Does TiVo or some DIY solution work as a DVR with the online streaming apps?

You can DVR OTA broadcasts with a Tivo and it can also search streaming apps (like Hulu or Netflix) for episodes of shows (It's called a "OnePass").

Tivo doesn't support the SlingTV, PSVue type of apps.

We cut the cord last week, after our $50 per month credit expired on DirecTV. We had the Choice Extra package, which was the lowest package that had all of the channels that we wanted, but also had about 120 channels that we never watched. So when the credit expired and the bill went from $76 per month to $126 per month, I called to see if we could get the discount renewed. The CSR said all he could do was knock $10 per month off my bill, and I said no thanks and cancelled.

I paid $260 to “Mr. Antenna” to install an HD antenna (included parts, labor, setup and warranty), and the installer also removed the DirecTV dish. We now get all of our local channels for free in crystal clear HD, plus about 50 more channels.

I subscribed to the PlayStation Vue “Core Slim” package for $34.99 per month. It has almost all of the channels that my wife and I are interested in. For diehard sports fans like me, it has all of the ESPN channels, FS1, FS2, Big Ten Network (plus alternate feeds), SEC Network, BeIn Sports, and all of our regional sports networks (FS West, FS San Diego, FS Prime Ticket, NBC Sports Bay Area and NBC Sports California). It comes with full access the mobile apps (WatchESPN, Fox Sports Go, etc.).

We were already paying for Cox Internet, and I’ve got an Apple TV hard wired to the router with an ethernet cable on the downstairs TV. The resolution on the Vue app has been superb, and I’ve had no issues with buffering or other technical problems. Upstairs, we have an Amazon Fire box connected over the wifi, and it’s been working without any issues as well. The cloud DVR is working fine so far. We have recorded multiple episodes and watched them with no issues.

We’re now saving over $1,000 per year, so it won’t take long to recoup the money we spent to get set up.

Vue is pretty good for sports, which is why I'm using it. You are using two of the better streaming devices for it so shouldn't have too many quality issues. Make sure you check the settings and turn off the setting that shows scores in progress if you like to record things. It spoiled the Manchester derby for me the other week as it was enabled by default in my firetv.

We had Direct TV for the last 8 years and have to play the game of calling in every 6 months so we can get our bill reduced back to where it was when we first got it. It typically takes me threatening to leave them before I can get anywhere.

Our bill came in for this month and shot back up $30, so I called them and was not able to get anywhere, even threatening to leave.

I called Dish Network and not only do we have 20 more channels, 6 receivers (4 are wireless) and the new Hopper 3, but our bill is $35 less per month guaranteed for 2 years. We have TV's in all 6 rooms, but only had 5 receivers with Direct TV. Now we have all rooms with TV and still pay less!

So far we LOVE the Hopper 3, we can tape 16 shows at once, it has built in apps so all TV's now have Netflix access and the HD is 2 TB. My wife and daughters watch/tape a lot of TV. Plus we get HBO free for 1 year and some other perks.

It's a shame that cell phone companies and satellite companies never reward their paying customers who always pay their bills on time. All they care about is NEW customers. Direct TV lost a valuable customer yesterday and Dish gained a new one. The funny thing is... you can play this game with either company.. it's just a pain to learn new channels and what not. :)

God damn Vue is dropping BeIN Sport on Friday. No explanation has been given but the timing eerily gives the impression it could have something to do with the politics in Qatar. Big blow as getting it in a package that has been costing me only 35 bucks a month was pretty awesome. Might take a look at fuboTV again as all I need is sports and primarily soccer at that. Looks like they are missing the ESPN channels, but I could probably live without them.

We're moving this weekend and will be cutting the cord off of Comcast after previously ditching Uverse due to internet speeds.

I tried out Vue, DirecTv and Sling and for the channels we'd want to watch Vue is hands down the best option. Now we just need to get used to the UI.

Officially cut my cable today, first day out of contract.

Now have $30/month internet and planning on signing up for the $45vue package.

