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Help cutting the cable

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catilyst

TRIBE Member
I'm helping my old man reduce his cable bill. Currently with Rogers. :confused: He`has internet, phone and cable with them and the monthly bill is ridiculous. (I will likely be helping him switch to teksavvy for internet and phone, but the cable is the $$$ issue atm.

I personally use an ota antenna and stream Netflix. Does what I typically need, and when it doesn't I'll download. He's from a generation that likes to channel surf endlessly and he isn't tech savvy so this set up isn't really for him.

He could live with a basic package but the one channel he really 'needs' is TCM, which is only available (to my knowledge) on the upper tier packages.

TCM does stream, if you have a subscription to a package.

Looked into getting him a roku, but alas TCM isn't on their line up.

Curious if anyone has any creative work arounds for this, that is to access TCM with out an expensive cable package?
 
Alex D. from TRIBE on Utility Room
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lobo

TRIBE Member
Honestly, if he's of the generation that likes to channel surf and stuff, it's probably better to just leave him with the cable package he's got now or maybe negotiate a cheaper rate for the year or two. If not, you're going to be their tech support each time some little thing goes wrong. :)

Lobo
 
praktik

praktik

TRIBE Member
^^ what he said.

Also starting to realize the PVR is more commercial free than internet streaming where I can't skip as easily!
 
ndrwrld

ndrwrld

TRIBE Member
i'd love to save the 114.95 i'm spending per month for Fibe.
i've got 3 boxes in my house, and i'm paying zero for 2 on rebate forever.
the PVR is a huge plus.]
i've got 50/10 internet. ( 79 a month, plus 10 for unlimited ).
i'd love even more to lose cable all together, but i'd have to subscribe to so many online sports packages, as well as stuff for the little human in the house, i still feel it's better off keeping Fibe...for now.
 
K

kyfe

TRIBE Member
ndrwrld said:
i'd love to save the 114.95 i'm spending per month for Fibe.
i've got 3 boxes in my house, and i'm paying zero for 2 on rebate forever.
the PVR is a huge plus.]
i've got 50/10 internet. ( 79 a month, plus 10 for unlimited ).
i'd love even more to lose cable all together, but i'd have to subscribe to so many online sports packages, as well as stuff for the little human in the house, i still feel it's better off keeping Fibe...for now.
Click to expand...

netflix has a tonne of kids shows, PBS has an app thats free.
as for sports think of it this way, you can get NHL gamecenter, MLB live and NFL big ticket for the season and watch any game you want and whenever you want, not just what's on TV.
 
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agentRC4

agentRC4

TRIBE Member
ndrwrld said:
i'd love to save the 114.95 i'm spending per month for Fibe.
i've got 3 boxes in my house, and i'm paying zero for 2 on rebate forever.
the PVR is a huge plus.]
i've got 50/10 internet. ( 79 a month, plus 10 for unlimited ).
i'd love even more to lose cable all together, but i'd have to subscribe to so many online sports packages, as well as stuff for the little human in the house, i still feel it's better off keeping Fibe...for now.
Click to expand...

That seems crazy high to me, even with the 2 free boxes.

OTA is the way to go. WE have US Netflix and it's great and I get the MLB Package every year. I don't care for hockey all that much, but on Saturday and Sunday, there is a game or two on OTA. Yankees for free on OTA too. NFL is great on OTA, just don't get Monday night football.

I stream all other sports. For the price, I don't mind the quality.

Plus with all the new shows Netfilx is developing, plus torrents, there really is no need to have a cable package.
 
F

[- FuNKtiOn -]

TRIBE Member
I just cancelled my cable this month after moving into a new place. There was a couple days of shock and discomfort, but really I'm PVRing most shows anyways, so I might as well just download them and skip the commercials.
The only time I wish I still had cable is when I just want to throw something quickly on while I'm eating. Having your delicious food get cold while you are loading a streaming site or figuring out which download to watch kinda sucks.

Admittedly, when the NFL season starts back up I will sign back up as I need NFL Red Zone and Sunday Ticket in HD, not down with streaming quality for that.
 
praktik

praktik

TRIBE Member
Thats the other issue, not like our providers are top tier but u get better than streaming not just in image quality but also consistency...

I can tell when torrenting a Netflix show for instance: the motion gets mixed up from dropped frames in the original stream making its way to the file...
 
K

Karim

TRIBE Member
I know it's possible to have more than one household share a Bell Satellite package. Many bell customers install a dish at their cottage and share the subscription with their primary residence.

Bell Satellite allows up to 6 receivers on an account. So if you can find a current subscriber that is not using their quota, get a dish installed (privately, not through Bell), buy a used receiver, add it to the account of the existing subscriber, and share the account.
 
ndrwrld

ndrwrld

TRIBE Member
Cutting the TV cord? Call the anti-cable guy - Business - CBC News
i'm going to get them to check me out. Free consultation at my house, and $125 to help install and set up all soon to be purchased hardware.

i'm paying $130 a month for Fibe TV with Bell. ( includes $20 movie network with HBO, and rental of 2 receivers @ $7 each. )

I'm paying $91 for Bell 50/10.( includes $10 unlimited ). i want to up my internet, but just found out i'm at the highest bracket ( which i'm not too pleased about ).

We're willing to finally invest in a decent streaming box. we have the Wii for our bedroom, and a P3, but want one more for my mancave for my projector.

question...
we only have the Bell modem. hooked up thru LAN, we get 50 down and 10 up, but wirelessly, standing beside the modem, we only get around 25 down. is that just a fact of life ?
should i be hooking up a dual band Gigabit router before it gets to the modem, or after the modem ? will this help our wireless signal ?
 
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ndrwrld

ndrwrld

TRIBE Member
another query...
i've got an external hd, NexStar CX, inside has a 1TB WD hard drive
( 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s ).
will this be sufficient to hook up to that new router i quoted above ^ for media streaming, or do i need to look into a NAS ?
any suggestions on a NAS under or around $200 ?
 
praktik

praktik

TRIBE Member
Is cutting the cable an act of bravery anymore? (well, even then I guess it could also have been seen more as an act of status-seeking)

I think it was more meaningful in 1985, when cutting the cable was synonymous with a purposeful decision to forgo video content (as a badge of Hippie Honour) - but now all it means is selecting alternate sources for getting the same video content.
 
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ndrwrld

ndrwrld

TRIBE Member
My Bell cable package is $90 a month.
For me to cut said cable, i'd have to buy a new moar powerful router ( my bell hubs wireless is spotty ). Then, i'd have to subscribe to Shomi, and probably one or two Sports webstream packages. That $90 would be eaten up pretty quickly, not to mention the $150+ i'd be spending on a new Router.
for me, it's about getting jammed by Bell. Their revamping of their a la carte pricing will see if i cut it or not in March. Most likely.
 
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lobo

TRIBE Member
It's a game of cat & mouse. They can easily block the know VPNs and while they may be able to change IPs for a while, they only have a limited number of them to change to. It's not unlimited.

What some are speculating is that they could tie your library to wherever your credit card and billing address is tied to. So if you registered with a CDN credit card and billing address, then you get access to the CDN Netflix no matter where in the world you login. That may break certain country rules that say you can only watch the content from the country that you're currently in similar to what happens today.

Lobo
 
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lobo

TRIBE Member
praktik said:
Is cutting the cable an act of bravery anymore? (well, even then I guess it could also have been seen more as an act of status-seeking)

I think it was more meaningful in 1985, when cutting the cable was synonymous with a purposeful decision to forgo video content (as a badge of Hippie Honour) - but now all it means is selecting alternate sources for getting the same video content.
Click to expand...

I think these days cutting the cord means more of trying to save money vs a status symbol that you flaunt. Funny thing is, people that truly want to cut the cord and get the same or similar content via legal means are finding that it can be pretty expensive. Most people that are cutting the cord are going to things like Kodi and streaming channels for "free" and/or setting up an OTA antenna to pull in local channels.

Lobo
 
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greginhali

greginhali

TRIBE Member
ScottBentley said:
I haven't missed a game yet, 90% of them in HD and all for free. Some nice folks stream them on Youtube, so there's no malware or shitty adverts. My $50 a month teksavvy package is all I need.
Click to expand...

if you dont mind.... tell me more about these youtube sports channels please? NFl games? Whats the trick?
 
F

[- FuNKtiOn -]

TRIBE Member
I always subscribe to cable during the football season (NFL Network and NFL Redzone are essential), but after that I cancel my cable and for sports streaming I just use a variety of sites like VIPLeague and GOATD.net, which when in Incognito mode of Chrome and Adblock installed you wont get all the cookies, malware, and popups from the advertising filled streaming pages. Quality can range from HD to mediocre "youtube quality" but I've never missed a MLB or NBA game I've wanted to watch.

Admittedly, I'm interested in hearing what this Youtube trick is as well though.
 
praktik

praktik

TRIBE Member
[- FuNKtiOn -];4712780 said:
Quality can range from HD to mediocre "youtube quality" but I've never missed a MLB or NBA game I've wanted to watch.
Click to expand...

This is my issue with streaming - always prefer a service provider feed over streaming for image quality on content - and even better than that are 1080p high bitrate files I torrent..;)

Pirated 1080p files > service provider feeds > streaming feeds

Can't bring myself to do much streaming at all when I can access better quality elsewhere.

Probably a feature of "the moment" - as pipes get fatter/faster streaming won't have as many impediments anymore at all.
 
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