Thinking of ditching cable tv, thoughts

Jeff V · Post by **Jeff V** » Thu Jan 05, 2017 2:05 pm

That part was understood. However, I was expecting each individual thing to work better than it does. Everything works like shit.

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Thu Jan 05, 2017 2:11 pm

But you're Jeff. So...

malchior · Post by **malchior** » Thu Jan 05, 2017 2:45 pm

Isgrimnur wrote:Such is the life of a cord-cutter. There will be no all-in-one solution. You will need a spreadsheet. Do I use my smart tv app to watch CBS, or do I use my tablet app to pull up NBC so I can Chromecast it?

The other option is to pay for the convenience of the one-stop solution.

This is why I like Playstation Vue. The app is on almost every platform (especially all the ones I use) and works well. Downside is they just vanished a ton of channels overnight with nary a price change which didn't inspire confidence.

Xmann · Post by **Xmann** » Fri Jan 06, 2017 6:51 pm

OK, I'm trying to cut the cord but I'm having difficulties because it seems that Comcast is the only service that is provided in my area.

No u-verse, CenturyLink, Verizon broadband, etc.

Online ordering shows me eligible for $59 for 25mbps. When I call customer service, I get a quote of $69.

Are there any other options I'm not finding. I'm looking and don't see anything else.

My current cable bill is $160 and I was hoping to get at least $100 off that. If I go the $59 route, I'm still hit with taxes and crap that puts it close to $70.

Any providers I don't know about?

Exodor · Post by **Exodor** » Fri Jan 06, 2017 7:14 pm

I'm currently paying Comcast ~$215 a month for internet and TV+HBO. That's crazy. The ONLY reason I continue to pay for TV is to provide Elise access to the Disney and DisneyXD apps on the Apple TV - they will periodically ask me for my Comcast credentials to verify I have a TV package. I'm perfectly happy with Netflix and my mlb.tv subscription - if I could dump the cable TV subscription I'd subscribe to HBOnow once Game of Thrones time comes around.

I understand SlingTV has Disney and DisneyXD if you purchase the appropriate package. Has anyone used it? My daughter is more interested in being able to stream recent episodes of shows than she is with watching live TV. Does SlingTV have new episodes available for streaming shortly after they air?

Xmann · Post by **Xmann** » Fri Jan 06, 2017 7:50 pm

So I just called Xfinity TWICE to ask about promotions available online.

Each time I spoke to different agents and both times I was told they were not aware that I could make changes to my account online.

Mind you, I have the changes and promos pulled up on my computer and sitting in my cart. To my knowledge, this is not something new and has existed for years.

Why would two different agents tell me this? The second gentleman sounded offended when I asked why the agents had no clue about online account management.

Isgrimnur · Post by **Isgrimnur** » Fri Jan 06, 2017 7:57 pm

When I worked for Cingular, there was our customer service mines, the Telesales (phone) department, corporate stores, and agent stores. Everyone had their own pricing, their own procedures, etc. As a Customer Service manager, it was hard enough for me to keep my people up to speed and actually applying what they were supposed to know, much less every other group.

Xmann · Post by **Xmann** » Fri Jan 06, 2017 8:17 pm

The second guy was like, "I've been here for 6 years and I've never heard of online account management".

I actually laughed because I thought he was kidding and he was the second person tonight who told me that.

stessier · Post by **stessier** » Sat Jan 07, 2017 6:41 am

Sorry, I don't have Comcast, so I can't help you there, but I find your taxes and fees comment interesting. There shouldn't be any tax on just getting the internet. I have Charter and pay $59.99 for internet - and that's it. Do you have to pay for the modem too or something? Because getting your own would pay for itself in less than a year if that were the case.

Xmann · Post by **Xmann** » Sat Jan 07, 2017 1:18 pm

OK, bought a Roku streaming stick and I'm having troubles.

Intermittently, it skips. This happens on the Roku home screen or while watching any different show or app. I gets fuzzy for a couple seconds and then picks right back up.

This has never happened with my Chromecast and I'm positive it's the Roku.

Is this a known issue or anyone ever heard of this problem?

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Sat Jan 07, 2017 3:29 pm

I have a Roku 4 and I've never used the streaming stick. But I gave one to a friend years ago for a birthday present and it gave him zero trouble. So I would say you either have a bad stick, or you have issues with your home network/ISP.

