Cutting the (Cable) Cord?

[Silver Owl]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

Seems like the best thing to do is find a cheapish live TV package that includes ESPN.

We're now 1 month into cutting the cord and it's working out pretty well. My wife still has the occasional frustration. I wish most streaming services were not set up like Netflix, basically for bingers. I hate the fact that shows automatically go to the next episode as you are finishing an episode. And as far as DVR, I hate that we can't get rid of stuff we have already watched. New recordings are often buried in seasons and seasons of old episodes, and figuring out which episode is next is not always intuitive because of all the other episodes it's showing me.

I did get several Roku's and it's been a good move (thanks Jim and whoever else suggested it). One downside is the remote control volume buttons, which are way too sensitive. I can't change from like volume 10 to 14 without it skipping all the way to 25.

The only channel I really wanted that I couldn't get with YTTV + Philo was Tennis Channel. I was going to get a TC Plus subscription but it's like ESPN+ - you don't Tennis Channel, just the extra stuff. But Tennis Channel is not as popular as ESPN, so it's not that easy to get with a streaming package. I feel like Tennis Channel is really missing the boat on subscriptions, but I assume they are trying to keep the value of their carriage fees up by not allowing people to one-off subscribe. That said, I would have paid. But since they won't let me and I can't get it with the packages I have... I borrowed my parents DTV login. Problem solved! For now, anyway.

The DVR with YTTV drove me crazy. I guess it hasn't been fixed yet.

[Ksyrup]

One other issue that my wife keeps bringing up - that I didn't notice until she mentioned it and now I can't unsee it - is that the sound and mouths moving are almost imperceptibly (except to my wife) off. Doesn't matter whether it's YT, or Philo, or Netflix, or Peacock, the sound and speaking does not quite match up. I didn't notice it, but after my wife kept pointing it out, I started to notice. It still doesn't bother me all that much, but it's there.

We have a 1 GB fiber connection and have had no issues with continuity of picture so I'm not sure if the issue is with us. Is this like one of those high-pitched sounds only dogs can hear kinda things?

[Ghost Econ]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

One other issue that my wife keeps bringing up - that I didn't notice until she mentioned it and now I can't unsee it - is that the sound and mouths moving are almost imperceptibly (except to my wife) off. Doesn't matter whether it's YT, or Philo, or Netflix, or Peacock, the sound and speaking does not quite match up. I didn't notice it, but after my wife kept pointing it out, I started to notice. It still doesn't bother me all that much, but it's there.

We have a 1 GB fiber connection and have had no issues with continuity of picture so I'm not sure if the issue is with us. Is this like one of those high-pitched sounds only dogs can hear kinda things?

It's a sync error. Sometimes it's the stream, sometimes it's the TV, sometimes its the sound bar. Most decent TVs and/or streaming boxes have a setting you can tweak, but I found if I cared enough I'd have to change it for almost every service/show. ESPN is almost always off for me with the audio being just a sit second early, so I hear the announcers start to call things before they happen.

[Ksyrup]

Although I've got a workaround for it right now (using my parents DTV login), I see that YTTV is adding Tennis Channel and a few other channels by June 1. Great news.

Now, if they'd only add A&E and History which seem to be the biggest holes in their inventory outside of MLB Network and RSNs (which may not matter for too much longer anyway), I could save even more money without Philo. I do enjoy AXS for their music programming but I could do without and would likely cancel Philo if I could get A&E and History on YTTV. Given they just upped their prices, though, doubtful that's going to happen any time soon.

[Ksyrup]

I got an email from YTTV today that leads with this:

We are writing to let you know that YouTube TV will be upgrading its internal system used to calculate the sales and use taxes applied to monthly subscription fees. The upgrade may result in an increase in the required taxes applied to your monthly subscription.

If I didn't know any better, I'd think this is YT's way of telling everyone that they have been using an outdated or incorrect system to calculate taxes and are finally going to get it right. I feel like this is an invitation to class action attorneys. I assume some peoples' rates are going to go up, and perhaps others will go down, meaning... someone's been getting the shaft.

[sovereignstar v2]

Wonder if it's newerish streaming taxes in some locales.

Sent from my CPH2451 using Tapatalk

[Ksyrup]

Yeah, but then say that. The way the email reads, it's a problem with their internal system. Just strikes me as odd and gives the impression they screwed something up.