I was wondering if someone could help me with my set up. I just bought an over the air antenna that I want to use in addition to my internet to get rid of Comcast cable. Does anyone know of any splitters where you can have two inputs (one for the internet and one for the antenna) and two outputs?

If not does anyone have any other suggestions for how I can do it? I have two TVs, one in our living room and one in our bedroom that I want to be able to get the local channels plus a streaming service on.

You might be able to do what I did. Comcast cable came in to my house at one point and then split off into all the different rooms in the house. I put my antenna at that split point and now get all the locals in all the rooms over the formerly comcast cable line.

I have ethernet run through my house with a Roku on each TV. No reason you couldn't put a Roku, Amazon Fire Stick, Apple TV, whatever on each TV with wifi.

Comcast just raised the price per cable box so I think I'm out. I like having TVs in multiple rooms but it's just getting too expensive. Cheaper to just buy a Roku and antenna for each room.

That was my thought but where it comes in my house will also be needed for the Comcast internet. Sounds like I am going to have to run a separate connection into the house somewhere for the internet and use my existing wiring for the antenna.

I canceled my cable about 3-4 months ago and have been kind of floating in the wind ever since. Apparently I'd already seen most of Netflix's content, so Amazon is mostly what keeps me afloat these days though it's really cut down on my TV viewing entirely. I find that I what I miss most is just the constant white/background noise aspect of (relatively) live tv that's become a cultural norm. It's actually been kind of relaxing to remove the constant chatter of virtual company, but it's also kind of uncomfortable suddenly having all that silence in my life.

I just have one box, and I can use a roku for my other TVs, and use the cable app. to get the cable content. I have spectrum, does comcast do that?

If you want a lot of meaningless chatter in the background, you can always set "Gilmore Girls" on Netflix and turn on auto play ;).

They can be combined with a regular CATV splitter and then distributed over your house on the same splitters you have, in theory. But this is probably not going to be practical unless you're willing to be very involved with this setup.

The biggest issue you will run into is that Comcast is likely using the frequencies you want from your OTA antenna. So if you combine them, they will essentially cancel each other out and be unusable (where they are both using them). There are other ancillary problems of different signal levels which could be problematic if there is a large disparity between the two inputs.

The real solution would require a notch filter applied to the Comcast input at the uhf/vhf frequencies. Or a low pass and high pass filter which does the same thing. There are companies that can do custom ranges as well, but you'll have to be diligent if/when Comcast changes their system as you may wake up one day and not have internet.

I think your best bet is to dedicate 1 outlet for your Comcast modem and isolate that from the other outlets. Even if that means you need to run a cable from outside to wherever your outlets begin (or add a new outlet for the modem.....whichever is easier).

Heh!

Thanks for your advice Steve. I am going to do what you suggested and have on dedicate line run upstairs to the office just for the modem and then use the existing structure for the antenna.

Thinking of going with Playstation Vue after my DirecTV contract expires. Looks like the Core package has BTN and the other sports channels that are needed. Anyone have more thoughts on PS Vue? Seems like from comments in this thread that most people are pretty happy with it.

They just jumped up the price by $10, so your timing is not great. And lack of Viacom channels still bothers me. But it is a solid service. And it has a good DVR functionality, which many of the others just don't have.

Not too worried about the price jump. :)

I like the Vue. I'm in the Chicago area so the price didn't jump up for me. I noticed it is faster when I use it through my PS4 compared to my fire stick.

Right now Amazon has the nvidia Shield on sale during their Prime day promotion and that's considered the gold standard when it comes to using a device for these sort of things.

I have been using Vue for almost a year now and many of the hiccups I've had with it are gone. I only use it for sports so losing beIN sport and having 10 dollars added in the span of a month has been shitty. Just don't think any of the alternatives are up to my standards. I'd try fubo but their service isn't much cheaper, they lack ESPN, and I'm too lazy to try out something I'm pretty sure isn't as good. Sony does need to do something to prevent their user base from believing it'll go under because losing channels and raising prices seems familiar to, oh I don't know, fucking cable.

