Sanity check from you cord cutters

bobbygene · Mar 30, 2019

I use youTube aTV--with an internet connection you get all major channels, great sports, etc. And unlimited DVR in the cloud. $40 per month, no taxes. And you can use it on 3 devices simultaneously.

radios1 · Mar 31, 2019

buckeyefarmer said:
Sure it works. We use splitters and combiners all the time.

for one station OK.. here's an explanation of why it's not good at all to use it for multiple stations. Is it possible to combine independent digital TV antennas? - Electrical Engineering Stack Exchange

IXLR8 · Mar 31, 2019

I have been using Fubo for a few months and I liked what I was getting for the price. I just received an email from them saying they were adding a bunch of channels that I have no interest in, and they are increasing my bill by $10/month. They are acting just like my cable company.. time to look for another provider.

goeduck · Apr 1, 2019

IXLR8 said:
I have been using Fubo for a few months and I liked what I was getting for the price. I just received an email from them saying they were adding a bunch of channels that I have no interest in, and they are increasing my bill by $10/month. They are acting just like my cable company.. time to look for another provider.

But the beauty now is you can easily drop them and select a different service. That alone should help keep the price in check better in the long run.

goeduck · Apr 1, 2019

I ordered a Channel Master CM-7777HD Adjustable Gain Preamp. I see it can be powered direct if installed inside or I can use the power inserter and mount the preamp outside on the mast. What is the advantage of being on the mast, to capture the signals at their strongest point? Or?

Welshman · Apr 1, 2019

goeduck said:
I ordered a Channel Master CM-7777HD Adjustable Gain Preamp. I see it can be powered direct if installed inside or I can use the power inserter and mount the preamp outside on the mast. What is the advantage of being on the mast, to capture the signals at their strongest point? Or?

I have one of those and it works great. The theory is that while it amplifies the signal, it can also amplify interference, so they recommend installing it as close to the antenna as possible. When I first got it, to see if it worked, I installed it right at one of the TV's, and I got all available channels. Since the weather was bad, I then moved it to the crawl space where the coax comes in, and ahead of my splitter (my antenna is on a 18' mast just outside the house). Since I got all available channels, I left it there. I don't see any difference between the high or low settings, so I left it on low.

thekkfan · Apr 1, 2019

goeduck said:
I ordered a Channel Master CM-7777HD Adjustable Gain Preamp. I see it can be powered direct if installed inside or I can use the power inserter and mount the preamp outside on the mast. What is the advantage of being on the mast, to capture the signals at their strongest point? Or?

Yes, to not lose anything in the cabling to the house. Mine has a 6" pigtail from antenna to preamp, feeding power back to it from my distribution cabinet. The LTE filter seemed to help my channels as well. Not sure if your area has alot of cell towers around.

Oaktree · Apr 1, 2019

goeduck said:
But the beauty now is you can easily drop them and select a different service. That alone should help keep the price in check better in the long run.

Fine as long as you can find another one that offers what you want at a reasonable price.
Unfortunately, the trend seems to be to throw in a bunch of channels you don't want as an excuse to raise the price. Whatever happened to a la carte? Seems like it would be easy to implement for a streaming service.

CMV · Apr 1, 2019

Oaktree said:
Fine as long as you can find another one that offers what you want at a reasonable price.
Unfortunately, the trend seems to be to throw in a bunch of channels you don't want as an excuse to raise the price. Whatever happened to a la carte? Seems like it would be easy to implement for a streaming service.

At least not to the point of cable....diluting the few you want with 100s each of home shopping, foreign language, obscure sports, etc. That was horrible since just cycling thru the guide took forever just to see what was on. I like the guide I have now since I can mark the channels I like and the guide hides the remainder - nice to just see what I want and not all the "filler" that cable used so they could boast a "500 channel lineup" or whatever it was.

True a la carte sounds good on the surface. But I pay about $0.50 per channel with Sling Blue. However, their add-on bundles for news, sports, whatever are a lot more & some can be as much as $5 for one (non premium like HBO) channel. So if it were truly pick ONLY the channels you want but they were $2.50 each, that would still add up pretty quick unless you really only wanted a small handful in addition to your OTA (which many people probably would). I could pare down to the ones I really would like to have, but would still have to be maybe $1.50-$1.75 each for it to save anything.

But it seems many of these streaming providers are offering the same channels bundled similarly. I'm thinking that's the way they "buy" them too - they pay to redistribute packages of channels, not each single one. So that's the way we get them resold to us. Even if we were to pick & choose only certain individual channels, if it cost the provider the same because they paid for the whole bundle, the per channel cost would just have to rise to be the same anyway. Dunno....just a theory.

goeduck · Apr 1, 2019

Well I cancelled the Xfinity (Comcast) channel lineup today and they dropped from a 150 MB to 60 MB connection plus phone which took me from $231.55 a month to $100.21. So I have $131 to work with. They would not give me the $49/month new customer rate and stuck me with the $79/screw-your-customer-rate. Then of course they charge $11/month for the cable modem. And phone plus taxes takes me to $100.21. I went by Best Buy and they have cable modems with the phone connection, WiFi and 4 port Ethernet router all built in for $200 to $300 but I am not sure I want to go there and not be able to tell Comcast they are not giving me an internet connection if I have any problem whatsoever (hardware or service). Plus that is a lot of money to recover. But I might if I can get a good buy on one.

Now I have to fine tune the streaming packages since I am $20 to $30 over my plan.

$43.60 YouTube TV.... general TV, news, sports
$21.99 Philo. Womany stuff
$6.59. Hallmark Now... more womany stuff
$15.99. Netflix
$0.00 Tablo .. 51 local stations, should get better when my Channel Master equip arrives
$88.17 TOTAL

So saving about $40 at this point. Not where I want to end up but I am getting way, way more things to watch. I am all set for news, but and lacking on local sports teams. I am thinking of getting rid of Netflix to save some more and then the cable modem, but I am not wanting to have Xfinity tell me the problem is in my cable modem.