Any cord cutters out there?

Im in STL and have cable. 300 channels of crap. I only watch Outdoor channel and Sportsman. They just dropped Sportsman channel and im dropping them. Is there any way to get hunting shows on line other than Growing deer.
There's a ton of hunting stuff on youtube. They all have there own channels. I never miss a growing deer or Midwest Whitetail. Lots on there that doesn't get on tv.

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Dropped dish about 3 years ago and went to Roku. We don't miss all the channels at all and saved a lot of cash. Our youngest daughter has the firestick and after seeing it a couple times We may switch to it in the future.
 
Im in STL and have cable. 300 channels of crap. I only watch Outdoor channel and Sportsman. They just dropped Sportsman channel and im dropping them. Is there any way to get hunting shows on line other than Growing deer.
Sling tv has both of those channels also with on demand so you can watch the past shows.
 
Sling tv has both of those channels also with on demand so you can watch the past shows.
Im not up on all this. There websight is a little confusing. 1 They offer a free fire stick. What is that used fore. 2 How do you get it on the tv.
 
I'll be cutting a cord or so this weekend

recent storm blew over several trees on access road......

bill
 
Being out of the loop on internet speed, just what is required to use these services. I have DSL at the house but , I can hardly play a video. Had Netflix once but, couldn't use it. If you get rid of your landline what kind of internet speed is needed to run things like that and where do you get it. Over your phone?
 
I never had satellite and haven't had cable for 25+ years. I just bought a new tv for the cabin. I have a rooftop antenna, and I get 25 local channels. I can use my phone as a hotspot to get youtube and netflix, but I keep going over my data limit. I am thinking of going with an unlimited data plan. I think I can get rid of my cable internet at home (the cost savings should pay for the unlimited data upgrade on the phone) and just use the phone as a hotspot in either location.
 
We have cable and internet at our house. For TV, we have a basic package that is about $15/month and most of that we could probably get over the air. With internet, the bill is more like $80. My wife has tried netflix, hulu, a google stick, and amazon prime firestick. Recently she's been using an app called Kodi to access some streams on the TV. Other than football, I don't really need anything. Our young kids watch a lot of PBS kids on TV or on hand-me down smartphones.

I've been looking at a farm for sale nearby that would be more of a challenge. No cable there, just poor quality DSL. It is on high ground where over the air TV should be fine and I think wireless would be ok with a repeater/booster. It would be a challenge getting everyone enough data and speed just from wireless without breaking the bank. I wouldn't get my wife to move there if there was only DSL internet.
 
I've got the Amazon Firebox, Amazon Prime gets you Amazon TV, and Sling TV with the news add-on. Way better, and still quite a few dollars saved vs the "premium" cable package I used to have. The lack of sports is still an issue, but for as fast as pro sports are losing viewers, I'd expect they find a way to get around the networks and access the streaming crowd more than they do now.
 
I would love to drop DirecTV, but I enjoy watching Premiere League soccer too much. It's the only thing I watch....August through May. We do have a Fire Stick and Netflix already. The ability to DVR all the games and then watch them later on at night or whenever is something that I value. I should see if it's possible to stream these games live or play them on demand.

The EPL is awesome. I borrow a login for the NBCSN app, and I'm able to catch half or more of the games.

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Otherwise make due with with netflix and hulu, and I'd REALLY like to drop hulu, but the wife needs it for terrible reality shows.


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The EPL is awesome. I borrow a login for the NBCSN app, and I'm able to catch half or more of the games.

aa06b91f52b7193503fa037709674721.gif


Otherwise make due with with netflix and hulu, and I'd REALLY like to drop hulu, but the wife needs it for terrible reality shows.


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I may have to check that out. I just bought the Premiere League Gold Pass. Catching half of the games would do it. Thanks!
 
We recently moved. When we did I left the satellite service behind, installed an aerial antenna and plugged the internet into the TV.

Anyone else trying cord cutting?

-John
So you inpired me (all of you). I bought a mohu leaf 50 mile range hd antenna. Found out that I didn't have a digital tuner on any of the TVs in my house to play. Which meant I needed a little more equipment.

So after a bunch of research I bought a Tablo 4 tuner and a 2TB usb hard drive (total in about $380). The Tablo is a whole home dvr. I can place it anywhere in the house and in an optimal spot for the antenna as it doesn't need to connect to the TV, just the DVR. It should allow me to pause, ffwd, rewind, record and playback to any tv in the house that has a wireless "receiver" (roku, Fredrick, Chromecast, etc.). It arrives on the 30th. If it works, I will be paid back in 3 months ($150/mo to DTV). We have Netflix. I will have to figure out what other al-a-carte services that we need. Kids like hockey.

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I'll be cutting a cord or so this weekend

recent storm blew over several trees on access road......

bill

I also clicked on the thread thinking we'd be talking about cutting large volumes of firewood. Still a good topic.


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So you inpired me (all of you). I bought a mohu leaf 50 mile range hd antenna. Found out that I didn't have a digital tuner on any of the TVs in my house to play. Which meant I needed a little more equipment.

So after a bunch of research I bought a Tablo 4 tuner and a 2TB usb hard drive (total in about $380). The Tablo is a whole home dvr. I can place it anywhere in the house and in an optimal spot for the antenna as it doesn't need to connect to the TV, just the DVR. It should allow me to pause, ffwd, rewind, record and playback to any tv in the house that has a wireless "receiver" (roku, Fredrick, Chromecast, etc.). It arrives on the 30th. If it works, I will be paid back in 3 months ($150/mo to DTV). We have Netflix. I will have to figure out what other al-a-carte services that we need. Kids like hockey.