Xmann · Post by **Xmann** » Sat Jan 07, 2017 3:32 pm

going to assume its the Roku since my Chromecast works flawlessly

Zaxxon · Post by **Zaxxon** » Sat Jan 07, 2017 6:56 pm

We're on our 5th Roku and I've never seen that. None are of the stick variety, though.

And where do you live yet $59 gets you 25 Mbps on Comcast? I get 200 Mbps for $59, taxes included.

Xmann · Post by **Xmann** » Sun Jan 08, 2017 7:22 am

OK, cord cut.

Took the Roku back and got the Amazon Fire stick. So far it's worked flawlessly and I like the UI much better than Roku. The Roku must have been a dud. Regardless, very happy with the Amazon flavor.

Comcast 25mbps will be $64.99. Last months cable bill was $155'ish.

The Xfinity fella tried really hard to convince me I needed the 100mbps because 25 won't stream anything. Last night has proved otherwise. I watched some Amazon Prime and Netflix without any hiccups.

Who do you have Zaxxon that gets you 200mbps for $59?

Captain Caveman · Post by **Captain Caveman** » Sun Jan 08, 2017 10:24 am

You need just 4 mbps to stream HD, 15 mbps to stream 4k. That Xfinity guy was full of it.

RunningMn9 · Post by **RunningMn9** » Sun Jan 08, 2017 10:41 am

I get 250Mbps service from Comcast, but I think that part of the bill is like $80 or $90. They could charge be any amount of money and I would almost certainly pay it.

Especially after helping SmooveB out yesterday and seeing the look of sadness as he downloaded like 80GB of data (between Steam and having to download three different goddamn Windows 10 ISOs), in far less than an hour.

That would have taken like six weeks on his shitty 5Mbps DSL connection.

25Mbps would be nearly as intolerable.

RunningMn9 · Post by **RunningMn9** » Sun Jan 08, 2017 10:44 am

Also, remember that while a HD stream only technically requires a 4 Mbps stream, there are a lot of things that can eat away at your cable throughput (neighbors like me, for example). That 25 Mbps is not a guaranteed consistent or minimum speed, that's the max speed.

Xmann · Post by **Xmann** » Sun Jan 08, 2017 12:20 pm

All we use the wifi for is streaming and net surfing. Haven't done multiplayer gaming in over a year and don't know anything I'd need to upload or download.

And yes, the Xfinity guy knew that I knew what I was talking about. When I asked him what Netflix recommends for streaming, he immediately says, "let me guess, 5mbps".

We had Xfinity 100mbps with the cable TV package and thus far, I can't tell any difference.

RunningMn9 · Post by **RunningMn9** » Sun Jan 08, 2017 4:51 pm

I generally have four HD video streams coming in simultaneously while four people are also surfing and watching videos, and I can do all that while downloading anything I want at seemingly incredible speeds.

Which isn't to say that you should want or need that. Just a matter of perspective. I pull in about 2 TB of data per month. At that level, speed matters.

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Sun Jan 08, 2017 5:31 pm

You guys are talking about speeds I can't even comprehend. As stated, being at RM9's house yesterday and downloading games to STEAM in an hour would have taken me DAYS to complete on my "high speed" connection from Century Link. Having multiple HD feeds watching Netflix or Amazon Prime while downloading a new game? You might has well be talking about sorcery because I can't even imagine it.

malchior · Post by **malchior** » Sun Jan 08, 2017 10:30 pm

Xmann wrote:Took the Roku back and got the Amazon Fire stick. So far it's worked flawlessly and I like the UI much better than Roku. The Roku must have been a dud. Regardless, very happy with the Amazon flavor.

I was a Roku house - probably had 6 or 7 over the years starting with the first one they put out. They're all retired except for a Roku 3. The Roku 3 is getting Amazon'ed soon as I can figure out how to integrate remote control since this is in my "main" tv location. Roku for whatever reason simply hasn't kept up with the times and its UI is holding it back. The implementation of several apps are very painful compared to the same ones on Amazon. Especially Playstation Vue. It is unusable on Roku versus *all the other platforms*.

