Time2Jet Posted May 23, 2021 Share Posted May 23, 2021 More and more as services become available and devices like Roku & Shield provide excellent mini app integration for services, we are getting asked which "cable channel & dvr" service is the best? I have cable, Tivo (OTA & Cable) directv and dish clients asking... I am aware of things like Sling, YTTV, AT&T, I don't know anything about residential anymore other than my own system, so what is best for (US Domestic in these cases): DVR/PVR type scheduling/recording space? Resolutions? Cost? Interface opinions? Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eggzlot Posted May 23, 2021 Share Posted May 23, 2021 5 hours ago, time2jet said: More and more as services become available and devices like Roku & Shield provide excellent mini app integration for services, we are getting asked which "cable channel & dvr" service is the best? I have cable, Tivo (OTA & Cable) directv and dish clients asking... I am aware of things like Sling, YTTV, AT&T, I don't know anything about residential anymore other than my own system, so what is best for (US Domestic in these cases): DVR/PVR type scheduling/recording space? Resolutions? Cost? Interface opinions? Thanks! Biggest issue we had was my wife’s dislike of no channels with streaming services. For people who have always had cable they want to “channel surf” or if they know the game is on hit 36 and it goes to espn. With apps you can launch a mini app but then need to navigate thru menus or guides to pick your show. it’s not a better or worse. But that failed the WAF in my house and I know of 1-2 others who saw that as a drawback too Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eddy.trochez Posted May 23, 2021 Share Posted May 23, 2021 Having a cable box is way better. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
msgreenf Posted May 23, 2021 Share Posted May 23, 2021 And depending on your viewing habits and the high cost of streaming you may not actually be saving anything anymore Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eggzlot Posted May 23, 2021 Share Posted May 23, 2021 Hulu raised its price on me 3x over 7 months during my experiment. So food for thought Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Time2Jet Posted May 23, 2021 Author Share Posted May 23, 2021 Thanks guys. Keep it coming. All of these responses are exactly what I expected. I’m thinking the next generation of end users will be app based (there won’t be a choice). This current generation, me included ...likes the cable and TiVo type interfaces. I trialed YTTV and hated it. My son is 25 and laughs that I still use TiVo. Comfort level thing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eggzlot Posted May 23, 2021 Share Posted May 23, 2021 4 minutes ago, time2jet said: Thanks guys. Keep it coming. All of these responses are exactly what I expected. I’m thinking the next generation of end users will be app based (there won’t be a choice). This current generation, me included ...likes the cable and TiVo type interfaces. I trialed YTTV and hated it. My son is 25 and laughs that I still use TiVo. Comfort level thing. YTTV is 65/month. Add on your internet and there really is not much of savings. And you get more channels with cable. it’s certainly generational Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cyknight Posted May 24, 2021 Share Posted May 24, 2021 19 hours ago, msgreenf said: And depending on your viewing habits and the high cost of streaming you may not actually be saving anything anymore 18 hours ago, eggzlot said: YTTV is 65/month. Add on your internet and there really is not much of savings. And you get more channels with cable. Wow if only people would have stated as much when the whole streaming service world became a real 'thing'. Oh wait, lots of people did. In the end, you won't be saving money, you're just sending it somewhere else. It's just preventing more people from finding grey/illegal ways of using content. Understand that I don't think that's a bad thing, or that I'm against streaming service as all. Streaming services have other advantages (mostly no or limited ads ... for now, and browsing for on demand content) but non of this was EVER intended to save the user money. Have a hard look at your cable bill these days and check cost of 'better' cable (not including specialty movie channels, special Sports packages but include channels like Discovery, History and similar channels/packages) vs 'just' high speed internet. Also add to that possible discounts offered by certain cable companies on some of the streaming service like Netflix/Hulu/Crave if you subscribe trough them. I was personally surprised how little I would save by getting rid of it when I looked at it about a month ago. Indeed for me (or to be exact, my family) to have the same range of content available through other streaming services (ie Amazon added subscriptions, AppleTV etc etc) I would actually be paying more. Others can certainly save money - it's going to depend on what and how you (as a household) watch series/movie/programming. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ejn1 Posted May 24, 2021 Share Posted May 24, 2021 The savings add up in multi receiver home environments. I was paying $185/month for Dish and now pay about $85/month for ATT TV. Also, if you have 2 homes, streaming is great as you only need one subscription. I preferred ATT over Youtube TV because it still had 5.1 audio streams versus 2 channel for YoutubeTV. The DVR experience on Dish is far better though than streaming so if you are a DVR perfectionist, I would stay away from streaming. Imho, internet is a sunk cost and shouldnt be attributed to the streaming service when cost comparing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
