So, I am going to be moving to a new place of my own soon, and I am considering using this as an opportunity to try going cable/satellite free.
What is the current state of living without cable or satellite TV?
I have a netflix account, and Amazon Prime. But what about sports? Regular TV? ESPN? HBO?
What are the options with things like Apple TV?
Quote from: Berkut on March 23, 2017, 03:20:15 PM
I have a netflix account, and Amazon Prime. But what about sports? Regular TV? ESPN? HBO?
What are the options with things like Apple TV?
Sports are the reason I still have cable.
It depends which sports you want to watch. I'm a hockey fan, and my team is "out of market", so I watch 80-90% of games on the Apple TV using the NHL App - cost was ~$200 for the season. Unfortunately, the remaining games, and any playoffs, are only on cable.
I know MLB has a similar set-up - you can pay a fee and watch out-of-market games to your hearts content, but again - no playoffs.
Pretty sure NFL has no on-line viewing options. I know CFL (Not that you care) is exclusively on cable. I have no clue about NCAA or NBA.
Aside from Sports, my wife relies on iTunes for the odd show that Netflix doesn't watch. She'll buy a season for Walking Dead or Game of Thrones, and be able to watch it 24 hours after it shows on cable. Of course iTunes isn't all that cheap, but if there are only a few shows like that you absolutely have to watch it's viable.
Of course there's a whole world of illicit streams and torrents, but I don't partake in those. :goodboy:
Yes. Sports wise streams are plentiful but I'm not familiar with a decent legal way.
Take just the sports package?
Quote from: Barrister on March 23, 2017, 03:58:21 PM
Quote from: Berkut on March 23, 2017, 03:20:15 PM
I have a netflix account, and Amazon Prime. But what about sports? Regular TV? ESPN? HBO?
What are the options with things like Apple TV?
Sports are the reason I still have cable.
It depends which sports you want to watch. I'm a hockey fan, and my team is "out of market", so I watch 80-90% of games on the Apple TV using the NHL App - cost was ~$200 for the season. Unfortunately, the remaining games, and any playoffs, are only on cable.
I know MLB has a similar set-up - you can pay a fee and watch out-of-market games to your hearts content, but again - no playoffs.
Pretty sure NFL has no on-line viewing options. I know CFL (Not that you care) is exclusively on cable. I have no clue about NCAA or NBA.
Aside from Sports, my wife relies on iTunes for the odd show that Netflix doesn't watch. She'll buy a season for Walking Dead or Game of Thrones, and be able to watch it 24 hours after it shows on cable. Of course iTunes isn't all that cheap, but if there are only a few shows like that you absolutely have to watch it's viable.
Of course there's a whole world of illicit streams and torrents, but I don't partake in those. :goodboy:
Sportsnet has a 25$/month streaming package.
http://www.sportsnet.ca/now/
For sports I am thinking buying the Pac-12 sub pretty much will cover 90% of what I care about.
Sports is the great anchor because of the need to be live. Everything else can be acquired in different shady & non-shady ways.
If the Pac-12 sub is fine for you than cut, cut, cut!
Quote from: Berkut on March 23, 2017, 03:20:15 PM
So, I am going to be moving to a new place of my own soon, and I am considering using this as an opportunity to try going cable/satellite free.
What is the current state of living without cable or satellite TV?
I have a netflix account, and Amazon Prime. But what about sports? Regular TV? ESPN? HBO?
What are the options with things like Apple TV?
Here's a good guide to do it the legitimate way:
http://www.tomsguide.com/us/cord-cutting-guide,news-17928.html
And here's a site with relevant info for the Canadians:
http://cutcord.ca/
A combination of Sling/Vue (both have ESPN and some other stuff) + an HD antenna will bring in a decent amount of sports.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on March 24, 2017, 10:22:39 AM
A combination of Sling/Vue (both have ESPN and some other stuff) + an HD antenna will bring in a decent amount of sports.
all that being said, with a range of competitive streaming services each offering their own exclusivities, I fear it's going to cost just as much as regulard cable/satellite, if you want to do it legally.
HD antennas are fantastic. Best picture you'll get on your TV.
But MM has a point: going a la carte with streaming service subscriptions (legitimately) can wind up costing damned near as much as the cable services themselves.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on March 24, 2017, 12:59:05 PM
HD antennas are fantastic. Best picture you'll get on your TV.
only good for those people living in cramp quarters inside huge, inhuman cities ;)
Seeds is suburban.
Quote from: viper37 on March 24, 2017, 10:57:07 PM
Quote from: CountDeMoney on March 24, 2017, 12:59:05 PM
HD antennas are fantastic. Best picture you'll get on your TV.
only good for those people living in cramp quarters inside huge, inhuman cities ;)
It's not a compressed video signal, fuckstick. You honestly think you're getting 1080 through that little wire? Ignorant ass fuck cuntfuck.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on March 25, 2017, 03:27:20 PM
It's not a compressed video signal, fuckstick.
