Please help me sort out cable tv-free options, I am clueless!

[Hippoharbor]

Currently, my tv uses Att Uverse. My son only watches the kid channels. I watch TLC, Lifetime Movie Channel and local channels. I am tired of paying $140 for internet/cable, and have thought of canceling the cable service. What do I need to still watch these tv channels? I have been trying to figure out what Roku is all about. It looks like it allows you to stream hulu plus. I understand this requires a monthly fee, a lot less than cable fees.

Does hulu plus only allow you to watch previous seasons but not current season? For instance, I watch The Amazing Race, but it looks like Hulu only shows up to last season? How can my son watch all the current episodes of his shows?

Also, I record and watch Dr. Phil daily. Is there a way to do this? If I got a convertor box that allows me to view local channels live, how can you record programs? I currently use DVR with my cable for recording; do I have to get an outdated VHS player to record?

All advice appreciated.

[zukeypur]

I'll tell you what we have...

We have indoor antennas on the living room and bedroom TVs. I'm not sure what year they started making TVs HD capable, but one of ours is pretty old and we didn't need a converter box. We have an RCA antenna from best buy that is horrible, and a Leaf antenna that I got from amazon that picks up at least twice as many channels as the RCA. We currently get around 20 channels, but some are Spanish and/or duplicate.

For Netflix and other viewing services we have a Wii in the playroom, an Apple TV in DD1's room, a Roku in the bedroom and our living room TV is a (stupid) smart TV. I haven't used the Apple TV much at all, so I can't really compare that fairly to the Roku. I guess if you have a ton of Apple stuff it would be nice, but I really don't know. We had a chromecast that is currently sitting in a drawer. You can't stream amazon, so that knocks off half of what the kids watch. The Roku is awesome. We got the costco version that comes with Angry Birds and headphones. We mainly stream netflix, although sometimes we do use other services. Hulu Plus still has commercials in addition to a monthly fee which irritates me to no end. Therefore, I refuse to pay for it. If I were really into a show, however, I might pony up.

Really, the only channels we really miss are HBO and ESPN. HBO will be available next year, and if we REALLY want to watch a game (like when you live in TX and are a Green Bay fan) we go to a sports bar. One tab is cheaper than paying for cable.

As for DVR....I have no idea. I know some people use a computer but I'm not sure how. I know windows media player can act as a DVR, only because I read that earlier this week somewhere online.

I love the Roku, don't know much about the appleTV, and don't recommend the chromecast unless you just want to watch netflix and YouTube.

[elephantmeg]

we went down to basic cable only-so ABC/NBC/PBS is pretty much what we do. I do get dr Phil on some channel but no advice on recording there. We have amazon prime and netflix that we watch. The TV upstairs is mostly used by DS and it has a roku box that he has figured out quite easily and he watches stuff mostly on netflix. No current episodes but enough stuff. DD still will watch PBS and generally doesn't watch much TV. TV viewing has dropped off dramatically here and I'm OK with it! DH and I watch a mix of DVD series, prime and netflix. I did a sample of hulu plus and hated it but YMMV. The one show I wish I could get is cake boss. You can get old ones on netflix but I've watched them all!

[lele]

I believe that there are some versions of tivo that will allow you to record OTA using an antenna, but I don't know which ones.

[brittone2]

We haven't had cable in years. We use a combo of an antenna, hulu (not hulu plus), amazon Prime (watch on computer or hook computer up to TV on occasion), and network websites (we watch shows like the Good Wife on the cbs website if we don't catch them when they air on network tv).

There are some shows we pay for through iTunes or Amazon (Mad Men, for example). That is still a fraction of the price of cable, so I'm okay with occasionally ponying up for cable shows we want to see ASAP.

[daniele_ut]

Currently, my tv uses Att Uverse. My son only watches the kid channels. I watch TLC, Lifetime Movie Channel and local channels. I am tired of paying $140 for internet/cable, and have thought of canceling the cable service. What do I need to still watch these tv channels? I have been trying to figure out what Roku is all about. It looks like it allows you to stream hulu plus. I understand this requires a monthly fee, a lot less than cable fees.

Does hulu plus only allow you to watch previous seasons but not current season? For instance, I watch The Amazing Race, but it looks like Hulu only shows up to last season? How can my son watch all the current episodes of his shows?

