Dish is fucking around with its subscribers for the third time in as many years and I have decided to bail.

Direct doesn't look any better and I'll not sell my soul to Comcast for television...they already have me by the balls for internet.

Anybody have any experience with streaming TV?

It'll do the job. I have Comcast for cable (no complaints), but I use streaming a lot on the 360, tablet, computer, and phone. You'll be out of luck for any paid subscription channels like HBO/Showtime/Cinemax though.

We've got Hulu+ and Netflix. So far so good.

If you want premium channels, then a direct feed of some sort is still required.
But since the switch to Digital Over the Air (OTA), the quality of the signal is really good, and the number of channels is much better.
We only have OTA, and are quite happy about it. For 'special' shows like 'Breaking Bad' or "Walking Dead', we just buy individual episodes from Amazon for $2-3 each.
So our 'cable' bill is about $20 / month average over a year from buying individual episodes, still much cheaper than the $70 / month we would pay for watching basically the same stuff with a full service cable hookup.

We are using netflix streaming. Hi def picture. Less than 8 bucks a month.
Just watched "Ramen Girl"
Also for those who can wait, the first season of the killing. Portlandia, etc.
We got a little box called Roku rather than hooking up the computer.
It has a remote.

Ditch the TV, one of the best things I ever did. An internet connection will get you most anything, commercial free.

Awake wrote:If you want premium channels, then a direct feed of some sort is still required.
But since the switch to Digital Over the Air (OTA), the quality of the signal is really good, and the number of channels is much better.
We only have OTA, and are quite happy about it. For 'special' shows like 'Breaking Bad' or "Walking Dead', we just buy individual episodes from Amazon for $2-3 each.
So our 'cable' bill is about $20 / month average over a year from buying individual episodes, still much cheaper than the $70 / month we would pay for watching basically the same stuff with a full service cable hookup.

I forgot to say that I have an old computer that has an HDMI port on it connected to the 50" screen, and it records the OTA and plays back the stuff, turning itself on and going back to sleep as necessary. The Media Center program that is included with Windows 7 is VERY good at doing TV time shifting, we rarely watch anything but news without it being recorded beforehand. Skip commercials, pause, etc. Adding a remote control is cheap and easy.
Then there is PLEX (on the same computer), a superb way of watching movies, Netflix feeds, etc.. but that is a little more complicated and techie oriented.

Cable is overrated and severely overpriced. If you have a computer hooked up to your tv and a decent internet connection you pretty much have access to pretty much anything interesting that has been ever been put out there with the Netflix/Hulu type stuff. You just Have to wait a bit for some things.

With the exception of sports. If you are into that you may have to bite the bullet and pay for cable/satellite/whatever.

Indeed. Personally I could give a shit, I am good with a book...

However...there is always a however it seems...

Wimbledon. Spouse is an addict. If she'd be happy with the finals, over the air would be fine...but no....
shit.

Trying to figure out what it actually costs is an absolute pain in the ass...x$ with rebate for y months plus z credits....?

If I were king, these people would lose their heads and I don't even want to think about cell phones...I'd go down as the greatest mass tyrant in history.

I would happily drop cable, but my wife loves it and the DVR, she records stuff while she's at work at night and watches it before she goes to bed.

Since she's paying for it, we keeps it.

Progurt wrote:I would happily drop cable, but my wife loves it and the DVR, she records stuff while she's at work at night and watches it before she goes to bed.

Since she's paying for it, we keeps it.

Petty much the same here. It's not that I do not watch TV but I'd be happy with the other options. My wife would not, but since she pays for the cable.

Yeah man drop the dish. Netflix streaming is really great and if you get the mail service you can get all the TV shows they don't have on streaming. Just have to have a little patience since you can't watch them as they air. Hulu is free and pretty damn good although limited selection. Have not heard great things about their + service just for the fact that there aren't many shows on it.

I have HBOGO on my Android phone, it let's me keep up with all my shows.

Over the air TV and Netflix is enough for us.

Here in Albuquerque we get all the major networks, 3 PBS channels and some local channels absolutely free with a set of rabbit-ears - and that's not counting the bible thumper and hispanic channels. There are enough re-runs streaming on Netflix to keep us busy for years.

Cole wrote:Yeah man drop the dish. Netflix streaming is really great and if you get the mail service you can get all the TV shows they don't have on streaming. Just have to have a little patience since you can't watch them as they air. Hulu is free and pretty damn good although limited selection. Have not heard great things about their + service just for the fact that there aren't many shows on it.

We dropped cable / satellite about 2 years ago, have an Apple TV box and a Samsung box. Get Netflix on either, a lot of the shows on HULU + do have some commercials but older ones (X-files) don't. We watch Jon Stewart on Hulu, Rachel as a podcast on Apple and Youtube on Apple. Apple podcasts have no commercials. (and when ya buy the Apple box, thats it, no monthly subscription, nada) And yeah, I'll admit I like Mac stuff.. I can stream from my laptop to any TV in the house. We don't do sports, can see MSM news (its an hour later, usually) from the Apple as a podcast.
Nope, I aint goin back to regular TV. If I need immediate news (weather etc.) I switch over to the digital antennae and get why I need, which is about twice a month.
Also use VUDU for movies sometimes instead of iTunes, ya gotta shop but sometimes its less expensive, and no subscription, just pay as you go.

Ok, so I've been wondering how much we'd be able to get with an antenna so last weekend I built this thing:

http://www.squidoo.com/make-this-powerf ... -cardboard

But I did not get to trying it until this weekend. I was pleasantly surprised. For testing purposes I ran a cable out in the open though the stairwell to get from the basement to the 2nd floor. Even with the antenna unstrategically positioned and with much more cabling than needed (consequently more loss), we get a good 2 dozen channels.

Maybe I can convince my wife to ditch cable... ... but then I'll be held responsible for every hiccup in the new setup.

You could also us the playon service along with an xbox360 to stream content to your TV. Install playon on your PC. And then use the Xbox to pull content from it wirelessly. If you don't have an Xbox, you can buy a roku box to do the same thing.

http://www.playon.tv/
http://m.bestbuy.com/m/e/search/results ... resultsdiv