Xmann · Post by **Xmann** » Mon Jan 09, 2017 2:01 am

malchior wrote:
Xmann wrote:Took the Roku back and got the Amazon Fire stick. So far it's worked flawlessly and I like the UI much better than Roku. The Roku must have been a dud. Regardless, very happy with the Amazon flavor.
I was a Roku house - probably had 6 or 7 over the years starting with the first one they put out. They're all retired except for a Roku 3. The Roku 3 is getting Amazon'ed soon as I can figure out how to integrate remote control since this is in my "main" tv location. Roku for whatever reason simply hasn't kept up with the times and its UI is holding it back. The implementation of several apps are very painful compared to the same ones on Amazon. Especially Playstation Vue. It is unusable on Roku versus *all the other platforms*.

I love the Amazon Fire after a couple days of use.

The UI is very functional. Something I didn't like about Roku.

I'm thrilled thus far with the Fire Stick.

tgb · Post by **tgb** » Mon Jan 09, 2017 7:44 am

I just finished my home show, and had a couple of exhibitors selling so-called "streaming boxes". I can get one at a good price, but they seem very gray-market to me at best, and am approaching it cautiously.

What sayeth the hive mind?

stessier · Post by **stessier** » Mon Jan 09, 2017 9:52 am

What do the boxes purport to do? You can stream a ton of stuff perfectly legally and it doesn't have to be on a Roku or Fire Stick, etc.

tgb · Post by **tgb** » Mon Jan 09, 2017 10:46 am

Stream everything free forever. (I've heard it's all pirated shit coming from torrent sites, but haven't been able to confirm thwt).

RunningMn9 · Post by **RunningMn9** » Mon Jan 09, 2017 10:52 am

tgb wrote:Stream everything free forever. (I've heard it's all pirated shit coming from torrent sites, but haven't been able to confirm thwt).

Presumably they are just running Kodi. Which I have running on a Fire stick, and yes it's all shit coming from illegal sites.

tjg_marantz · Post by **tjg_marantz** » Mon Jan 09, 2017 11:12 am

RunningMn9 wrote:
tgb wrote:Stream everything free forever. (I've heard it's all pirated shit coming from torrent sites, but haven't been able to confirm thwt).
Presumably they are just running Kodi. Which I have running on a Fire stick, and yes it's all shit coming from illegal sites.

Yes and no. They are probably running Kodi, that oat is easy to surmise. To tgb, the videos don't come from torrent sites but rather from "video locker" sites. You're streaming a video file, not torrenting it. The distinction is important if you are worried about your own actions. It is currently not illegal for you to activate a link that plays a video. You can access all these videos from sites like putlocker, vidme, etc from your browser. All the boxes are doing is putting a nicer wrapper around it.

Sent from my SGH-M919V using Tapatalk

Jeff V · Post by **Jeff V** » Mon Jan 09, 2017 12:42 pm

tjg_marantz wrote:
RunningMn9 wrote:
tgb wrote:Stream everything free forever. (I've heard it's all pirated shit coming from torrent sites, but haven't been able to confirm thwt).
Presumably they are just running Kodi. Which I have running on a Fire stick, and yes it's all shit coming from illegal sites.
Yes and no. They are probably running Kodi, that oat is easy to surmise. To tgb, the videos don't come from torrent sites but rather from "video locker" sites. You're streaming a video file, not torrenting it. The distinction is important if you are worried about your own actions. It is currently not illegal for you to activate a link that plays a video. You can access all these videos from sites like putlocker, vidme, etc from your browser. All the boxes are doing is putting a nicer wrapper around it.

Sent from my SGH-M919V using Tapatalk

I installed this (kodi) yesterday on my two Fire sticks. It seems to make the Firestick work a little better, and the plugins are similar to what is available in the Amazon app store but it's not nearly as frustrating to use. I did learn about some of the unofficial add-ins that would appear to be sketchy and tried one that would ostensibly stream some Filipino TV content. The plugins didn't work though as I needed to have an account with the TV provider (say, TFC) and about the only thing I was able to get was stuff available on You Tube (like a half-hour news show broken down into 3 10-minute segments) or ultra-low def movies that are painful to watch.

The more above-board stuff seemed to work well though. Hopefully this will improve my overall viewing enjoyment.

Scuzz · Post by **Scuzz** » Mon Jan 09, 2017 1:18 pm

Isgrimnur wrote:When I worked for Cingular, there was our customer service mines, the Telesales (phone) department, corporate stores, and agent stores. Everyone had their own pricing, their own procedures, etc. As a Customer Service manager, it was hard enough for me to keep my people up to speed and actually applying what they were supposed to know, much less every other group.