[flere-imsaho]

There are a lot of systems that will do all the complex state & county (and even municipal) sales tax calculations for you, and some of them are old & creaky and not even really all that up-to-date.

Given that YT didn't really sell a lot of stuff until the past year or so, I'll bet they had an old and/or non-updated system (or even a home-grown system) and someone finally decided the regulatory/legal risk had gotten too high and they decided to implement a new and up-to-date one.

We had to do this at my last company as part of being carved out of a bigger company. On the cutover day for the ERP & other systems, the sales tax system was up-to-date, and then a day later was out of date because that's how often taxes change when you have thousands of potential taxing bodies in the United States (much more complex than the EU, actually, land of the free my ass).

Somehow no one caught it for about a month but it was quickly remedied by setting up a new account so all the updates came in properly. A bit of an oversight, really, but that whole company was a complete tire fire, so not hugely surprising.

[Ksyrup]

Some good news (so far) in the update from HBOMax to Max is that it appears it's still free for those of us who got HBOMax free through AT&T. I just updated the app and I was automatically signed in.

One question for Roku users - does anyone else have issues with the volume buttons? We have 4 units and the volume buttons on every single one of them randomly (as far as we can tell) stop working. I can't tell if it's due to sitting on one channel or not changing the volume level for a long period of time, but when someone calls or we need to mute the TV or turn the volume down, about 50% of the time, the volume buttons don't work. If it was one unit, I'd think it was the unit. But it happens regularly with all 4 units.

[Solecismic]

The pairing gets lost on occasion, especially when the batteries are low. The remote is a battery hog - more than just about any other remote I've ever had. It must be conducting secret communications with QAnon's aliens.

It will tell you when it thinks the battery level is too low and it's time to change them, but when the pairing is lost, the easy fix is simply to open the battery case, take one battery out, put it back in. Then it tries to pair again, usually works on the first try.

I've also noticed that they've removed the behavior on secret menu 2 (you do kind of a Nintendo arrow thing to get there) that blocked ads from the main screen. That in conjunction with new ad behavior that has me questioning whether it's time to explore alternatives. Or there's something called a Pi-Hole I might look into setting up. I played with an Arduino before, might be fun.

[Ksyrup]

It's definitely not a low battery issue - it happens with new batteries just like with old. It's a pairing issue when we've been sitting on a particular app for too long. When I exit out to the main menu and pick a different app, all of a sudden the volume works again. But it's a tremendous PITA when you need to drop the volume immediately for a call or something else.

[Ksyrup]

My daughter could NOT stop laughing about this yesterday.

I know you’re all very disappointed, but I will *not* be dropping the first half of my name any time soon 👀

— Peacock (@peacock) May 23, 2023

[Galaril]

Starting to look at switching from Xfinity Tv and Internet just Xfinity internet with Hulu Live TV. Since we are already paying $27 dollars a month for Disney + and Hulu , Hulu Live TV cost comes down to about $43. I have not priced the internet yet but think we could save a bit in the long run. Anyone use Hulu Live recently and have opinions on it?

[Galaril]

Originally Posted by Galaril

Starting to look at switching from Xfinity Tv and Internet just Xfinity internet with Hulu Live TV. Since we are already paying $27 dollars a month for Disney + and Hulu , Hulu Live TV cost comes down to about $43. I have not priced the internet yet but think we could save a bit in the long run. Anyone use Hulu Live recently and have opinions on it?

So guess now one uses Hulu Live TV service here. I guess that tells me something at least.

[Ksyrup]

I don't remember the specifics, but when I was researching options to cut the cord 4-6 months ago, Hulu wasn't a serious contender for us. I assume there were too many channels missing for what we watch, or maybe it was their DVR or number of streams? Those would be the top 3 reasons.

[Galaril]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

I don't remember the specifics, but when I was researching options to cut the cord 4-6 months ago, Hulu wasn't a serious contender for us. I assume there were too many channels missing for what we watch, or maybe it was their DVR or number of streams? Those would be the top 3 reasons.

Thanks Ksyrup.

[flere-imsaho]

Sorry, just saw this, we added Hulu with Live TV during the NBA Playoffs since my son is big into the NBA and thought it was good. I love that it has live channels from all over the place so that, for instance, I was able to also watch the FA Cup and UCL Final live on whatever channels were carrying them.

I wouldn't have done Hulu just for Hulu (though with the Disney plus ESPN bundle maybe OK), but if it's going to take over live sports for me (probably won't really know until the fall), it might be worth it (for us).