Does the Vue DVR let you increase the recording time now (e.g., for sports events that run past their finish time)?

No. Still have to "record" the next show and hope it isn't replaced with a "Catchup" version before you watch it.

I'm not sure I even use the Vue app. We use it to get into the Disney/Jr/ESPN/Fox Sports apps.

Kodos, I did some searching on Reddit and apparently sports events automatically record for 50 minutes extra. There is no manual tweaking at this point and I can't vouch for the 50m thing as I have only DVRd soccer matches that finish in the 120 minute slot. I think Vue still offers a trial, but perhaps you don't have a device to try it with.

I do. I have PS4, PS3, and several Rokus. I'll do the 7-day trial.

So this is pretty sad. Just the equipment fees and "other charges" for DirecTV cost the same amount as the entire monthly fee for PS Vue.

I've been testing PS Vue for the past week and a half. It seems pretty solid. Channel lineup is good. No major omissions. I do wish it was easier to start a DVR recording of a show that is currently live without starting at the current time in the broadcast (I watch almost all shows, especially sports, on tape delay), but overall I'm impressed. And saving $100 per month is pretty sweet. When my DirecTV contract is up next month, it's bye-bye time.

I found the change from DirecTV DVR to Vue DVR too maddening, and I rarely watch live TV. This was about a year and a half ago, maybe the software has improved. Plus the internet in my neighborhood isn't great and it becomes very expensive if I have to increase the bandwidth cap too much. So I re-attached the cord. I happily pay double the Vue price for DISH now, I think they actually provide a pretty great service. But I'll have to consider alternatives again if they bump me up to triple the Vue price like DirectTV did.

There's certainly concessions you have to make to save yourself $1200 a year.

It'd be more like $350/year saved for me if I went to the lowest Vue package. DISH only costs me about $56/month for now plus occasional HBO and Showtime. And that doesn't include having to move up to the next internet tier with a higher bandwidth cap. Maybe there will be better options when my DISH package is up at the end of 2018, or maybe I can cancel-threat them into keeping the price low.

So my first big gripe with the Vue is that I can't watch college football games on ABC apparently because all Vue has is the on-demand shows for ABC. Is there an easy solution out there, or do I need to get an antenna? Looks like Sling TV has the same issue?

We have an antenna. I would get one. You get about 30 stations these days.

How do you like Vue?

If you're close to a tv market, get a mohu leaf indoor antenna. They're cheap and the newest ones have something like a 65 mile radius.

I like it for the most part. My only notable gripes are:

1. Missing sports on ABC
2. Not being able to adjust recording lengths for sports

I will give that a try. Thanks for the tip. If it works well, I will get a Tivo Roamio to pair it with.

The ABC games are available through the WatchESPN app. You can use the Vue credentials to log in.

Good tip. Although I think I saw some people trashing the WatchESPN app this weekend for being laggy/crashy.

Gave it a try. It only pulls in 4 channels, and 2 of them are Spanish. On the plus side, the girls all wore skimpy outfits on the one Spanish channel. If the WatchESPN app doesn't work out, may try to get a roof-mounted antenna. Was hoping the mohu leaf would be an easier solution.

Mohu does a roof/attic version. Did you try that yet?

Not yet. It sounds like WatchESPN might be the solution to my issue.

Yeah, when I cut the cord, I used an antenna for broadcast channels, because, yeah, you can use WatchESPN for ABC games (and probably FSGO for Fox games, but that app sucks), but you can't do anything for CBS games.

If conditions are perfect, I can pick up a local ABC at my house, so WatchESPN has been a godsend. CBS can be finicky at times because its literally the complete opposite direction of every other local. I love that I can get 3 different PBS affiliates perfectly, but none for ABC. And that's with an attic antenna at my house.

Also, don't know if anyone uses Kodi for their... uh... media, but there are plugins for PS Vue, ESPN3, FoxSportsGo and NBCSN. For whatever reason, the streams are much more stable for me through Kodi than through any of the apps on my Roku/AndroidTV/FireTV. Through Kodi for each site, the streams are crystal clear, 60 fps, no buffering or downsampling, ever. I sometimes have issues with losing a Vue stream on Roku, but no issues on Kodi. I don't know if it just buffers better than the Vue app or what.