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Loosing my dvr is my biggest concern. Would never have a tv without one.
 
So you inpired me (all of you). I bought a mohu leaf 50 mile range hd antenna. Found out that I didn't have a digital tuner on any of the TVs in my house to play. Which meant I needed a little more equipment.

So after a bunch of research I bought a Tablo 4 tuner and a 2TB usb hard drive (total in about $380). The Tablo is a whole home dvr. I can place it anywhere in the house and in an optimal spot for the antenna as it doesn't need to connect to the TV, just the DVR. It should allow me to pause, ffwd, rewind, record and playback to any tv in the house that has a wireless "receiver" (roku, Fredrick, Chromecast, etc.). It arrives on the 30th. If it works, I will be paid back in 3 months ($150/mo to DTV). We have Netflix. I will have to figure out what other al-a-carte services that we need. Kids like hockey.

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I owe this thread a full write-up as I have been experimenting pretty heavily since we moved. I've tried several potential solutions. I promise a full write up soon. The tablo is on the list of things to try. Please keep me posted on your progress with it.

-John
 
So here goes...

I'm starting slowly and working on LOCAL channels: SUCCESS

I got my equipment today (Tablo 4 tuner and a 2TB USB Hard Drive). I hooked up the HD antenna to it, followed the 3 easy steps to set it up and I was able to find HD channels over the airwaves! This is just a start. Please don't take this as a huge sucess or a full-fledged endorsement yet. I'm only pointing out that I can get channels (now that I have a digital tuner, which happens to be part DVR). I recorded a few things, watched some live TV with some success. My wife walked by and commented on the picture quality being nice. But this si still far from passing "the wife test".

Functionality Review:
WORK IN PROGRESS
Overall, this is still a work in progress. I have had some random resets of the DVR, some wonky stuff on my own WiFi (cable provider might have dropped), Tablo App issues and some buffering problems. All of this, I anticipated running into. I am using a Chromecast as the "receiver" on the TV. There are some known "issues" with Chromecast that I am working through.

Remote Access (out of home)

This worked flawlessly! In the Tablo App when I setup the DVR, I clicked the box to enable remote access. Later on, I turned off WiFi on my phone, launched the Tablo app over cellular (4G) and was able to connect and play a recording from my DVR. I could have been anywhere with cell signal and played it. Pretty cool! So then I treied to play a live show by just using the channel guide and IT WORKED TOO! Now that's just crazy! So I could be anywhere with internet access and watch stuff on my phone. That was really easy!

RWD (rewind), FFWD (fast-forward) and PAUSE

For recorded shows, these work. However they are a little different than a typical DVR. FFWD doesn't play things faster. It jumps the program ahead 30 seconds (not bad for commercials). If you wanted to go forward further, the playbar can be touched/clicked further acros the screen. RWD jumps the program back 20 seconds.

For live shows, you can pause. As long as you have enough of the program buffered (say you went to the kitchen to make a sammich), you could likely use the FFWD option but right now I'm getting some sporadic responce/function. As for RWD a live show, it doesn't seem to work the way I expected. Maybe I have to do some digging in the settings but the show isn't being "cached" on the DVR. So I can't RWD.

Important Information for Functionaility

Something that I think is important to anyone considering this is that there isn't a remote control with this setup. You need to use a phone app or a laptop to connect to the DVR or the Channel Guide and then pick the show for playback (in my case, I'm using ChromeCast, so once I pick the program to watch, I then have to click the "cast" button). The same would apply to something like a Sling TV subscription.

Along my journey I will start targetting Premium Channels

Some of the more intelligent "receivers" (other than Chromecast) like Roku and Fire Stick come with a remote and may allow me to install the Tablo app to access my local channels (live and recorded). Having a remote in hand will allow me to get things closer to passing the afforementioned test (for local channels). I am leaning towards Sling TV and for $25 month I get a decent set of channels and then can go al-a-carte for other things.

Right now I would say I am still very optimistic. The path I have gone down, doesn't seem like just "plug and play" for everything. I am expecting to have to purchase some other "receivers" to replace my Chromecasts (although Tablo is working to make them more palletable) and I also think I will need to get used to the way this functions.

More to follow.
 
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This is interesting, only because I am tired of paying over $100 for Dish, and only watch A&E, History, Outdoor, Sportsman, NatGeo, in addition the wife watches Food and TVland or something like that. What would be my best bet to get these? I can get the locals without issue. I know nothing about none of the options mentioned before.
 
This is interesting, only because I am tired of paying over $100 for Dish, and only watch A&E, History, Outdoor, Sportsman, NatGeo, in addition the wife watches Food and TVland or something like that. What would be my best bet to get these? I can get the locals without issue. I know nothing about none of the options mentioned before.
I haven't gotten that far yet... and will keep my progress posted here. From what you posted, assuming you have a good internet connection, you may want to look at Sling TV. It's an on-demand option for programming. They have an option for Most of the channels you listed (based on my recollection). I think you might be able to get away with the blue-orange package and then pick up the outdoor package for an extra $5/month. Leaving you somehwere like $35/mo.
 
Anyone have sports figured out? College basketball/football, NFL, and Olympics are important...

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Anyone have sports figured out? College basketball/football, NFL, and Olympics are important...

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What channel do you normally catch those on? For me, NFL locally is going to be through the hd antenna same as olympics. Not sure about college sports (I don't watch them).

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