With all the posts and such about IPTV being the wave of the future and even to a growing extent, a wave that is ongoing, I thought I would do a month long trial with IPTV only.
Currently I’m on cable with retail Tivo gear and am happy with it, but the bill keeps climbing and I’m not too far away from the end of my bundling ‘deal’.
First up is what to replace my cable channel supplier. I did a look at my recording schedules on my main Tivo to determine which channels I have recordings scheduled for. Surprising it was only 9 channels!
So my must have cable channels are AMC, SyFy, TBS, USA, BBC, FX, IFC and Paramount. Other cable channels are watched but not often and the bulk of the others aren’t watched at all.
I found that Sling Blue fit the bill. Cheap at $30/month with DVR service and has those 9 channels plus some others I’ll watch on rarer occasions. So I’m on a one month trial @$20.
Local channels. These were easy! I’ve got an antenna that gets some of them, but I’ve ordered an outdoor one that will get them all. And for DVR, I have a Tivo Bolt with Lifetime service that will handle that quite well.
Premiums are a big part of my current bill and the only way to reduce their impact is to subscribe to them sparingly and binge watch series. Not a big deal to do with streaming.
Sports are an issue for streaming, but I’m a very casual viewer of any sports. Sling Blue has a few sports channels, and are enough to satisfy my appetite for sports.
Add in a few ad-supported services and I’ll have more than enough to watch. I also already subscribe to basic Hulu, basic CBS All Access, Netflix, Amazon Prime and Epix. I’ve also done the 3-year Disney+ deal so that’s paid for for 3 years from launch date at a very attractive price. All of those would be subscribed to regardless of moving away from cable or not so are not part of the financials.
I’m doing the month so I can see what impact on internet bandwidth usage it will have. Currently on a 2TB bandwidth cap so I should be OK and see no increase in internet cost.
Financially it looks like this:
Current cableTV : $90 approximately with all taxes & fees.
If I change that to closer match what a streaming/OTA deal would look like, then that would drop to about $50 under the current bundling deal. After the deal drops off I think it would be about $90.
Streaming/OTA:
Sling Blue w/DVR : $30
It seems to be a no brainer to make the switch and it surely is from a financial standpoint. But there is more convenience in cable/sat IMO, and that’s worth something.
Downside to all streaming is potential rise in internet bill if bandwidth is exceeded. I’m used to turning on the TV in the early morning and leaving it on until about 10PM. I don’t actually watch it that much in the daytime, but it is noise in the house which is nice for those of us that live solo IMO. Usually the TV is tuned to one of the incessant reruns on various channels.
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro
Currently I’m on cable with retail Tivo gear and am happy with it, but the bill keeps climbing and I’m not too far away from the end of my bundling ‘deal’.
First up is what to replace my cable channel supplier. I did a look at my recording schedules on my main Tivo to determine which channels I have recordings scheduled for. Surprising it was only 9 channels!
So my must have cable channels are AMC, SyFy, TBS, USA, BBC, FX, IFC and Paramount. Other cable channels are watched but not often and the bulk of the others aren’t watched at all.
I found that Sling Blue fit the bill. Cheap at $30/month with DVR service and has those 9 channels plus some others I’ll watch on rarer occasions. So I’m on a one month trial @$20.
Local channels. These were easy! I’ve got an antenna that gets some of them, but I’ve ordered an outdoor one that will get them all. And for DVR, I have a Tivo Bolt with Lifetime service that will handle that quite well.
Premiums are a big part of my current bill and the only way to reduce their impact is to subscribe to them sparingly and binge watch series. Not a big deal to do with streaming.
Sports are an issue for streaming, but I’m a very casual viewer of any sports. Sling Blue has a few sports channels, and are enough to satisfy my appetite for sports.
Add in a few ad-supported services and I’ll have more than enough to watch. I also already subscribe to basic Hulu, basic CBS All Access, Netflix, Amazon Prime and Epix. I’ve also done the 3-year Disney+ deal so that’s paid for for 3 years from launch date at a very attractive price. All of those would be subscribed to regardless of moving away from cable or not so are not part of the financials.
I’m doing the month so I can see what impact on internet bandwidth usage it will have. Currently on a 2TB bandwidth cap so I should be OK and see no increase in internet cost.
Financially it looks like this:
Current cableTV : $90 approximately with all taxes & fees.
If I change that to closer match what a streaming/OTA deal would look like, then that would drop to about $50 under the current bundling deal. After the deal drops off I think it would be about $90.
Streaming/OTA:
Sling Blue w/DVR : $30
It seems to be a no brainer to make the switch and it surely is from a financial standpoint. But there is more convenience in cable/sat IMO, and that’s worth something.
Downside to all streaming is potential rise in internet bill if bandwidth is exceeded. I’m used to turning on the TV in the early morning and leaving it on until about 10PM. I don’t actually watch it that much in the daytime, but it is noise in the house which is nice for those of us that live solo IMO. Usually the TV is tuned to one of the incessant reruns on various channels.
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro
