Any Netflix subscribers?
I thought about bundling cable, phone and internet but my son put his foot down with “look at all the times cable goes out so phone and internet would go out too”. So three separate bills. Our tv’s are old, pre flat screen but still work just fine. I hunted around to find a roku that would work with the old ones and it’s just fine. I did order netflix and for two so that my sister could also stream from my account. My sister considered cable but the cable companies would all charge to lay cable in her large yard in the burbs so she’s antenna tv. She gets as many if not more channels than I do with cable but being by a large city is an advantage. Every year they seem to add more channels. Some of her channels are better than mine. She loads free channels on her roku especially those that don’t always come in on antenna.
Dd just introduced her bf to antenna tv. Again, outside of a major city. She figured out what his channels were and he’s thrilled to have tv and no bill.
I have to second @anomander 's question. We DVR a lot of the network shows and watch them later (fast forwarding through all the ads). We also DVR the games most of the time. Is this something you can do with the streaming options? Or just not feasible?
We have Dish, which we’re generally happy with, but I’ve been curious about Sling. We have the Dish “Welcome Pack” with a DVR & a basic receiver for a second TV, plus a service plan (which reduces service calls from $95 to $10), for which we pay just under $50/mo. With Sling, do you get local channels or do you need the antenna? Also, can you record, pause and rewind live TV? That’s pretty much why we’ve stayed with Dish because I don’t think I’m ready to give up my DVR. We also have a Roku on one TV with Netflix & Amazon Prime.
Most streaming services offer cloud DVR.
You cannot get your local channels with Sling.
With Sling, you will need a pancake antenna. We can see the tips of the transmitter towers from our kitchen window (lol), so it works great for us.
BTW, Sling is a Dish product.
Here is a good summary.
https://www.cnet.com/news/sling-tv-everything-you-need-to-know/
Thanks for the link @BunsenBurner. I thought they were somehow related, but wasn’t sure. I’ll have to look into this some more, but it’s all so complicated!
No, Sling doesn’t have your local channels except the traffic feeds. I just got a TV antenna from Best Buy for $29, and I now have all the local channels that I need. Sling does offer cloud DVR for $5 a month. I haven’t tried it, but I’ll have to assume that it works just like any DVR’s.
Sling doesn’t have it for several (all?) ESPN and Disney channels and On Demand. Cloud is $5/mo. You can look at the web site. https://help.sling.com/en/support/solutions/articles/33000219216-how-does-dvr-on-sling-tv-work-
The On Demand offers a lot of repeat or missed watching. In some cases, when an episode is still current, you do have to wait. That’s network dependent.
Here’s a quick snapshot of all the major streaming services (scroll down to the chart):
https://www.techhive.com/article/3211536/streaming-services/best-tv-streaming-services.html
The type of antenna you need will depend on your location. We went to Denny’s Antennas in Michigan…just went to their website. My husband plugged in the info of our location and such. We could not use the cheap $20 antenna because we live in the woods, down a hill and no where near a transmitting TV station of any kind. But ours only cost $180 and it’s great.
The flat antenna would have given us no channels at all…but the one we got…a Super something works very well.
If you are fortunate enough to live in a flat location where TV transmission is sort of nearby…you probably can go less costly than out $180.
But really…a $180 one time cost sure beat our cable costs…and the reception is much better…much!
We have Google Fiber for internet and TV, magic jack for phone. I’ve got to have cable because that’s the only way to watch my local Major league baseball which is the fabric of my summers. I don’t have any premium channels because I rarely watch movies. I do have Netflix and Amazon because I already have prime. I think we pay about $130 but I’d have to look. I can think of a lot of things I’d cut out of my budget before I’d give up baseball.
Right, you need to check proximity to a station to see if a flat antenna will bring in that channel. I think Sling links to a table for that, but lots of ways to check if you’re in range.
Thumper, are you getting any cable stations? My decision point was the cable programming. Most of my local (other than the 3 main networks and PBS) is small regional interest channels. I get NBC on Sling, but the flat antenna brings in CBS and ABC. Again, we are within easy rang of those towers.
Google Fiber is in the works to offer an internet (10+ times faster) and 150 Channels bundle service in my area for $150 per month. I am going to be one of the earliest subscribers. @Wellspring Dies Google TV show tennis and EPL soccer? Where can I go to see Google TV channels?
My son hooked by sisters “rabbit ears” up to a switch box and also hooked up the old tv antenna that’s in the attic up to the switch. This way if the rabbit ears are not working well, she can throw the switch and us the attic one. I would love to get rid of comcast but dishes are banned in my subdivision and the city picks who supplies the cable tv, so no choice or price competition. Internet providers are also limited by the city.
We get all the networks and PBS using our antenna. Everything else is purchased a la carte. We use Sling, and have a Roku stick…so we can use Netflix and the like.
We can purchase some of the old cable channels on Sling, but haven’t done so yet. No…I take that back…we did buy whatever the NCAA March madness was on last March. The finals are in network TV.
We also just stream stuff from our laptop…and that works well too.
@anomander ABC and NBC, along with Fox and CW, have free apps where you can watch on your schedule. CBS is not.
@arisamp With the cloud DVRs, sometimes you can fast forward through the commercials and sometimes not. It seems to be network/show dependent and also whether the provider has it On Demand and pulls it from there.
You can go to Googlefiber.com to see the channel offerings.