msgreenf Posted May 24, 2021 Share Posted May 24, 2021 19 minutes ago, ejn1 said: nternet is a sunk cost and shouldnt be attributed to the streaming service when cost comparing Agree on sunk cost but the price of internet is generally discounted by bundling tv service. eggzlot and ejn1 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eggzlot Posted May 24, 2021 Share Posted May 24, 2021 I have Altice and though I think their Internet and Cable Hardware are trash my wife is just used to the Channel Lineup so I am stuck. But their internet is so bad that since we both work remotely now we had to do something - so I went to sign up for Fios internet. I called Altice/Optimum to cancel internet and just keep their TV Service. It would cost me MORE PER MONTH just to have TV service than TV/Internet. So right now I have Fios Internet and Optimum/Altice Internet/TV in my house. If/When we start to work from home less frequently maybe I'll ditch the Fios Internet. But yeah bundling can make a huge difference even on a "sunk cost" item. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cyknight Posted May 24, 2021 Share Posted May 24, 2021 1 hour ago, ejn1 said: Imho, internet is a sunk cost and shouldnt be attributed to the streaming service when cost comparing. As I said, compare Internet WITHOUT vs internet WITH TV from the same company to do a proper cost comparison - yet your cost of internet itself wouldn't be part of the 'tv budget', but the discount on TV should be included on a cost comparison. ejn1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rocky350z Posted May 24, 2021 Share Posted May 24, 2021 21 hours ago, eggzlot said: Hulu raised its price on me 3x over 7 months during my experiment. So food for thought Eggzlot is correct I am serious looking a dumping Hulu because of the constant price increase, and they dump the many sports channels and I can not get local Hockey. And I have been with them for 4 years for my primary Channels and DVR. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zaphod Posted May 25, 2021 Share Posted May 25, 2021 For me the killer app is sports - specifically NHL, NBA and golf. The sports leagues' streaming apps tend to have a lot of restrictions like blackouts for your local team. And they may not always give you the same DVR capabilities that you get with traditional cable/sat. So it is pain in the butt to cut the cord if you want sports, and they know this so sports is one of the main reasons to keep you on cable. Here in Canada you can get a streaming sub to the two sports channels - TSN and RSN. But they are each $50/month. So you aren't saving much vs cable, especially when you figure in bundling. And they don't have apps on all platforms so you may have to use a PC to watch your games, and they may not give you the DVR capabilities that you are used to. Canada has more vertical integration as well so these two sports channels are owned by the two biggest distributors (Bell and Rogers) who want to keep you from cutting the cord. One thing not mentioned yet is that if you watch the traditional networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX) then you can likely get them for free (as in both beer and speech) and in better quality via an antenna, at least if you live in or near a city. And the next gen of OTA, aka ATSC 3.0 is being rolled out across the US.My personal DVR is SageTV on a PC with two cable boxes and a few OTA tuners as well. You can get a DVR and use an app, like the HDHomeRun app to watch on the streaming boxes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
msgreenf Posted May 25, 2021 Share Posted May 25, 2021 And the cost of Philo just increased today! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cyknight Posted May 25, 2021 Share Posted May 25, 2021 On 5/24/2021 at 11:28 AM, ejn1 said: The savings add up in multi receiver home environments. Just to note that it is going to depend a lot on your provider/terms/contract if this matter at all. Not all providers (actually) charge for the boxes - in many cases you 'pay' $15 rental per box, and are then given a discount 'waiving' the $15 for each box... Figured I can share mine: My complete TV package is $105 (includes all regular specialty channels including all regular sports broadcasts, though none of the {your team/sport} specialty channels or movie channel packages) I 'pay' for 3 4k boxes at $15, but get discounted $15 for each box...so pay nothing. The direct bundle discount is $11 dollars, but I get an additional discount of $44 on the package bundling So now I'm down to $50 Add the discount on some of the streaming services because I pay them via my cable bill, counts to another $9. So now I'm paying $41 per months for access to 100+ channels, and ability to watch 3 different ones at a time (5 people household). Arguably I COULD use those boxes for all my streaming services as well (I don't, preferring Roku) - and I could up the number to 5 boxes for no added cost. I priced out what I would need to get in subscriptions to get a similar level of content (up and above Netflix, Disney+ and Amazon, though I have Prime for shipping so that is a sunk cost regardless) and I would be between $50-$70 depending on how picky I would want to be. And I would still lose some news channels, channel surfing (though losing commercials) which is desirable within my household - I could get some news channels for free, but as it's all more 'apps' to open and browse it's not very convenient. It would also have me lose some of my programming for going to certain specific channels on button presses, or schedule/wake-up based. So again: consider closely what you actually want and need, and what that will actually cost you - including discounts you may lose cutting the cord. Nothing against it mind you, but for me, I would be paying more or less the same and the choice is more between (losing commercials and gaining browsing) vs (less content and losing channel surfing/flipping) Of course, YMMV Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wnpublic Posted May 25, 2021 Share Posted May 25, 2021 Been over the top only for about three years. No regrets. No monthly rental fee for some cable box, I don't miss the hundreds of crap home shopping and home improvement channels on the cable box. House flippers Flip this house International flip this house Sell this house Million dollar listing Vanilla Ice Project.