Ask Slashdot: Are You Streaming-Only For Home Entertainment? 697
hinesbrad writes "I'm getting really tired of paying ridiculous fees to my cable company just to have a DVR and high speed internet access. A neighbor of mine bought a cheapo Dell computer with an HDMI output. Apparently he streams all of his news live from respective websites, and also watches many of the shows on NBC and Comedy central using this method. He's effectively turned his PC into a DVR and gotten rid of his cable subscription fee. I wonder, how many people have completely gotten rid of their cable/satellite subscription and have now instead moved to a Hulu/Netflix/Content producer website streaming solution instead?" If you've done this, what does your approach include? If you'd like to, what are the bottlenecks?
Nether kinda (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm Canadian, so the Hulu/Netflix/etc thing doesn't quite work out so well.
I did ditch the cable a while ago though.
News has gotten progressively more useless, to the point where it actually annoys me to watch it, and I'm not a big fan of sports... which is where cable seems to win. The occasional time I want to see a game, I'll go to a friends house (which is usually more fun anyway).
I just buy the DVD box sets of shows I like .. and download if they haven't been released yet (I know this is technically stealing .. but I can live with it). I prefer watching stuff this way anyhow.
I can't even remember the last time I heard about something being on TV and thought "damn, if only I had cable".
LIve Sports (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm almost there, however live sports is a hard thing to find an alternative channel for.
Yup, and it's hit or miss (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm now cable-free, which has its advantages and disadvantages. Whether it's right for you comes down to one question: What do you want to watch?
For most broadcast networks, streaming is great. I use Boxee on my Mac, which aggregates a lot of shows from a lot of sources, just not Hulu. Combine that with the Hulu desktop app, and voila. Most of the shows I watch.
But not all. HBO, for instance, is (last time I checked) still aggressively married to the subscription-cable model. You can get their content on their website, if you are an HBO subscriber through the traditional means. I would have no problem paying for HBO, but I don't know of any cable provider that offers JUST HBO. So I have to pay for a package of nonsense like the Food Network and whatever's become of the History Channel. I want to give HBO my money, but they don't want to take it. Showtime is the same way.
I don't know what FX's current attitude towards streaming is, but I'll look into it before Rescue Me starts back up again.
Cord Cutting (Score:4, Interesting)
We've been streaming-only for a year and a half (Score:5, Interesting)
When our TiVo died we were a bit short on cash (think: October, 2009). So we tried streaming and ... it was pretty decent. Then we looked at our $96/month DirecTv bill and thought, "Hmm.....," and canceled that sucker.
Since then 1) we've saved over $1,500, 2) we've totally fallen in love with Neflix Watch Instantly, 3) Hulu is good for the few shows we used to watch regualrly, and 4) we generally watch less TV than we used to (a Good Thing ®). It hasn't bothered us in the slightest. We have two other families who have decided that if a couple of old fogies like us (we're 61 and 65) can do this, so can they.
I cut the cable three years ago, never looked back (Score:4, Interesting)
I've done this. I use the following services:
Netflix (1 DVD at a time, $10/month)
Hulu (free version)
MLB.tv ($100/year)
PlayOn (I got a lifetime license for $30 by getting in early. Now it's $80 for a lifetime.)
PlayOn allows streaming of new shows (Hulu), old shows and movies (Netflix), MLB games, and individual channel sites (like Comedy Central) to my XBox at a total annual cost of $220, or under $20 a month. The only cable service I could get at that price is the super-restricted version that only gives about a dozen channels, most of which I could get OTA anyway.
I get the added advantages of being able to watch everything on my own schedule, and also watch while travelling -- unless I leave the country, which unfortunately blacks out most services. But that's what the Netflix DVDs are for. I rip them to my harddrive as fast as I can get them, and now have a nice stockpile of movies to watch while overseas.
Re:No cable. Just Roku and my laptop (Score:5, Interesting)
I use "free" streaming virtually all of the time where I am, but as odd as this may sound, I still pay for my content. Over here in the uk we have no hulu, we have no netflix, none of the streams coming from the other legitimate sites, all we have is iPlayer, which is a bit of a joke as far as most of its content is concerned. But that's never stopped me, plenty of less legitimate sites out there to give us what we should already have.
