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Cutting the Cord (Ditching TV, not having a baby)

So my wife got a streaming device netflex amazon hulu and the ACC digital network.

But it seems as if this acc digital network on the device (it's an RCA thing and the box was long gone before I knew she had it and had it plugged in) doesn't show live games.

Does anyone else have that issue? Why can I watch a game on the my phone but not on the TV with this ACC digital network thing.

(And if it's user error, tell me how to fix it).
 
Any updates on those who have sampled "Sling TV" With Apple among the many planning to offer streaming content on the net, does anyone have suggestions to obtain the local TV signals when you are 60 miles or more from the transmitter? Unless you have an outdoor mounted receiver almost impossible to receive a signal. Would be nice to have an app or service to offer streaming local or regional video for those in the "sticks"...
 
Any updates on those who have sampled "Sling TV" With Apple among the many planning to offer streaming content on the net, does anyone have suggestions to obtain the local TV signals when you are 60 miles or more from the transmitter? Unless you have an outdoor mounted receiver almost impossible to receive a signal. Would be nice to have an app or service to offer streaming local or regional video for those in the "sticks"...

Sling TV doesn't give you access to any local channels, unfortunately, and I'm not aware of any streaming service that would. An outdoor antenna may be your best bet if you're staying away from cable/satellite.

I sampled Sling for 7 days, but didn't renew the subscription. I just didn't use it all that much, and the interface was a little clunky. The app also crashed a few times. They have since added AMC, though, so that's a pretty significant selling point for fans of Mad Men and the like. But, remember, no DVR capability and the On Demand content is limited. For now I'm just staying busy with Netflix/Hulu/Amazon, and will add HBO NOW to stream GoT on my iPad until they open it up to Chromecast later this year.
 
Sling TV doesn't give you access to any local channels, unfortunately, and I'm not aware of any streaming service that would. An outdoor antenna may be your best bet if you're staying away from cable/satellite.

I sampled Sling for 7 days, but didn't renew the subscription. I just didn't use it all that much, and the interface was a little clunky. The app also crashed a few times. They have since added AMC, though, so that's a pretty significant selling point for fans of Mad Men and the like. But, remember, no DVR capability and the On Demand content is limited. For now I'm just staying busy with Netflix/Hulu/Amazon, and will add HBO NOW to stream GoT on my iPad until they open it up to Chromecast later this year.

Same experience with Sling. Didn't renew after 7 days. Very limited on demand library, UI was horrible, navigation through the channels was awful. Hoping all that improves in the next few months. Luckily got an old Apple TV from my brother in law so I can hook up HBO Now when it comes out
 
I've had Sling for a few weeks now.

Pros:
Watching on an android tablet works well and is a useful feature
I think it's the only legal way to get ESPN/TNT/TBS (key for NCAA tourney and NBA playoffs) without cable
Mad Men
Picture quality is pretty good although a noticeable step down from HD cable/antenna


Cons:
Watching it through my Roku is a bit buggy and as BBD mentioned the UI is not intuitive. But for ESPN you can use WatchESPN if you have a Sling account.
No DVR functionality, no pause/rewind on ESPN, or TNT, TBS.

For me, it will be worth the money until the NBA playoffs and Mad Men end. Then I'll cancel and re-subscribe later if needed. Also, not sure if they're still doing it, but they had a deal for a free Roku stick or Amazon fire stick with a 3 month paid subscription. Basically you pay $60 for the 3 months service and get a $50 device for free.
 
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sorry about this formatting but from today wall street. I thought some may find it helpful

PERSONAL TECHNOLOGY
Why Cable TV Beats the Internet, For Now
It’s not time to cut cable yet, unless you’re among the few cord-cutters who can clear enough hurdles
You’ve had it with high cable bills, but are you ready to really cut the cable cord? WSJ’s Geoff Fowler makes the case for why it’s not time yet. Photo: iStock/TrentVino

By GEOFFREY A. FOWLER
March 24, 2015 3:29 p.m. ET
53 COMMENTS
Are you ready to cut cable?

Probably not—yet.

