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Author Topic: Getting rid of cable tv and going to satellite or Boxee? Mike Heenan Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1896 From: Scottsdale, AZ, USA Registered: Mar 2000 posted 06-28-2011 11:54 AM                     Has anyone here ditched cable tv and gone to satellite or a Boxee/Roku system? My parents got their latest Cox cable bill which came out to $173, and my dad finally had it. He's considering switching to a satellite tv system. Does anyone use one and have good or bad experiences with them? I am currently researching is a Boxee system. Has anyone set up their house with that?  |  IP: Logged Mitchell Dvoskin Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1869 From: West Milford, NJ, USA Registered: Jan 2001 posted 06-28-2011 12:16 PM                     I had DirecTv for over 10 years, and only dropped it when I went HD because I don't have line of site to their HD satellite. I was very happy with their service, but be aware their customer service call center people are less than useless if you have a problem. They are not really cheaper than cable once your signup special package runs out, and they have an obnoxious early termination fee. Roku (and other streaming) is not really ready for prime time, and unless you are computer/networking savy, can be a pain in the rear. I have a Roku, and when it works, it is the greatest thing since sliced bread, and when it doesn't, Roku/your ISP/Netflix all blame each other for the problem. Note that each type of device that streams netflix uses a different feed and CDN server, so something that streams perfectly on your PC may not stream perfectly on the Roku. In addition, the Roku box and the other stand alone boxes do not have much memory in them, good for about 30 seconds of buffering. This means that if you do not have a fast connection, or have a packet loss issues, playback will constantly be interrupted while it re-buffers. You will need a minimum of 8 mbps with minimal packet loss to stream HD (much less for SD). $173 for cable tv? I pay that much for cable tv everything, cable phone, and cable internet. Are you sure your father is not including these other services. If so, you will still need to pay someone for internet and/or phone.  |  IP: Logged Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 06-28-2011 01:28 PM                        I think we pay about $125 a month for phone, cable and internet. We have "basic enhanced" cable which includes stuff like TBS, MTV, ESPN and the like but doesn't include any movie channels. We have cable from Cable Montana (which is a Nebraska company, go figure) and phone + internet from Range Telephone, which is a smallish company that has its home office right here in town. That's super nice...if I have a problem, I can walk into the office or call and they all know my name and can speak English!  |  IP: Logged Mark Ogden Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 943 From: Little Falls, N.J. Registered: Jun 99 posted 06-28-2011 01:35 PM                     I have a Roku XDS box which is fed from a cable modem, the output of the modem feeds an Apple Time Capsule and a Cat 6 cable goes from the back of that to the Roku which is hooked up to my Sony XBR LCD display with an HDMI. It should be noted that the Roku XDS supports dual band wi-fi, as does the Time Capsule. As I mentioned in another thread, the difference in picture quality between these two methods is virtually indistinguishable. On the whole I have been very pleased with the Roku. The HD reception thru it is at least as good if not better than the service from Cablevision itself. Our experience has been that once a stream is initiated, it very rarely stops to buffer. Depending on the service provider, there can be slightly more artifacting, the HD stuff we watch from Amazon, Crackle and Netflix is generally pretty solid but there are some niche players on the system who stream old public domain movies at very low rates that look like they were sourced from old VHS bootlegs, pretty unwatchable. There has been a continuing it-comes-and-goes issue with Hulu and audio/video sync, they know about it. The only real disappointment we have had is that there really hasn’t been all that much to watch on it. Both Netflix and Amazon have pretty much oversold what is available streaming, IMHO. A lot of folks get the idea that nearly anything on cable is available thru it and that is hardly the case. We had the idea that we would dump cable and Netfilx physical disc delivery service, but so far we haven’t been moved to do either. It was cool to watch NASA TV live during the last shuttle mission, and it is interesting to look at some of the international stuff, but on the whole I don’t see it as a cable cutter just yet.  |  IP: Logged Daniel Schulz Master Film Handler Posts: 387 From: Los Angeles, CA USA Registered: Sep 2003 posted 06-28-2011 02:37 PM                        I use an indoor antenna for HDTV broadcast and Netflix (both physical disc and streaming) for my non-broadcast-network needs. Over the air HDTV is glorious, if you live close enough to get the signals: looks better than cable HDTV due to the lack of compression to fit everything down the pipes.  |  IP: Logged Sam Graham AKA: "The Evil Sam Graham". Wackiness ensues. Posts: 1431 From: Waukee, IA Registered: Dec 2004 posted 06-28-2011 03:04 PM                        quote: Mitchell Dvoskin I had DirecTv for over 10 years, and only dropped it when I went HD because I don't have line of site to their HD satellite. I was very happy with their service, but be aware their customer service call center people are less than useless if you have a problem. Agreed. I'm happy with DirecTV until I have to call customer service for something. They are mind-bogglingly ridiculous. Fortunately, that only seems to be necessary once every couple of years.  |  IP: Logged Mitchell Dvoskin Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1869 From: West Milford, NJ, USA Registered: Jan 2001 posted 06-28-2011 04:07 PM                     quote: Mark Ogden The HD reception thru it is at least as good if not better than the service from Cablevision itself. Resolution wise yes, but there is far more noticeable (on a 55" TV) compression artifacts via the Roku, and like cable tv, not all HD programming is compressed the same. Some look good, others not so much. Also, although the Roku XDS is capable of 1080p, Netflix is only supporting 720p via the Roku, and they are not supporting Dolby Digital 5.1 sound, only Dolby Digital PCM (pro-logic). quote: Mark Ogden Our experience has been that once a stream is initiated, it very rarely stops to buffer. That is now my experience, but it took me 2 months of fighting with Roku/Cablevision/Netflix to identify and fix the constant re-buffering. Turned out to be mostly Cablevision's issue. I still get "Internal Netflix Error" every now and again, which is Netflix's way of saying that their server is overloaded and you can't watch a given show.  |  IP: Logged Rick Raskin Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1100 From: Manassas Virginia Registered: Jan 2003 posted 06-28-2011 05:29 PM                     I think that you'd have a pretty good satellite shot in Scottsdale regardless of which provider you choose. You may want to also consider DishNet. I think you can get some pretty good rates from them; at least that's what they advertize. I have had good experience with Direct TV at our Legion post. We went with them because they offer the NFL package.  |  IP: Logged Michael Gonzalez Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 790 From: Grand Island , NE USA Registered: Sep 2000 posted 06-28-2011 07:33 PM                     I have a rooftop antenna for local HDTV and built my own Media Center computer for Netflix, Hulu and the like. I pay about 40 for the internet plus the 8 bucks for Netflix. Oh and I get the free espn3 as part of my internet access. So pretty happy here.  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 06-28-2011 10:49 PM                     I used to have Dish Network's "HD Absolute" package. That plus the HBO channels and local channels in HD ran around $55 per month. Quite a bargain. But Dish got rid of the HD Absolute package. To keep my satellite bill near the $60 level I downgraded to the "Top 120+HD package, HD locals and kept HBO. With as bad as the movie lineup has been lately, I may get rid of HBO and save an extra $14 per month. HBO's original series' and other non-movie programs are really the only reasons that make HBO worth having at all. I, too, have an outdoor antenna that can be used to receive local channels over the air in HD. The image quality is indeed superior to what cable and satellite provides. Both Dish and DirecTV downgrade local HD channel quality. For instance NBC and CBS signals are dropped from true 1080i HD (1920 X 1080 pixels) down to anamorphic 1440 X 1080 "HD Lite."  |  IP: Logged Sean Weitzel Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 619 From: Vacaville, CA (1790 miles west of Rockwall) Registered: Dec 1999 posted 06-28-2011 11:51 PM                     I had DirecTV from 2003 to 2010 (with an upgrade to HD in 2007) I was very pleased with their service and the cost seemed to be pretty on par with the alternatives. When we decided to sell the house in spring of 2010 I dropped DirecTv since I didn't know where the heck we would end up. Boy that wasn't easy since I was a model customer. They could not understand the idea that we didn't know at the time where we were going to move and the brow beatings were severe. We've not had pay television since. Sure once we got to our current place I put a 100 mile fringe antenna on the roof to pull in the Sacramento stations, but my wife watches whatever shows she's interested in on her laptop through HuLu and I either screen my prints, read a book, or occasionally plug the laptop into a cheap 720 video projector and we watch a show together. Rarely do we turn on over the air broadcast. We do have a Dell Optiplex that's been hot rodded with Windows Media Center and a digital TV tuner for those shows that we (she) really wants to watch or record via WMC DVR. My brother has the same kind of setup and his windows box is even more hot rodded than mine with Boxee, Hulu, and other streaming sources. I realize that my lifestyle is unique and would not work for a majority of people, yet I can at least attest to the fact that the internet provides all we would want for current entertainment.  