[Kodos]

I’ve been using Hulu with live TV for several years. I’ve been pretty satisfied with it.

[Galaril]

Originally Posted by flere-imsaho

Sorry, just saw this, we added Hulu with Live TV during the NBA Playoffs since my son is big into the NBA and thought it was good. I love that it has live channels from all over the place so that, for instance, I was able to also watch the FA Cup and UCL Final live on whatever channels were carrying them.

I wouldn't have done Hulu just for Hulu (though with the Disney plus ESPN bundle maybe OK), but if it's going to take over live sports for me (probably won't really know until the fall), it might be worth it (for us).

Thanks. This is very helpful. One question does the simultaneous streams come into play only for the live tv side of Hulu Live TV? Two of my kids watch on demand movies and tv series off of Hulu but they never watch TV channels. If we have to pay to get have more streams, then that would be a deal beaker for switching to Hulu live TV.

[Galaril]

Originally Posted by Kodos

I’ve been using Hulu with live TV for several years. I’ve been pretty satisfied with it.

Thanks.

[Kodos]

My family hasn't run into any multiple streams issues. We had 5 people in our house. Honestly, I don't think the kids watch Hulu much on their own. So the usual maximum people using it at one time was 2: my father downstairs, and the rest of us upstairs. FWIW, the cloud DVR works well too.

[Galaril]

Originally Posted by Kodos

My family hasn't run into any multiple streams issues. We had 5 people in our house. Honestly, I don't think the kids watch Hulu much on their own. So the usual maximum people using it at one time was 2: my father downstairs, and the rest of us upstairs. FWIW, the cloud DVR works well too.

Great thanks.

[flere-imsaho]

We've likely only had 2 streams going at once, max, but that's not been an issue.

[Ksyrup]

I visited an old high school buddy in the Atlanta area this past weekend and he showed me this box he bought to replace cable and pay streaming services called an Octabox. It cost $275 with no subscription and he literally got every channel you could think of for "free." I mean, every cable channel, PPV channels, local TV channels from everywhere, HBO and all the rest of the movie channels, every sports network and pay subscription, etc. He even got a selection of channels from another dozen countries. It was insane.

And obviously, illegal. But funny enough, in Googling about these types of devices, there's a lot of information about how they are technologically a ripoff since they are based on outdated Android systems, but not all that much about legality. There was some lip service to a gray area and that it likely becomes illegal once you use it to get channels you know you have to pay for, but honestly, it looked like it sits in the same place Napster did in the late 90s - probably illegal but no one really enforcing anything.

I'm not going to do it, but wondering if anyone has seen or heard about these things. How are they tapping into these channels?

[Ghost Econ]

Basically it's just a bunch of people ripping the streams and linking to the rip online.

I have it set up on. My Google tvs and Xbox through Kodi. So I paid $20 for the streaming Google TV stick and can watch pretty much anything live. Including setting up the stick and downloading Kodi and the add-on, it took about 20 minutes if that for each TV.

For the Xbox I just downloaded Kodi and the-crew addon. From there it has links to pretty much any channel. I mainly use it to stream braves games since we don't pay for cable. I do have MLB tv (free, thanks TMobile) but I'm blacked out for the braves, so I don't really feel bad about using a work around.

Stream looks as good as what comes from Bally (the free service is just repurposing the MLB tv stream) and the delay is minimal, rarely get ESPN score updates before something happens.

Also use it to watch cricket although those streams stutter more for some reason.

[Ksyrup]

He's a big Steelers fan in Atlanta, and he has the local Pittsburgh channels through that box, so he just watches the local broadcast of the Steelers and basically every other team he wants in any sport. But it also has every ESPN and other cable channel sports channels. He showed me the list of football channels (blank now, obviously) and it was like 5 dozen channels where all the college games will be on and he can pick what he wants to watch.

Eventually someone is going to start paying attention to these services, you would think.

[Solecismic]

My wife's stepfather has had one of those for more than a year (I forget the brand name, but it's Kodi-based). I told him not to be surprised if he woke up one day and all the channels were blank, but so far, so good.

They're now aware of the lag. It's not as bad as I thought it would be, but it is enough that they have to turn off any kind of notification on their phone related to sports they might watch.