That pains me to say, both as tech columnist and someone who watches enough TV to own a Snuggie. Many of us are rooting for the Internet to upend our indecent cable bills. Surely Silicon Valley’s brightest can figure out a better way to get us the stuff we want to watch. Why are we still paying cable for a “live” channel of back-to-back “Bewitched” reruns?

MORE

PlayStation Vue Review: A Real Rival to Cable...For a Price
Aerial Antennas, Slingboxes and Logins: How to Cut the Cord
Roku TV: A Smart TV That Helps You Cut Out Cable
But after reviewing pretty much every available Internet TV service, streaming box and smart TV, I’ve yet to find a replacement that covers all the TV bases while costing less. Instead, I recommend “shaving down” your cable-and-broadband subscription and supplementing it with streaming services such as Hulu, Amazon and Netflix until this all shakes out.

There are reasons to be hopeful. I believe 2015 is the year the Internet becomes a serious alternative to cable. The PlayStation Vue service that made its debut last week breaks new ground by streaming big networks—if you’ve got Sony’s game console.

Advertisement

Cord-cutting is already a phenomenon among early adopters or people with narrow TV needs. But completely saying goodbye to cable doesn’t add up yet for the rest of us. Here are the four big reasons:

ENLARGE
1) You need fast, affordable Internet…from guess who!
Getting TV over the Internet requires a download speed of at least 5 megabits per second. (Check yours at speedtest.net.)

College students and moochers may not have to worry about paying for fast Internet. But for many of us, the best deal comes from the likes of Comcast,Time Warner,AT&T or Verizon, which push TV-and-Internet bundles that make stand-alone service look pricey.

You may have more options than you realize. To check, enter your address at broadbandmap.gov and be sure to click “Show Wired.”

2) You’ll miss some popular TV.
Cable gets you accustomed to a never-ending buffet of shows. Streaming puts you on a TV diet—at least for current-season fare. Sling TV broke new ground earlier this year by streaming live channels from cable—but only about 20 of them.

Sony’s breakthrough Internet TV service streams a channel lineup that isn’t full of holes. WSJ Personal Tech columnist Geoffrey A. Fowler gives the latest cable-cutting option a try.
So far, only PlayStation Vue can really compete with basic cable’s channel lineup. It offers between 50 and 80-plus live channels, including NBC, CBS and Fox. (Expect more channels to join soon.) But Vue is missing ABC—no “Modern Family,” no “Scandal,” no “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.”

My dream TV would be downloadable a la carte, with app-like channels. Yet so far, only CBS and a few other networks are available for streaming without a cable subscription. Meanwhile, Sling TV and Vue bundle many channels together, including plenty you may not care for, just like the cable you’re eager to ditch.

Another way to get the shows you want is to wait for them—potentially for a long, long time. A cable-cutter who still can’t miss being part of the water-cooler chatter would need a live streaming service like Vue or Sling TV. Hulu Plus can fill in the gaps with some of the latest shows from Fox, NBC and ABC, if you can wait a day. Netflix and Amazon Prime may require you to wait a year or more for all but original shows.

There’s hope: Broadcasters and show creators are cooking up cable-free options fast. HBO Now launches in April for the new season of “Game of Thrones.”

Roku powers lower-priced smart TVs with some of the best cable-cutting options. ENLARGE
Roku powers lower-priced smart TVs with some of the best cable-cutting options. PHOTO: JASON HENRY FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
3) Internet TV means juggling gadgets, too.
Assuming you can find the shows you want online, chances are you won’t find them all on one service. Or even one remote control.

Streaming services are using deals with certain channels and gadget-makers to differentiate themselves. Want ESPN? You’ll need Sling TV on a Roku or Xbox. Want Fox News? Only on Vue with a PlayStation. Want HBO Now? That requires owning an Apple TV—a total of three pieces of hardware if you want them all.

No combination of devices is as easy as just changing the channel, or choosing shows saved on the DVR.

And saving shows to watch later is another problem. Streaming services like Amazon Prime and Netflix give you shows on demand (albeit often last season’s). The newer live services have more limits: Sling TV only lets you find shows from the past three days—and even then only on a few channels. Vue lets you record anything, but will only store it for 28 days.

There’s hope: The Apple TV streaming device is due for a major refresh. And Roku simplifies things with a universal search tool to find shows across lots of different on-demand services.