How well does Vue work on a Kindle Fire? Thinking about getting one to put on our treadmill.

Oh man, I want to kick DISH to the curb so badly, but the last time I did (in favor of FIOS) I found myself longing for the simple DVR and channel lineup and ended up switching back in 6 months.

Now that my bill is north of $130, I'm ready to give Vue a shot, but I'm really gun shy.

Been using Vue for 6 months now and am not looking back.

My DirectTV setup was $149/month - I replaced it six months ago with SlingTV and NBC Gold (Premiership Soccer) and haven't missed it at all since .. my current setup is $28/month (SlingTV - Soccer+TV) and $59.99/year for the NBC Gold ...

My setup gives me around 95% coverage of all the Premiership matches, there are a a fair few which NBC block unless you have a cable subscription but most of those are covered on SlingTV ...

I noticed my cable/internet bill went up from about $195/month to $215 this past cycle. I have the midrange Optimum package and two boxes. It's at the point where I'm ready to make a change just out of principle.

Same here (except I switched from DirecTV to DISH after a few months of cutting the cord) Maybe I'm too old, but Vue and Sling is just not the TV experience I want. I missed the better DVR functionality and having everything in one place. Plus I'd probably have to upgrade internet packages so I wouldn't really save much, at least in the first two years of intro DISH pricing. My bill is $76/month now after starting at $65.

Does the internet service come through DISH too?

No, Cable One has a 300 GB cap at my price level. I never come close to the cap and the speed is great so I'd like to stay at that level, but, I think we'd struggle with that if we relying more on the internet for TV.

So I finally made the call to Dish to cancel....

...and they made me a pretty good offer. I get fully upgraded equipment at no cost, they waive the monthly equipment fees, and give me a rate better than what new customers get for being a long-time customer. I cut my monthly cost from $139 to $89 locked-in rate for 2 years.

I also don't have to worry about the death of net neutrality throttling my internet connection and potentially messing with an internet tv option. I'm very happy.

My initial thoughts have me going with Vue. Seems like the best for me and my wife. Most likely just going with the Core package.

The only thing I need to figure out is MSG for Rangers games. Worst case I'll use a cable login and their app.

Not a fan of Fox switching to On Demand only on PS Vue. I think I'll need to get an antenna installed to get local channels and then get a Tivo.

Yeah, I'm paying 45 a month for Vue now and I'm not that impressed that I'm only getting 1 of the 4 locals. I do have an OTA antenna and HD Homerun, which allows me to record stuff with Plex Pass.

Called Fios to see about getting something knocked off my bill and they couldnt offer me anything off. Pretty crazy, so now I need some sort of internet deal and venture into the world of cord cutting

Antenna, pre-amplifier, mast and mounting plus installation for $550 plus tax.

Does this seem about right for a roof-mounted OTA antenna?

Not exactly sure where you live, but did you try a $20 indoor antenna yet?

Yeah Kodos, make sure to use one of the sites that use FCC data to show you how good of a signal you can expect. If all your locals are within 30-40 miles you generally don't need anything on your roof. Of course you also might not want something inside if you can't hide it or it drives your wife nuts lol.

I did. It only pulled in 4 channels, two of which were in Spanish. It was the same even when I put it out near my roof.

We're about 20 miles from New Haven and 40 miles from Hartford. We're a bit down in a hole, as the house across the street is on a hill that puts their ground floor higher than our roof.

Here is what homeantenna.org says:

Outside install proabably a good idea then. ;)

Old Saybrook?

Isn't there a super cheap cable package for locals only basically? Like 19.99$ or something?

My house sits in a hole basically and my property is rimmed by giant trees. There's no way I'm going to get channels locally unless I make a tower of Babel height antenna.

Clinton.

20 dollars for locals is not super cheap IMO.