I don't know how people deal with even normal television lag in the age of smart phones and notifications. Even with our Tablo set up to stream OTA around the house, there's often up to a half-minute of lag time. I wish there was an easy way to reset the buffer during commercials, but the Tablo contains a lot of programming designed to maintain the stream. You have to switch channels at least twice to reset with a two-tuner model. Combine that with already-shaky feeds since the towers are 45 miles away, and you have to take what you can get.

[Ksyrup]

We're about 5 months in on the cord-cutting and it's gone well. I've got a combo of YTTV and Philo to get all the channels we watch, although after several months, it's clear the only things we use Philo for are History and A&E. Well, Philo just announced they are dropping AXS and HDNet which sucks because I also enjoy all the music shows on AXS. And I'd already been looking at switching from Philo at $25 a month to Frndly at $11 a month to get History and A&E.

So although Philo losing AXS wasn't exactly a deal breaker, it did give me a kick in the pants to try Frndly, and it looks like we're going to switch those out to save some money.

[Vegas Vic]

Originally Posted by Solecismic

Even with our Tablo set up to stream OTA around the house, there's often up to a half-minute of lag time.

We have our Tablo set up with a splitter, so there's also a direct feed from the antenna going into the TV. It's great for live sports, with no lag time and beautiful uncompressed native resolution. We use the Tablo mainly as an OTA DVR so we can record and skip through the commercials.

[Ksyrup]

I've been used to a lag for years. Even with DirecTV, I would normally get phone scoring updates about 5-7 seconds before I'd see it.

[sovereignstar v2]

Amazon is going to start charging 2.99 a month to make their Prime Video ad-free sometime soon in the future. Doesn't really affect me as I don't watch anything on their platform, but just reading about it makes my blood boil.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

I've been used to a lag for years. Even with DirecTV, I would normally get phone scoring updates about 5-7 seconds before I'd see it.

Dish was like that ... but then again Dish lagged inside my house extra. I mean like the upstairs TV saw stuff about 5-7 seconds ahead of the basement TV.

[Ksyrup]

Just got an email that the Disney+ legacy bundle (with ESPN+ and Hulu) is going up $4 a month to $18.99. YAY.

[Ksyrup]

Last night at 8pm as we were about to change the channel, we saw the old classic Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer was coming on so we left it on CBS. Then the screen went to blue and a message came up saying "This program's unavailable for streaming on the internet." After a bit of googling this morning, turns out CBS only has the rights to broadcast Rudolph over the air to cable and satellite, but no rights to stream it over the Internet.

Is that common? I assume it might apply to Frosty and other old holiday shows? Apparently we can watch Rudolph on Freeform at certain preset days/times starting this weekend.

[Honolulu_Blue]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

Just got an email that the Disney+ legacy bundle (with ESPN+ and Hulu) is going up $4 a month to $18.99. YAY.

I tried to get this bundle, but I couldn't, because I couldn't switch from my annual Disney+ subscription to the bundle. I could only switch to another Disney+ annual subscription, so I had to cancel my annual subscription, wait until it expired, and then sign up for the bundle.

I tried doing it through Disney+, but it kept rejecting my credit card. It rejected all three that I have and PayPal. So, the issue was clearly on their end. I ended up chatting with someone from Disney+ to figure it out and she recommend that I just sign up through Hulu, which I ended up doing. Hulu had no issue with my form of payment and now I have the bundle.

Of course, I have since received an email or two a day from Disney+ begging me to return, asking why I left, telling me I am missing out...

[cuervo72]

I wondered again the other day* what's to become of local stations. If everyone is getting shows through Peacock and Paramount and all that jazz, and there's streaming for NFL and NCAA and whatever, and local baseball/basketball/hockey games are already not on local free TV...what else is there? I mean, other than local news?



* during the football games where they kept doomscrolling "YOU MAY NOT GET CBS ON DIRECTV AFTER NOV 30!!!"

[Honolulu_Blue]

Not much.

I still have cable and it's only because of sports and because cable is all I know. There is really no reason for us to have cable. Neither of my kids, ages 12 and 4, ever cable. If they are watching TV they go directly to a streaming service. Watching cable isn't even on their radar.

My wife never really watches TV except for with me on ocassion.

I still record shows on my DVR, but then just watch them on whatever service they are on, because I find the DVR interface to be just clumsy enough that I want to avoid it.

Every once in a while, like on election night or if something big is happening in the world, we may flip on CNN, but that's like 1-3 times a year tops. Beyond that, it's sports and that's it.

I have NFL+, so I can watch NFL games via streaming.