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 06-29-2011 12:18 AM                     I know a few people who have "cut the cord" to cable/satellite and gone with the combination of OTA broadcast and Internet video streaming. I've considered doing the same, but the situation (at least here in Lawton) has its own set of "gotchas." First, you lose a lot of live sports coverage. The folks I know who cut the cord don't care about sports so they're not missing anything. I would also have to ditch AT&T DSL and go with Fidelity Cable Internet, which I think is overpriced and not nearly as good as the cable Internet offerings from major companies like Cox, Time Warner, etc. But it's the only credible local alternative to AT&T DSL. While OTA broadcast HD channels typically look better than the signals from digital cable/satellite, the quality of programming on the major OTA broadcast channels mostly sucks. There's too much reality TV, game shows, talent shows, etc. "Unscripted" programming has taken over much of the airwaves and even a lot of the bandwidth on cable and satellite. I could still end up cutting the cord on pay TV anyway. I miss a lot of prime time TV working out at the gym or riding my trail bike in the park. I could end up just doing more of that.  |  IP: Logged Tom Petrov Five Guys Lover Posts: 1121 From: El Paso, TX Registered: Jan 2003 posted 06-29-2011 01:07 AM                    quote: Mike Heenan cable bill which came out to $173, and my dad finally had it. I used to have a $130 TV bill and a $100 cell phone bill per month. I finally had it. I cancelled my TV and I got a new phone. No more $130 bill at the end of the month and my cell is now $35 I only have 5 tv channels. CNN, CBC, CTV, Global and TSN. I am happier than ever.  |  IP: Logged Randy Stankey Film God Posts: 6539 From: Erie, Pennsylvania Registered: Jun 99 posted 06-29-2011 09:31 AM                     I also have a rooftop antenna. No cable. No satellite. Frankly, if my wife didn't want it, I might not even have a television. Even then, we watch, maybe ten hours of television per week. I don't see any justification for paying $100 a month for something you don't even use. Hey, Tom! For that $230 per month you could have bought a new car! If you saved that money up, you could even take a vacation in Las Vegas with hot and cold running hookers and all the trimmings! Seriously, it's funny how you get addicted to television. It's even funnier how other people react when you tell them you don't have cable and you don't watch much television, besides. They don't understand and I've even had a couple of people who became almost hostile to the concept. Once you've been "off the grid" for a while you don't even miss it very much. Like I said, it's nice not having that extra bill to pay every month where the money could have been spent elsewhere.  |  IP: Logged Mike Heenan Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1896 From: Scottsdale, AZ, USA Registered: Mar 2000 posted 06-29-2011 11:39 AM                     I should have clarified in my original post that the $173 bill was for cable, internet, and phone. We already saw one way to get the bill lower, which would be dropping the internet speed to the next tier down. And I was also thinking that I could add a third line onto my cell phone bill that I share with my mom, and port over their home number to that cell phone, and then cancel the phone service for them. But I would have to check their home phone usage to see if it's cost effective or not to share minutes between 3 accounts. I consider myself tech savvy, and while I don't have a boxee set up myself, I get my tv shows from... errr I guess we can't probably discuss that here. I think my dad might be able to figure out Boxee/Roku/whatever, but my mom... nope. So I'm thinking the best route for them would be to ditch their curent cable plan, add on a third line to our cellphone plan to preserve their home number, get a basic satellite package or antenna for the local channels, and subscribe to the cable internet service. This might save them about $60 to $70 a month.  |  IP: Logged

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