I love that whole area. You near the water?

Go to Bestbuy. Ask them if there is an antenna that would work. There are some pretty powerful, non-invasive selections out there.
Then, if it doesnt work, you can return it.

You Tube TV is pretty solid option. You get a d ent amount of channels, local and plenty of sports for $35

Within a couple miles of shore. It's a nice area. Too much summer traffic, but otherwise nice. My wife's family has a cottage on the Long Island Sound. We spend a lot of time there in the summer. My wife is a beach person.

I know that you can't watch PS Vue on two PS4s at the same time, but can you alternate using PS Vue on different PS4s in the same house? I'm not happy with my PS3's performance when using PS Vue, and am considering getting a PS4 slim.

Looking into cutting the cord at some point; need to see when my contract runs out.

Any suggestions on approaches. I was thinking of Chromecast and YoutubeTV.

My biggest concern is local sports. How have you handled that?

I ended up getting a good enough discount to stick with Optimum. I'm down to about $125/month all in and all I lost were the movie channels and some other minor stuff. Haven't missed them yet and can always add back HBO for $15/month if we need it, still coming out way ahead.

A combination of internet only through them and something like PS Vue would have only been about $20 cheaper.

So I too am finally ready to see about cutting the cable tv cord. I get the xfinity 140 channels and high speed internet 150 Mbps I think but it has gone up to $170 with hbo. I am looking to get th sling tv 50 channels for $40 that has ESPN channels, TNT, TBS, CNN, SYFY, AE and FS1 among others. I am going to get the ROKU Ultra sign up for Hulu plus to go with our Netflix and Amazon prime video. We may eventual get HBO Now so we can watch game of thrones next year. We will get a good indoor antenna and see if we can get the four local networks. I may keep the xfinity internet even though I am sure I won't get a great deal but will keep it for now. We will save enough for this to pay for the Roku and antennae and the sling TV subscription.

I am tempted by the YouTube tv as opposed to an antenna and sling tv services. Has anyone signed up for either and give an opinion?

I'm getting rid of Comcast internet & TV, about $200, for AT&T UVerse data only for $50.

I have Amazon Prime and NetFlix but am going to miss some of the TV series and football games.

Goodbye Comcast, you were good as a packaged deal at one time Internet-TV-Phone. Also, the monthly bill kept on creeping up ... you suck.

I recently went back to Comcast. I was using them for just internet, have Netflix, and Kodi and was using PS Vue. Totally was spending around 150. However, they called me and said they could upgrade my internet speed, and give me cable for 2 years for 108 bucks (also gave me HBO for 3 months, and showtime for 2 years as well). The internet speed they bumped me up to was 90 a month by itself. Thought it was a steal. They have to be doing these kinds of deals elsewhere. Just something for any of you to check out.

Yeah, I was was spending $45 a month for a security system, $90 for internet and $160 for DirecTV (middle tier with just HBO and extra sports). I contacted cox and got a bundled package for $200 (after taxes and fees) where I got their monitored security system, the same internet I had and the gold package with all the movie channels and sports channels for 2 years (locked in at that price). That saved me almost $100 a month and I get more channels. I do lose the Sunday Ticket (which raised the bill for 5-6 months as well) - but it was worth the move.

I called Comcast xfinity told them I was canceling my tv after my contact expired a week ago and just keep the internet only. I was shocked they said ok bye. They told me for just the internet it would be $81 plus I assume tax so maybe $90-$95.They made no offer to keep me or asked me why. So, it will be about $140-$150 total for usswitch to just internet, slings tv total package, Netflix and Hulu with Amazon prime. If I start searching around I might find a better internet provider price wise but the 150 mbps works good for us. I would lose the local channels unless I can get them off antenna but will lose my DVR function. Might not really be worth the trouble to just cut the cord to say I did.

I called comcast a week ago to cancel TV and asked how much was internet only. They redirected me to I assume a "special team". When asked why, I just told him I was out of a job and needed to cut costs and that AT&T data only was $50.