4) All this effort may not save you money.
Now, we do the math. The average cost of the video portion of a U.S. cable bill is $80 to $90 a month (including pay-per-view movies and premium channels), according to telecom analyst Craig Moffett. Broadband Internet adds up to $50 on top of that in a bundle, he estimates. Your price may vary, especially with discounts for the first two years, but let’s say the combo costs $130.

But cutting cable and buying Internet alone is more expensive, about $60 a month. It isn’t hard to match the cost of cable with Internet streaming services—and actually end up with less TV.

Get Vue ($50 to $70, depending on your package) and HBO Now ($15) and you’re already at $125.

Alternatively, a decent package of live and on-demand content could include Sling TV ($20), HBO Now ($15), Hulu ($8) and CBS All Access ($5)—you’re up to $108. And if you still wanted live broadcast networks, you’d need to get an aerial antenna.

Cable cutting can require multiple video players, smart TVs and game consoles—and the remotes to go with them. ENLARGE
Cable cutting can require multiple video players, smart TVs and game consoles—and the remotes to go with them. PHOTO: GEOFFREY A. FOWLER/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Cable companies are onto this. Comcast is offering new customers Internet and 140-channel cable TV—including HBO—for $80 a month, with prices rising after a year.

Last year, I shaved my family’s Comcast plan from $213 a month to a $75 no-contract service called Internet Plus that includes broadband, basic local cable channels and HBO. Other cable companies have similar deals.

There’s hope: Now that Internet companies can make their own channel bundles, perhaps we’ll see some designed for specific interests that can save us money. Classic movie-lovers shouldn’t have to pay for baseball games they’ll never watch. Sports junkies who don’t care about nature documentaries shouldn’t pay for them, either. At some point, a smart company may figure out a way to make everybody happy.

Write to Geoffrey A. Fowler at Geoffrey.Fowler@wsj.com or on Twitter @geoffreyfowler.
 
sorry about this formatting but from today wall street. I thought some may find it helpful

PERSONAL TECHNOLOGY
Why Cable TV Beats the Internet, For Now
It’s not time to cut cable yet, unless you’re among the few cord-cutters who can clear enough hurdles
You’ve had it with high cable bills, but are you ready to really cut the cable cord? WSJ’s Geoff Fowler makes the case for why it’s not time yet. Photo: iStock/TrentVino

By GEOFFREY A. FOWLER
March 24, 2015 3:29 p.m. ET
53 COMMENTS
Are you ready to cut cable?

Probably not—yet.

That pains me to say, both as tech columnist and someone who watches enough TV to own a Snuggie. Many of us are rooting for the Internet to upend our indecent cable bills. Surely Silicon Valley’s brightest can figure out a better way to get us the stuff we want to watch. Why are we still paying cable for a “live” channel of back-to-back “Bewitched” reruns?

MORE

PlayStation Vue Review: A Real Rival to Cable...For a Price
Aerial Antennas, Slingboxes and Logins: How to Cut the Cord
Roku TV: A Smart TV That Helps You Cut Out Cable
But after reviewing pretty much every available Internet TV service, streaming box and smart TV, I’ve yet to find a replacement that covers all the TV bases while costing less. Instead, I recommend “shaving down” your cable-and-broadband subscription and supplementing it with streaming services such as Hulu, Amazon and Netflix until this all shakes out.

There are reasons to be hopeful. I believe 2015 is the year the Internet becomes a serious alternative to cable. The PlayStation Vue service that made its debut last week breaks new ground by streaming big networks—if you’ve got Sony’s game console.

Advertisement

Cord-cutting is already a phenomenon among early adopters or people with narrow TV needs. But completely saying goodbye to cable doesn’t add up yet for the rest of us. Here are the four big reasons:

ENLARGE
1) You need fast, affordable Internet…from guess who!
Getting TV over the Internet requires a download speed of at least 5 megabits per second. (Check yours at speedtest.net.)

College students and moochers may not have to worry about paying for fast Internet. But for many of us, the best deal comes from the likes of Comcast,Time Warner,AT&T or Verizon, which push TV-and-Internet bundles that make stand-alone service look pricey.

