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Cutting the (cable) Cord

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eds1275:
I have netflix and an xbox 360. I don't miss cable, and I don't watch sports which is about the only reason I understand paying for cable with all the different online options.

wildclay:
We too have the lowest Internet and cable TV possible from Comcast ($60/mo.) here in the twin cities (MN). I bought my wife a Roku and a $120 MLB.tv annual subscription for Christmas. Her love for baseball was the only reason we were considering additional cable channels, but the annual subscription is cheaper than a year's worth of extra cable charges and now she can watch any baseball game from any team any time she wants in HD and it looks great! MLB.tv also works on our Samsung SmartTV, which also has many free online content channels just like the Roku. Now we've got too rooms in which we an watch tons of good stuff online.

Silas (son of Silas):
About 7 years ago we had a cable package with more channels than I could shake a stick at.

One day I came home from work and my daughter said that the cable box had stopped working. I rebooted it a couple of times but it wouldn't kick into life. I called to my wife to ask if she knew the cable box was busted, to which she replied "yes... and it's been that way for three weeks"

Given that no one in the house had even noticed for three weeks we cancelled our cable there and then.

In the UK if you have the ability to receive TV in your house you have to pay a license which costs £145.50 a year, so I removed the TV aerial from in the loft, removed the loop antenna from a portable TV we had in the bedroom et Voilą...  We've been completely TV free for 7 years and no license fee to pay.

We didn't miss it at all. I built a media server (it's the PC in my arcade machine) that is in suspend mode all the time until I turn on a media player at one of the TV's, at which point a little script sends a WOL magic packet back to the server to wake it up, which it does in just under 6 seconds.

Another script on the server pings the media players at the TVs ever 5 minutes. If it gets no response it then checks to see if anyone is playing music (we use the arcade machine as a jukebox too), it then checks if anyone is playing an arcade game plus a few other things like ripping a DVD, running a disk check etc, then puts itself back to sleep, so it only runs when it needs to, thus saving power.

 I spent a few months transferring all my DVDs and CDs to it, packed the DVDs into the loft and flogged my DVD players for a few quid on ebay.

As a family we do a lot of stuff that keeps us entertained. My wife and I read a lot, go for walks with the dogs etc. My daughter and I play chess, backgammon, cards, cribbage etc. and of course I play on the arcade a fair bit.

No cable, no TV, no regrets.

ark_ader:
Our Sky television bill is about £70 a month and that includes telephone and Internet.  I get good speeds on the Internet and it is unlimited with Sky Player on the Xbox360.  The telephone service is very expensive, so VOIP is not a option but a necessity. 

Even though we have SKY PVRs in just about every room in the house, the product is watched 50% of the time. Myself I rarely watch it, except for the odd documentary and Al Jazeera for the news coverage. The rest is either Internet or a book.

I would love to get rid of Sky (might drop to basic) as their HD service is poor, and the content is marred by reruns.  Yes we get the HBO shows, but at £45 a month you should get something.  If I could stream everything like Lovefilm for a low monthly charge it would be much better.  We do not have cable, but there is a BT on demand service that could work, but would probably end up costing the same.  If we opt for Movies or Sports then the bill jumps to £100 a month, and we still get the adverts.  Plus add £100+ for a license fee and it can get quite expensive.

I like the idea of TV being a third option for entertainment, with the Internet first, and a good book second.  If we can get the whole bill down to £30 a month including incoming calls only, and use our mobiles for calling out we could reduce our spending and be more informed with what is REALLY going on in the world, without SKY spoon feeding us diatribe day after day.  £40 x 12 = nice holiday or a flight home in July.  ;D

hyiu:
I guess it depends on how much and what kind of tv you watch, and if you have a home that can put up an antenna...

I don't watch much sports (other than those really big games that are on the over the air channels).

We live in a house. So I bought the biggest fish bone type antenna and mounted it on my roof.
With a signal booster, even after splitting, I got about 30 channels...

good thing is, my dad loves soccer, and the Spanish channels will show them over the air, where normally, we'll need to get cable. don't really need to understand Spanish to watch soccer anyways...
So, I have been cable free for 5+ yrs.

I do have internet, and Netflix.  I don't mind waiting for the dvd to come out....
its usually out in 6 months....

and for most tv shows, you can now get it online from their official website anyways...
or if you're download savvy, easily get it online...

I don't really download much stuffs...
instead, once a long while, I'll just bring a 500G drive to my friends place who love to download, and ask him to fill it up with some recent stuffs...
then I watch and delete...



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