The person put me and hold, came back, and offered the basic, non-cable channels and internet for about $55 total. I was tempted to save the hassle and go for the deal but then realized/found out that (1) AT&T offered 1TB where Comcast was still at, I think, 400GB and (2) I would need to pay rent on the Comcast equipment whereas AT&T supplied all needed equipment for the monthly $50. The guy also had a "sly" way of not answering my questions directly re: rent and data amount, he said "same as what you have now" until I prodded him to provide me specifics on "what I had now".

What really put me off was the comcast person said I need to call back on the 20th to cancel on the 24th. I challenged him on this but he said it was policy.

I called back today and, lo and behold, the comcast lady said she did not know why the first person couldn't just process my cancellation last week and did not see any record of my request. She processed my cancellation with no further drama and told me to just drop of the equipment at any comcast store.

That first guy pissed me off.

I had the same experience about 6 months back. The retention team at Comcast is real shady. My guess is they're judged on the % of people they retain so they'll make up stories to avoid a cancellation.

Sprint did the same thing to me years ago when I cancelled a wireless plan. Guy flat out told me he couldn't cancel after a number of attempts to get me to stay and then hung up on me.

Yeah, we had read different stories on the hassle and one recommendation was just to drop off the equipment and handle the cancellation at the store (and bypass the phone call).

However, I did want to find out how much internet only was so I made the call.

I will say to comcast's credit, I didn't have to punch alot of #'s to get to the right place and I didn't have a long wait.

We did check with others in the subdivision and they were happy with AT&T Uverse.

I just switched from Sling to YouTube TV.

I was generally happy with Sling, but I live in a remote enough area where only an outdoor antenna will pick up local channels/networks. So, YouTube carrying three of our four main locals was a huge factor, as Sling carries none. Also carries a few other (mostly sports-related) channels that I've been wanting that Sling lacks. Its performance has been excellent for me using Rokus. Virtually no buffering, quality video.

The main cons: while Sling's DVR costs $5 extra and is limited to 50 hours and YTTV's is unlimited (for nine months), be aware that many channels on YTTV force you to watch the Video-On-Demand version of things you "record," if they exist. Which means commercials you can't skip. Not all channels do this but many do, including, I believe, all networks except ABC. I find that I can live with it because it's part of the deal of getting so much for $40 a month, but it can be annoying.

Other con is that Sling has NFL Network/Red Zone and, thus far, YTTV does not. Remains to be seen if they're waiting to add them for football season.

I've found that all of these services are missing a couple of channels/features that I want, and it's just a matter of your priorities as to what you can live with.

Folks with internet but no cable/dish, what do you use to watch college football?

I use PS Vue for college football. For the networks I would use antenna, but my cable company gave me the basic cable and HBO and Starz for about $12 more than internet only.

Do either Sling or YTTV dvr make it so you can record shows like football games off the locals ?

You should be able to record football off the locals on YTTV without a problem. I haven't done it myself but I've read that it does a pretty good job accounting for games that run over their time slot, as well.

If you get a local channel on Sling I think the DVR will record it. I know that they have had weird rules about not being able to DVR ESPN/Disney and FS1 in the past, but I'm not sure that is still the case (I know you can DVR FS1 now, at least).

So I finally got Sling Blue today for $25/month. A couple quick thoughts.

1) Some of the non-HD channels are coming through pretty bad with my 65 inch 4K which I guess should be expected. Might be my imagination but I think Comcast had more HD stuff.

2) There are some channels (USA, IFC) that seems to have more trouble than others (CNN, BBC). I'm not sure why but I get a lot more pauses on some channels and others. I can understand if its consistent across all the channels but its not.

I've got 2 Samsung TVs, about 2 and 3 years old.

One allowed me to download the Sling app but the other does not allow any new app downloads beyond what was already installed. What a piece of crock.

Yeah, I've run into similar issues with older Samsung TVs. Just get yourself some cheap Roku/Chrome/Fire device for 30ish bucks. It'd likely be an improvement even if you could get the Samsung stuff working.

