Cord cutting

[owlmoose]

After literally years of resisting, we finally took the first steps toward cancelling cable. (We also still have a land line. And an answering machine. Those aren't going anywhere though, at least not for now -- a land line is still by far the most reliable communication tool in an emergency, and as long as PG&E is playing these power outage games I want to hold onto it.)

The main reason we held out so long: live sports. I wasn't about to accept any option that didn't allow me watch Giants baseball on a DVR. Most of the streaming services didn't have that kind of thing for a long time, and MLB's own service has a blackout on local games. (I hear it's a great option for following a team when you don't live in its media market, though.) The last few times we researched this question, no one option had everything we needed. And everything still has a few gaps, but after doing some research we decided that our best choice was YouTube TV. So we'll give that service a trial and see how it goes.

T order a Roku stick; it arrived a few days ago, and he set it up today. So far, all we've used it for is to watch YouTube videos and test Amazon Prime and Netflix, but it seems fine. I'm really going to miss our Tivo, though. On that, we were early adopters (T bought one through a co-worker, on a friends and family deal, in 2000), and I've gotten really used to its interface, and especially its high-quality universal remote. The Roku remote refuses to talk to our A/V receiver, so we can't use it to adjust volume, and that's going to get annoying fast. Still, it's probably worth it to save at least $50 a month. It's an experiment, long overdue, and I look forward to seeing how it goes.

Comments

[thorn]

We've considered that too, but would miss our TiVo too much, too. If we ever did it, I'm thinking we might end up trying the TiVo Over The Air unit. Though we'd probably try to do without first. I've had one for over 20 years and it was great when we moved and moved providers so we didn't give up all our shows to a provider "DVR".

[owlmoose]

Back when we switched to digital cable there was really no question of whether we would use the provider's DVR or upgrade to a digital TiVo. I've never been so loyal to a platform -- not even MacOS. But over the air reception is just not an option in San Francisco, so sadly we have to say goodbye to TiVo, at least for now. More likely we'll buy a new receiver that the Roku can control (ours is almost 20 years old).

[ladythmpr]

I'll be watching for your telling of your experience. Live sports is the only reason we've not cut our cord yet, and I'm really tired of paying out what we do to the cable company for TV.

[owlmoose]

we're going to start our YouTube TV trial the week after next, and I'll definitely keep you all posted as to how it goes!

[lassarina]

An interesting experiment! Live sports is also what keeps us from cancelling; in our case, it's NFL, because the DirecTV equivalent, which you can get through PSN, costs as much for those 4 months of the NFL season as we pay for cable all year long, so.

[owlmoose]

the DirecTV equivalent, which you can get through PSN, costs as much for those 4 months of the NFL season as we pay for cable all year long, so.

Good *lord*. That is ridiculous. I don't blame you for sticking with cable at all.

[lassarina]

Yeah. Part of it is because of the ridiculousness of the package deal (when we cut phone from the 3x deal it only saved us like....$10? a month?) so we'd still be paying for internet, but the DirecTV thingy is something like $80-90 a month, so you figure for September to December + the playoffs and the Super Bowl, you're paying that through the first of February, or paying to go to a sports bar every week and use the package they pay for as part of their business model. Or, you pay for cable, and we do watch a few network TV shows (Blindspot, Blacklist, a couple others) and you get the sports and there's something that can chatter in the background if you're bored, you know.

in conclusion, yikes.