All HD signals are compressed when transmitted to the antenna that pushes the signal to you. Otherwise it just too big to transmit. Even blu rays are compressed video&audio, it's a lossless compression algorithm though.
Quote
You honestly think you're getting 1080 through that little wire? Ignorant ass fuck cuntfuck.
Nope, I am not. I have satellite tv, wich is 720p for most channels and 1080i for some. And yes, the image quality is horrible.
To get 1080p or 4k for some on demand tv, I would need to switch provided, but then I'd lose half the channels I like and pay more for their services. I actually get better video quality with illegal downloads and streaming than through legitimate services.
Those who live in the city have access to fiber optic cable and it delivers 1080p video signal on all channels, with a lossless compression format. It's the same quality as what you receive with an HD antenna.
At last, I will say that my remark was only to point that HD antenna signals are not available everywhere, and even in some suburban counties, there might not be much of a choice.
I have heard lots of good things about Kodi (https://kodi.tv/download/ - used to be xbmc) and the Exodus plugin (https://www.tvaddons.ag/kodi-addons/show/plugin.video.exodus/).
Kodi is great. Anything from TVaddons falls either into a very grey area or downright illegal.
Although you may not need it, a VPN is highly recommended to use these streaming sites.
I think they way it works in the US, is anything you can catch with over-the-air HD antenna is free to download, but stuff on cable is obviously not free.
Why would one want a VPN?
Not get sued.
Quote from: Berkut on March 28, 2017, 02:08:28 PM
Why would one want a VPN?
When downloading torrents, law firms specializing in copyright cases are "snooping" the packets transmitted from popular trackers.
When they see your IP adress, they asked the ISP for your coordinates, and in the US, they are mandated by law to transmit all your personal information. They now also have the right to sell everything about you to advertisers, but that's another debate.
Bottom line is, law firms monitor torrent site, they see IP 268.28.29.207 downloading "Rogue One Blu Ray 4k BD-RIP" (they have algorythms to search for these downloads), they submit a request to your ISP to identify the owner of this IP adress at the the time of the download, then they ask Disney and/or the MPAA if they can sue you on their behalf, and in many cases, in the US, they will. Or they will sue the ISP and the ISP will sue you.
So a VPN will protect your identity. When such a request is sent to the ISP, they will send them the coordinates the VPN server has returned, not yours. Good VPNs don't keep any logs.
If you do things legally, there is of course no need to bother with a VPN. Except if you don't like your name, adress, phone number, e-mail and browsing habits to be sold to a 3rd party.
Quote from: viper37 on March 29, 2017, 02:17:41 PM
If you do things legally, there is of course no need to bother with a VPN. Except if you don't like your name, adress, phone number, e-mail and browsing habits to be sold to a 3rd party.
Disagree. If one wants to get around region-locking, but for services that are otherwise legal and legitimate, you may wish to get a VPN. E.g. you want to get access to Netflix's catalogue in a different country, you want to view British tv shows locked to the UK-only, to get around region restrictions on your NHL/MLB account, that sort of thing.
Is this a hardware VPN typically? Something sitting between your modem and router?
Quote from: Berkut on March 29, 2017, 03:10:44 PM
Is this a hardware VPN typically? Something sitting between your modem and router?
Wife got a software VPN to get around Canadian Netflix.
Quote from: Barrister on March 29, 2017, 02:43:17 PM
Quote from: viper37 on March 29, 2017, 02:17:41 PM
If you do things legally, there is of course no need to bother with a VPN. Except if you don't like your name, adress, phone number, e-mail and browsing habits to be sold to a 3rd party.
Disagree. If one wants to get around region-locking,
That is totally illegal as per US and international copyright rules. Even if it's not available here, you can't use any methods to circumvent geo block.
It's still technically illegal in Canada, I guess, but there's a ruling on that, so it's not really enforced and the government has been unable to come up with a new solution that would protect consumer rights and copyrights holders.
but it is still nominally illegal. You just won't get such a case on your desk anytime soon.
Quote
E.g. you want to get access to Netflix's catalogue in a different country, you want to view British tv shows locked to the UK-only, to get around region restrictions on your NHL/MLB account, that sort of thing.
That is against Netflix official policy. And against the NHL/MLB rules since they gave media contracts to specific services for specific regions.
As I said, you don't really need a VPN for legal and legitimate reasons, outside of protecting your privacy from advertising.
Quote from: Berkut on March 29, 2017, 03:10:44 PM
Is this a hardware VPN typically? Something sitting between your modem and router?
Just a software one.
You can get a comparison and reviews of some services here:
https://www.bestvpn.com/best-vpn-services/
There is a reddit thread on this topic also : https://www.reddit.com/r/VPN/comments/5lwze3/rvpn_recommendations_megathread/ with a link to pretty comprehensive spreadsheet comparing various VPN providers
Very nice site. A bit misleading about cooperation though.
What's important are the DNS leaks and logging. If your VPN provider does not keep logs and protects you against DNS leaks, you will generally be safe.