I built. I prefer something like that over a set-top box/TV/video game console apps, because a true computer offers more flexibility (for example, tiling multiple games at once if the app doesn't support it, Adblock to get rid of advertisements, etc...).

The best investment I made for out in the living room was a wireless keyboard that has a built-in touch pad. Sooo much better than trying to use a wireless mouse out there. Logitech sells them for like $20-30.

[Fat Strat]

If there are only certain times of the year where you want to watch sports, then get a satellite package and put it on hold during the off-season. Want football? Put your account on hold from February through August. Want baseball? April through October. You get the idea.