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ejn1 Posted May 25, 2021 Share Posted May 25, 2021 26 minutes ago, Cyknight said: Just to note that it is going to depend a lot on your provider/terms/contract if this matter at all. Not all providers (actually) charge for the boxes - in many cases you 'pay' $15 rental per box, and are then given a discount 'waiving' the $15 for each box... Figured I can share mine: My complete TV package is $105 (includes all regular specialty channels including all regular sports broadcasts, though none of the {your team/sport} specialty channels or movie channel packages) I 'pay' for 3 4k boxes at $15, but get discounted $15 for each box...so pay nothing. The direct bundle discount is $11 dollars, but I get an additional discount of $44 on the package bundling So now I'm down to $50 Add the discount on some of the streaming services because I pay them via my cable bill, counts to another $9. So now I'm paying $41 per months for access to 100+ channels, and ability to watch 3 different ones at a time (5 people household). Arguably I COULD use those boxes for all my streaming services as well (I don't, preferring Roku) - and I could up the number to 5 boxes for no added cost. I priced out what I would need to get in subscriptions to get a similar level of content (up and above Netflix, Disney+ and Amazon, though I have Prime for shipping so that is a sunk cost regardless) and I would be between $50-$70 depending on how picky I would want to be. And I would still lose some news channels, channel surfing (though losing commercials) which is desirable within my household - I could get some news channels for free, but as it's all more 'apps' to open and browse it's not very convenient. It would also have me lose some of my programming for going to certain specific channels on button presses, or schedule/wake-up based. So again: consider closely what you actually want and need, and what that will actually cost you - including discounts you may lose cutting the cord. Nothing against it mind you, but for me, I would be paying more or less the same and the choice is more between (losing commercials and gaining browsing) vs (less content and losing channel surfing/flipping) Of course, YMMV I'm going off memory for me but i had both Directv and Dish and both were about the same cost wise (Dish maybe a little cheaper). I had their top DVR box in 2 rooms and a 4K client box in 3 other rooms. The first 12 months had some discounts and such and the second 12 months those dropped and monthly amount started to approach what i mentioned before. All my boxes in both offerings were charged monthly and no way to avoid it with those providers. but as mentioned, if you are really working the DVR, eg constant FF/RW and commercial skip, the satellite is night and day better and the streaming service much worse. All things being equal and cost not an issue (or you can work a deal to mitigate cost), then satellite the way to go imo. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
msgreenf Posted May 25, 2021 Share Posted May 25, 2021 Have tivo and TiVo minis and pay a total of $2 a month for a cable card and then programming fees on top. I own my hardware no reason to rent crap boxes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ejn1 Posted May 26, 2021 Share Posted May 26, 2021 53 minutes ago, msgreenf said: Have tivo and TiVo minis and pay a total of $2 a month for a cable card and then programming fees on top. I own my hardware no reason to rent crap boxes. Doesnt Tivo charge a subscription or is it all in the initial equipment charge? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
msgreenf Posted May 26, 2021 Share Posted May 26, 2021 15 minutes ago, ejn1 said: Doesnt Tivo charge a subscription or is it all in the initial equipment charge? You can go either way. I bought used hardware w lifetime service ejn1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cyknight Posted May 26, 2021 Share Posted May 26, 2021 1 hour ago, wnpublic said: Been over the top only for about three years. No regrets. No monthly rental fee for some cable box, I don't miss the hundreds of crap home shopping and home improvement channels on the cable box. House flippers Flip this house International flip this house Sell this house Million dollar listing Vanilla Ice Project.... EXACTLY what my wife wants to watch Well maybe not the Vanilla Ice Ice Baby one. wnpublic 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
msgreenf Posted May 26, 2021 Share Posted May 26, 2021 Don't forget Maine cabin Masters wnpublic 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cyknight Posted May 26, 2021 Share Posted May 26, 2021 8 minutes ago, msgreenf said: Don't forget Maine cabin Masters Are those the ones making the insane treehouses? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
msgreenf Posted May 26, 2021 Share Posted May 26, 2021 8 hours ago, Cyknight said: Are those the ones making the insane treehouses? No no. Thats the treehouse guy. He is different Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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