Last time we were cable shopping my wife called the same places days apart and received different pricing each time. What a mess? She recently called Comcast to get info on dropping TV and just going internet and they dropped their pricing on TV....so we re-upped again.

rshetts2 · Post by **rshetts2** » Mon Jan 09, 2017 2:56 pm

I will say, if you have Kodi and are not using the Exodus add on for video streaming, you're doing it wrong. It's the best one available at this time and you can find a high def stream for almost anything. I understand that Kodi is not for everyone and that it operates in a grey area but I have no problems streaming network content, that I can get for free over the air, which is what I use it for. It basically saves me the hassle of recording.

Jeff V · Post by **Jeff V** » Mon Jan 09, 2017 3:26 pm

rshetts2 wrote:I will say, if you have Kodi and are not using the Exodus add on for video streaming, you're doing it wrong. It's the best one available at this time and you can find a high def stream for almost anything. I understand that Kodi is not for everyone and that it operates in a grey area but I have no problems streaming network content, that I can get for free over the air, which is what I use it for. It basically saves me the hassle of recording.

It was through the Exodus publisher that I found the Filipino TV add-ins that don't work so well.

rshetts2 · Post by **rshetts2** » Mon Jan 09, 2017 4:33 pm

Jeff V wrote:
rshetts2 wrote:I will say, if you have Kodi and are not using the Exodus add on for video streaming, you're doing it wrong. It's the best one available at this time and you can find a high def stream for almost anything. I understand that Kodi is not for everyone and that it operates in a grey area but I have no problems streaming network content, that I can get for free over the air, which is what I use it for. It basically saves me the hassle of recording.
It was through the Exodus publisher that I found the Filipino TV add-ins that don't work so well.

Well when youre looking for niche and obscure stuff that 99% of the US has zero interest in, that's going to happen. For everyone else, Exodus works great. It was recently voted the best video addon for Kodi 2 years running now. I switched from Genesis, which was a bit wonky, to Exodus last year and that one move improved my use of Kodi tenfold. So to clarify, if you watch stuff that people in the US normally watch on the over 1000+ channels available through most cable and tv providers, that are not focused to a specific foreign ethnic group, then Exodus will likely work for you. If you are not one of those people talk to Jeff V. He will tell you why it can't be done.

Zaxxon · Post by **Zaxxon** » Mon Jan 09, 2017 4:45 pm

Xmann wrote:Who do you have Zaxxon that gets you 200mbps for $59?

Comcast.

Xmann · Post by **Xmann** » Mon Jan 09, 2017 7:49 pm

Zaxxon wrote:
Xmann wrote:Who do you have Zaxxon that gets you 200mbps for $59?
Comcast.

Is that a promotion or part of a package? I called 5 times this weekend and was told $64.99 everytime.

Zaxxon · Post by **Zaxxon** » Mon Jan 09, 2017 7:52 pm

It was a new customer deal I got them to give me. Was available in the site when I logged out and shopped as though I was new.

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Mon Jan 09, 2017 7:54 pm

Seem perfectly reasonable that Century Link is charging me $50 a month for a 5 Mbps DSL line. I know it's popular to hate on the various cable companies but MY BODY IS READY.

RunningMn9 · Post by **RunningMn9** » Mon Jan 09, 2017 8:34 pm

Exodus is the bee's knees. The only other thing I run on Kodi is Pro Sports to watch hockey games.

Exodus isn't perfect, it's only as good as what's available out in the ether. For still in theaters movies you sometimes have to deal with subtitles or a cam version that someone recorded, but it's great for TV shows. And mostly great for movies.

Scuzz · Post by **Scuzz** » Mon Jan 09, 2017 8:41 pm

Zaxxon wrote:It was a new customer deal I got them to give me. Was available in the site when I logged out and shopped as though I was new.

I think they are advertising that here as a new customer deal in a bundle. Internet plus TV.

Zaxxon · Post by **Zaxxon** » Mon Jan 09, 2017 9:46 pm

This was just Interwebs.

The Meal · Post by **The Meal** » Tue Jan 10, 2017 1:42 am

Smoove_B wrote:Seem perfectly reasonable that Century Link is charging me $50 a month for a 5 Mbps DSL line. I know it's popular to hate on the various cable companies but MY BODY IS READY.

I pay $49.95 a month for 1 Gbps.