There is really no point to us having cable, but we're about to go through a 10.5 month massive additiona/kitchen re-model, and now is not the time for further change!

[Ksyrup]

Earlier this year, I switched from an annual ESPN+ subscription to the Disney+ bundle. They gave me monthly credits for what was left on the annual subscription and applied them to the bundle.

Last night, I got an odd email from ESPN+ that said as of October 12th, the price was going up and that my account would be charged the new price on renewal. I checked my Disney+ account - yep, still active. Went to ESPN+ and... yep, my annual subscription was still active as well. Motherfuckers. So I cancelled, but no one will convince me that wasn't done on purpose. They were going to charge me $110 for an annual ESPN+ subscription that I cancelled over 6 months ago while I also paid for ESPN+ in the Disney bundle.

ESPN can really go fuck right off this week.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

Last night at 8pm as we were about to change the channel, we saw the old classic Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer was coming on so we left it on CBS. Then the screen went to blue and a message came up saying "This program's unavailable for streaming on the internet." After a bit of googling this morning, turns out CBS only has the rights to broadcast Rudolph over the air to cable and satellite, but no rights to stream it over the Internet.

Is that common? I assume it might apply to Frosty and other old holiday shows? Apparently we can watch Rudolph on Freeform at certain preset days/times starting this weekend.

It's not "common" but there's a few things it happens with. Has to do with the lack of streaming rights ... but you can buy the right to stream it from Amazon and AppleTV.

[henry296]

My biggest hang-up with cutting the cord was local sports. There is now an option to subscribe to our RSN and I can stream it on my FireStick.

My next concern is switching between channels. From what i can tell, I need to go back home and launch the other app and keep repeating. If others, have the same issues how bad is it? I don't think the firestick allows multi screen viewing.

[Ksyrup]

I have YTTV (through Roku). From what I can tell, YTTV "learns" what channels and shows you watch most often, even knowing what time you usually watch them. I've been impressed. It gives me 2 local news options between 5-7 that we often watch, then has WoF and Jeopardy! next, it cues up sports in the evening and always has Forensic Files and Columbo up on top when they are on.

So, it minimizes having to go through full searches to switch channels. It also has a "last channel" option although it only pops up to tell me it's active certain times and I'm never certain when or why it works.

[RainMaker]

Has anyone noticed games on cable are more delayed than they've ever been? It might just be a local thing but I'm finding games to be 2 minutes behind. This was always the case with streaming, but it seems like cable is now at that level of delay for me.

Could just be a local Xfinity thing but it's gotten to a point where I can't have a fantasy app or score app open on my phone or it will spoil the game.

[sovereignstar v2]

Cable? What year is it?

[dubb93]

Originally Posted by sovereignstar v2

Cable? What year is it?

Comcast internet and cable bundled is cheaper than getting internet through them and getting one of the streaming companies. Probably wouldn’t be the case in a lot of areas but rural areas don’t have a lot of options for internet.

[Ksyrup]

The delay on streaming is so bad that I often disable notifications during games because I know what's coming just by the buzz or sound coming from my phone.

[sovereignstar v2]

YoutubeTV has been working on a feature to reduce latency. Not sure where that's at, it used to be something you had to enable manually

[Suicane75]

Reduce latency? I'm not even pregnant!

[cuervo72]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

I have YTTV (through Roku). From what I can tell, YTTV "learns" what channels and shows you watch most often, even knowing what time you usually watch them. I've been impressed. It gives me 2 local news options between 5-7 that we often watch, then has WoF and Jeopardy! next, it cues up sports in the evening and always has Forensic Files and Columbo up on top when they are on.

So, it minimizes having to go through full searches to switch channels. It also has a "last channel" option although it only pops up to tell me it's active certain times and I'm never certain when or why it works.

I still don't know how to go to "last channel". The only thing I know how to do is to hit the back button which opens up the menu. I don't know if this is a failing of the UI or my Samsung remote.

As for delay, the funniest example of this to me was watching both MNF games in multiview. The Bills/Jags game was showing a look-in of the WAS/CIN game, and the look-in was somehow like five seconds ahead of the other broadcast. I assumed both feeds would have had the same delay, but apparently not.

[Ksyrup]

On my Roku remote, I just hold down the OK button for 2-3 seconds and it goes back to the last channel. I'm not sure what last channel option I was referring to in that post, but that's how I do it now.

[Kodos]

I would hate getting score notifications on my phone.