Also, I record and watch Dr. Phil daily. Is there a way to do this? If I got a convertor box that allows me to view local channels live, how can you record programs? I currently use DVR with my cable for recording; do I have to get an outdated VHS player to record?

All advice appreciated.

We ditched cable over 3 years ago and really don't miss it at all. We have a Roku on the TV in the kitchen and use the Wii or Tivo to stream on our family room TV. Our Tivo is almost 10 years old so it only really streams Amazon and Netflix but the interface is clunky so the kids prefer to use the Wii. DH likes to stream Netflix on the Tivo because it's HD and the Wii is not. I don't really care most of the time. The newer Tivo interface is much better.


You can buy a 4 tuner Tivo Roamio and hook it up to a digital antenna. That's what we plan to do if our current Tivo ever dies. It's not cheap, but compared to the cost of cable it is. We paid for the lifetime Tivo service about 8 years ago and that has been worth it.

[bcafe]

We haven't had cable in over 5 years and don't miss it one bit. We stream Netflix through either a blu ray dvd player or a sony media box. We do have a digital antenna for DH to watch football and PBS watching.

[ExcitedMamma]

We cancelled DirectTv about two years ago now. We have Roku which is super easy to hook up to your tv and internet. Think of it like your smartphone, it's the platform for other things, called channels by Roku. You can get Hulu Plus for $7.99/mo and it will let you watch all the major network shows one day late, so you can see a show that aired Sunday night on Monday. That would include Fox, NBC, ABC and CW, but not CBS, I think Hulu is owned by the networks but not CBS. There will still be two or three commercials per show but I think less than on real live TV. Some Hulu shows are only available for a limited time and some are always there. Not a big deal if you like a show and will watch within 1-2 weeks.

Netflix is another add on channel and I think streaming only is also $7.99/mo but I think I read the price will be going up for new subscribers. I almost never watch it as it really never seems to have movies I want to watch, it seems even old movies aren't available, but it's what the kids watch almost exclusively. You can even set up a profile for a child to watch child only shows. DS has quickly figured out how to go around this and select one of our profiles though because his favorite shows like Lego are not allowed with the child rating so you would have to watch if you're worried about what a child can find (while I was showering came out to DS trying to watch The Wire which I've never seen not sure if that was Netflix or Amazon).

Amazon is another channel option and with Prime you have lots of free options. There are lots if shows that you have to pay to watch though. I love The Good Wife which is on CBS and The Big Bang Theory so I bought a season pass which is something like $24 per season for every episode so it still works out to be way less than all the channels I used to not watch and ad free which is great. Like Hulu they are available the next day. DD loves Doc McStuffins so I bought the season pass for it. Once you buy it it's always in your video library so yesterday DS watched a Halloween movie I'd bought last year.

PBS Kids also has a channel which is free so the kids can watch all those shows, although a lot of them are on Netflix too. Like Daniel Tiger is on Netflix and shows the whole show where PBS breaks it up and doesn't show the middle where they show real kids doing something.

If you look at Amazon for the Leaf antennae you can easily hook it up to your TV for local channels too. I'm a news junky and I like knowing I could check out things live if I wanted to, like a disaster or just the evening news. Or watch sports (Go Giants!) or parades.

Some shows are free for old seasons, like I watched all of 24 recently on Netflix but some you'd have to pay for it really will depend on the show. I've never checked Hulu for for daytime TV so I have no idea about that but it does have a lot of fun quirky British shows.

It's definitely cheaper and easier than cable. No stress about having to DVR things as everything is on demand and you only pay for what you actually want to watch.

[KrisM]

We are ditching cable this month. Just haven't done it. We just bought a Leaf antenna. Sam's Club has a 50 mile and a 25 mile packaged together for the same price Amazon has the 50 mile. We only have a few within 25 and many more in 50, so we wanted the 50. I think we'll try the 25 on the other tv and see if it gets 2-3 stations at least.

We also have Roku and Amazon Prime and Netflix streaming. We have a computer hooked up to the TV as well, so we can watch directly from the network stations as well. It's worked out very well for us and we haven't watched cable in a couple weeks. We kept it to be sure we would adjust well enough to no-cable