You may have more options than you realize. To check, enter your address at broadbandmap.gov and be sure to click “Show Wired.”

2) You’ll miss some popular TV.
Cable gets you accustomed to a never-ending buffet of shows. Streaming puts you on a TV diet—at least for current-season fare. Sling TV broke new ground earlier this year by streaming live channels from cable—but only about 20 of them.

Sony’s breakthrough Internet TV service streams a channel lineup that isn’t full of holes. WSJ Personal Tech columnist Geoffrey A. Fowler gives the latest cable-cutting option a try.
So far, only PlayStation Vue can really compete with basic cable’s channel lineup. It offers between 50 and 80-plus live channels, including NBC, CBS and Fox. (Expect more channels to join soon.) But Vue is missing ABC—no “Modern Family,” no “Scandal,” no “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.”

My dream TV would be downloadable a la carte, with app-like channels. Yet so far, only CBS and a few other networks are available for streaming without a cable subscription. Meanwhile, Sling TV and Vue bundle many channels together, including plenty you may not care for, just like the cable you’re eager to ditch.

Another way to get the shows you want is to wait for them—potentially for a long, long time. A cable-cutter who still can’t miss being part of the water-cooler chatter would need a live streaming service like Vue or Sling TV. Hulu Plus can fill in the gaps with some of the latest shows from Fox, NBC and ABC, if you can wait a day. Netflix and Amazon Prime may require you to wait a year or more for all but original shows.

There’s hope: Broadcasters and show creators are cooking up cable-free options fast. HBO Now launches in April for the new season of “Game of Thrones.”

Roku powers lower-priced smart TVs with some of the best cable-cutting options. ENLARGE
Roku powers lower-priced smart TVs with some of the best cable-cutting options. PHOTO: JASON HENRY FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
3) Internet TV means juggling gadgets, too.
Assuming you can find the shows you want online, chances are you won’t find them all on one service. Or even one remote control.

Streaming services are using deals with certain channels and gadget-makers to differentiate themselves. Want ESPN? You’ll need Sling TV on a Roku or Xbox. Want Fox News? Only on Vue with a PlayStation. Want HBO Now? That requires owning an Apple TV—a total of three pieces of hardware if you want them all.

No combination of devices is as easy as just changing the channel, or choosing shows saved on the DVR.

And saving shows to watch later is another problem. Streaming services like Amazon Prime and Netflix give you shows on demand (albeit often last season’s). The newer live services have more limits: Sling TV only lets you find shows from the past three days—and even then only on a few channels. Vue lets you record anything, but will only store it for 28 days.

There’s hope: The Apple TV streaming device is due for a major refresh. And Roku simplifies things with a universal search tool to find shows across lots of different on-demand services.

4) All this effort may not save you money.
Now, we do the math. The average cost of the video portion of a U.S. cable bill is $80 to $90 a month (including pay-per-view movies and premium channels), according to telecom analyst Craig Moffett. Broadband Internet adds up to $50 on top of that in a bundle, he estimates. Your price may vary, especially with discounts for the first two years, but let’s say the combo costs $130.

But cutting cable and buying Internet alone is more expensive, about $60 a month. It isn’t hard to match the cost of cable with Internet streaming services—and actually end up with less TV.

Get Vue ($50 to $70, depending on your package) and HBO Now ($15) and you’re already at $125.

Alternatively, a decent package of live and on-demand content could include Sling TV ($20), HBO Now ($15), Hulu ($8) and CBS All Access ($5)—you’re up to $108. And if you still wanted live broadcast networks, you’d need to get an aerial antenna.

Cable cutting can require multiple video players, smart TVs and game consoles—and the remotes to go with them. ENLARGE
Cable cutting can require multiple video players, smart TVs and game consoles—and the remotes to go with them. PHOTO: GEOFFREY A. FOWLER/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Cable companies are onto this. Comcast is offering new customers Internet and 140-channel cable TV—including HBO—for $80 a month, with prices rising after a year.

Last year, I shaved my family’s Comcast plan from $213 a month to a $75 no-contract service called Internet Plus that includes broadband, basic local cable channels and HBO. Other cable companies have similar deals.