As for cable cutting, I cut years ago. Use a single HDTV antenna connected to an HDHomerun, which streams to wherever I have Plex accessibility, which is everywhere(inside and outside the house, TV/Mobile/Web). Using Plex for DVR and combination of Nvidia Shield and Plex to watch Live TV, depending where I'm watching from.

Just ditched our cable. Running an antenna on one tv, Amazon firestick with prime, sling and ESPN plus, a other antenna and a roku on the way.

CenturyLink had gotten up to 166 a month with really crappy internet. Paying 45 a month now for faster internet and comcast stream (which we will definitely cancel in a year after finding out an antenna works great).

Sling works fine for or needs so far, don't know if we'll keep it once this season of Doctor Who is over though.

That's the problem with Smart TVs. They rarely update the software once they move on to the new model.

Does anyone have a recommendation for which service is best? Can't decide on Sling, Playstation Vue, YouTube TV, etc.

And for those of you who have cut the cord, do you have a data cap from your ISP? Comcast has it set at 1TB here which isn't really that much if I'm streaming TV a lot. Especially if I want to veer into 4K.

I have FIOS and I do not. I admittedly would be hosed if I did, Steam downloads alone can hit 1TB+ for me on occasion.

Read Comcast is touting their 1GB speeds in many areas, but with a 1TB cap, who cares? I'd take a cap-less 20Mbps over that. Useless.

I've given this some thought, but given how many different types/ages ofTVs we have, the crappy internet we have access to here, and frankly my lack of enthusiasm at trying to juggle multiple apps/accounts to try to figure out what we want to watch on what apps on what TVs, I just don't think I can manage it. And I have no idea how to DVR anything. So, I keep paying $180 for DTV.

Really, beyond everything else, I think my crappy internet options kills any chance of being able to successfully do this, even if I was totally on board with it.

You could at least switch to Dish, or see what DTV offers you when you tell them you're switching Dish.

Otherwise, I'm still in kind of the same boat. Dish makes it really easy and it's not all that much more expensive than all of the services I'd be juggling without it. And I pretty much only watch TV via DVR, and satellite is by far the cleanest and easiest way to do that.

So we have semi-cut the cord. With Netflix/Prime/Hulu Live we are probably only saving $10-15 a month but at least we are out from under the contracts of the companies and have a little more freedom to jump on a crazy deal that comes around every once in a while.

My question though is about Hulu Live and the $15 extra DVR. So we are in the free trial still and I wasn't going to mess with this until 30 days are up. My initial understanding was if I didn't pay the $15 I would still have a DVR but I would be forced to watch commercials. Then I noticed for $4 I can get the Hulu with limited commercials which would basically give us every show we watch anyways recorded without commercials. I clearly am misunderstanding. The Hulu website is very vague and I admit to being too lazy to just contact Hulu though I'm guessing I will get the run around.

So...
$40 Hulu Live Tv
$4 No commercials on their archive/original shows
$15 Cloud DVR that allows me to fast forward through commercials on stuff I record.

I'm thinking I am wasting the $15/month with the exception of maybe recording a basketball game or something as everything else seems to be available the next day in their archive anyways without commercials. Anyone have any experience/thoughts? I can't watch commercials, been 10+ years and will never go back! :)

EDIT: I'm not even sure we need to spend the $40 but it's baby steps with my wife as I am asking her to leave all sorts of comfort of the Directv DVR for the Wild West of streaming.

suppose.tv

This website was pointed out to me by a coworker who recently cut the cord. Figured this would be a good place to share it.

Do any of you cord cutters have a data cap and how close do you come to it? Comcast limits us to 1TB before fees kick in. I feel like I'd be real close if I finally cut the cord. They have a monopoly here so choices don't exist.

I haven't cut the cord and my household comes close quite a bit. We're usually in the 800GB range for use and we've gone over the 1TB cap once. We're not your usual household though.

I'm at around 400-500GB each month. I do stream a bit but not a ton. Feel like if I cut the cord I'd be awfully close to that cap.