However, I don't think the content should be free, it should be available, how it is now illegally, for a reasonable fee (or at least ad supported). But no-one wants my money.. Here's the clincher though, in this country, if we watch anything that is being broadcast on a tv channel at the same time we have to pay a license fee to the government. Technically I don't need to pay it, but I do because it directly supports british content being created. Also, I have an internet connection, which we're pretty much forced to bundle with cable tv and a phone line. So, whilst I use the internet solely for my entertainment, I still indirectly pay what I consider reasonable(ish) for what I'm getting. It's kind of a guilt and responsibility thing.
Now, if the companies pulled their heads out of their asses and provided me with the streaming methods that are clearly feasible, preferably for a reasonable price, then they could drop out the middle men, I would drop the rest and they would get all the cash. But they're morons who would rather whine that they don't have my money rather than actually allow me to give them it. Go figure..
Re:Comcast won't let you (Score:4, Interesting)
Reporte them to your local commerce commission. Bundling is illegal, even for legal monopolies.
Re:For me, and many of my fellow college students. (Score:5, Interesting)
I agree completely. I have both Netflix and a big old school DVR setup (3 replaytv's, 2 local servers running DVarchive to archive shows permanently and a cable hookup.) We just started in on Netflix a few months back and I have to say, I really like where that is going. Having the technology in my home to store things locally and share them around the house with ethernet in real time is cool, but my machines are aging and there is no modern equivalent. I'd much rather have a larger library full of pristine digital copies stored offsite and streamed whenever I want them. My daughter who is 6 grew up able to watch her favorite shows whenever she wanted. The replays I have are the old school ones before the media companies sued the automatic commercial skip out of them, but its not perfect and I much prefer the way Netflix just has none.
That said, cable companies and media producers understand that their model is at risk of being undermined and the price for Netflix to come up to being on-par with cable in terms of show availability is going to be steep. They won't be able to do it at $10 a month, thats for sure.
Still, if I could pay Netflix what I pay the cable company today (about $70 a month) and get all the same shows streamable any time from any of my TVs or computers with no commercials, it would be a no-brainer. I'd toss all my replays and all my archived shows and convert over in a second.
Ultimately, I think standard cable television is doomed. Nobody wants their content delivered that way. The cable companies will fight with everything in their power, but at the end of the day, you're going to be paying them for internet and internet only eventually. That's why the caps are showing up everywhere. They're deathly afraid of this, but like a good internet, it will eventually simply route around any attempts at censorship.
Re:We haven't had cable for ten years. (Score:4, Interesting)
We aren't streaming-only, but we're streaming plus iTunes plus disc, and we've been doing less and less disc, to the point where I've fairly frequently sent discs back unwatched simply because I decided I wasn't that interested, and there was something better on iTunes or NetFlix. We might be an exceptional case though--we haven't had cable for about ten years, because it was too tempting to channel surf. With on-demand streaming and iTunes, you watch when you decide to watch, rather than being at the mercy of the schedule, which is a *huge* win. Plus, no commercials.
What's so bad about channel surfing? I was watching a documentary the other day, and they discussed Netflix's profiling, and how they send you things you will like to watch. You end up being more like you (the stereotype you), and never try things you might like, if you weren't you.
And this is the kind of documentary I would have never watched, if it wasn't just because I randomly landed on that channel.
Same with a "chick flick" I saw the other day. A silly movie but in the end I thought it was... cute, to put it some way. If I had to search for it, buffer it, etc... I would have never watched it.
That's why I'm not ditching cable anytime soon.
But of course, you're a smarter-than-average person who thinks for himself and doesn't need luck to find shows or movies to watch. You just read the description and reviews and decide if it's worth watching, right? I don't. I don't take anyone else's word. Even if someone tells me a movie is "bad", I watch it anyway. I don't need anyone telling me what to watch. And most of the time, "bad" movies aren't really bad - it's just silly people that don't understand them.
Re:For me, and many of my fellow college students. (Score:4, Interesting)
Then get a Roku.
No monthly fees for Roku, just for the premium streaming channels like Netfix or Amazon.
Our house? No cable, just Roku and local broadcast stations.