There’s hope: Now that Internet companies can make their own channel bundles, perhaps we’ll see some designed for specific interests that can save us money. Classic movie-lovers shouldn’t have to pay for baseball games they’ll never watch. Sports junkies who don’t care about nature documentaries shouldn’t pay for them, either. At some point, a smart company may figure out a way to make everybody happy.

Write to Geoffrey A. Fowler at Geoffrey.Fowler@wsj.com or on Twitter @geoffreyfowler.
 
Thanks everyone for posting the Sling TV reviews. It seems like one of the biggest downfalls was the limitation of only being able to watch TV using one device at a time. No sports in the bedroom and girly shows in the living room setup. We just got set up with a $120/mo TWC bundle with cable dvr internet adapter phone...I'll call once a week to Customer Service and hope to get a chill person who can use accounting wizardry to reduce my bill by $10/mo...hopefully a good streaming option comes up in the next year or so.
 
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No DVR functionality, no pause/rewind

Internet TV means juggling gadgets, too

Not necessarily true. A dedicated mini-PC with a TV tuner for a few hundred bucks coupled with free Kodi or even Windows Media center, and you've got DVR capabilities and can run virtually any over-the-air, streaming or local content through one UI. I'm not particularly computer literate and managed it with minimal effort.
 
BTW, had my yearly complaint call to TWC customer retention yesterday and they upped my internet from 15/1 to 30/5 and dropped $5 off.
 
I didnt cut the cord completely, but did switch from DirecTv ($125/mo) to my local Co-Op cable provider ($70/mo). I've got it on 4 tvs, with DVR in the living room, but can only record one show at a time. I have less channels and less DVR capability, but I've noticed having less stuff queued up on the DVR has made me more active and I dont sit in front of the tv as much anymore. Overall I'm happier. We bundled and got a home phone as well, and it lowered our internet bill by $15 a month. Overall its a net win with a much lower price.

We also bought a Chromecast and have Netflix. I really dont miss satellite that much.
 
We're going to cut cable after the Masters and we are not planning to replace with anything. I'm sure we'll catch a few over the air channels, but the plan is to try to do without until football season.
 
So MLB.TV blackouts suck. I knew this, but still, needs to be said again. Cut the cord a few years ago, been getting along just fine. But now that we're in the "Charlotte market" I'm blacked out from Atlanta, Baltimore, Washington, and Cincinnati games. Which is fine, I'm a Marlins fan, so I can watch most of their games still, but ridiculous that I couldn't watch their opening game that was being played 770 miles away because they were playing a team whose home stadium is 280 miles away (or when they play the Nats- 360 miles, or Reds 447 miles).
 
My 1-year promo rate for AT&T Uverse ends next week. Just called to see what they could do for me so it won't jump $80/month, but the best he could do was a $30/month increase. I'll plan to call back next week closer to the deadline to see if they can do better, but for now, I'm considering switching back to Time Warner, which is offering a sweetheart deal as a returning subscriber. Perhaps I'll just switch back and forth every year. Annoying to deal with the equipment and billing, but probably worth it to save $1000/year.
 
I do sometimes wonder if, for someone like me who doesn't channel surf or watch really any random TV, but rather just watches a handful of current series, it might just be cheaper to get internet + season passes of the shows I want to watch via Amazon or iTunes. I really only watch HBO, FX, AMC, and Comedy Central. This would require some math that I don't want to do.
 
My 1-year promo rate for AT&T Uverse ends next week. Just called to see what they could do for me so it won't jump $80/month, but the best he could do was a $30/month increase. I'll plan to call back next week closer to the deadline to see if they can do better, but for now, I'm considering switching back to Time Warner, which is offering a sweetheart deal as a returning subscriber. Perhaps I'll just switch back and forth every year. Annoying to deal with the equipment and billing, but probably worth it to save $1000/year.


Cable companies think most subscribers will accept the price increase instead of going to the trouble of removing and returning the provided equipment. It always helps to have competition in your market. Play one against the other and switch providers. Take advantage of all the available promos. Eventually everything will be web based allowing you to select and build an ala carte package suited to your needs.
 
Just put the DirecTV account on suspension for the summer. Going to see how we manage with HBO Now, Netflix, MLB.tv and SlingTV through the Roku/Apple TV
 
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