Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Have you cancelled your Cable / Satellite TV service?

scapegoat81 said:
Seems like Aereo is pointless for me cuz my Mohu antenna picks up pretty much all of my local HD channels.

Great idea/service tho. I may need it one day if I buy my next house where I can't pick up locals.
Click to expand...

I just hate the hassle of setting it up and taking up all that room - plus the built in DVR stuff is slick - prefer that as a web service
 
errol said:
What's the problem with red sox and MLB.TV? It looks pretty heavily advertised here: http://boston.redsox.mlb.com/mlb/subscriptions/index.jsp?c_id=bos Though it's kind of expensive...
Click to expand...

http://boston.redsox.mlb.com/mlb/subscriptions/index.jsp?c_id=bos#blackout

Basically, you can't watch the team that your local cable company owns the rights to show. So here, since NESN owns the rights to broadcast Red Sox games, anywhere NESN is available can't watch Red Sox games live on mlb.tv. Here is a map of which team is blacked out where: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:MLB_Blackout_Areas.png As you can see, some regions are considered to be in the market for more than one team, so they have several teams blackedout.

The only way around this that I know of is to use a proxy in the UK or something. Not exactly an elegant solution.
 
oneMadRssn said:
http://boston.redsox.mlb.com/mlb/subscriptions/index.jsp?c_id=bos#blackout

Basically, you can't watch the team that your local cable company owns the rights to show. So here, since NESN owns the rights to broadcast Red Sox games, anywhere NESN is available can't watch Red Sox games live on mlb.tv. Here is a map of which team is blacked out where: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:MLB_Blackout_Areas.png As you can see, some regions are considered to be in the market for more than one team, so they have several teams blackedout.

The only way around this that I know of is to use a proxy in the UK or something. Not exactly an elegant solution.
Click to expand...


Had no idea. That's messed up.
 
I stopped paying for cable a few years ago, and I've never looked back.

I mostly use things like Netflix and similar services for shows and movies. I do use a bit of "illegal" downloading as well, to be honest, but only for things I can't obtain from more legitimate methods.

I really don't miss cable at all. It's an obsolete technology, and much like the music industry, the cable industry is trying to hold on to the ways of the past, but they'll continue to get left behind until they adapt and evolve and catch up with the rest of the world.

There are three big reasons I got rid of cable. 1) I was paying for many channels, but most of them were simply repeats of other channels but in different time zones.

2) Cable's tiered system is stupid and archaic. Why should I pay for 30 channels I don't need simply so I can get to the next higher tier (in which there are only a handful of channels I want in the first place)

and 3) Ads. This is a big one. Why am I PAYING someone else to show ME ads???! Crazy! I'm even getting turned off from youtube due to the invasive ads (but hey at least youtube is free... paying someone else to waste 30% of my time with horrible advertising is preposterous).

So there you have it. :)
 
oneMadRssn said:
I would love to cut cable, and I tried a little while ago. I had two issues:
1. My setup could have been more elegant, but it wasn't girlfriend-friendly.
2. The mlb.tv backout rule.

Issue 1 can be solved with money; it seems aTV + eyeTV + Services would be fine.

Issue 2 cannot be solved easily at the moment. I would absolutely subscribe to mlb.tv every year if they would just not black out my local team!
Click to expand...

An easy solution is a smart VPN such as unblock us or unotelly. It's "smart" in that it is only activated when its needs to be, unlike something like hotspot shield which is either on or off. I myself set it up on my router, and now all my apple TVs and iPads can play NHL MLB or nfl without the blackout restrictions. Sadly it doesn't work for nba, so for this I have to manually turn on hotspot shield when a game is blocked out
 
scapegoat81 said:
Seems like Aereo is pointless for me cuz my Mohu antenna picks up pretty much all of my local HD channels.

Great idea/service tho. I may need it one day if I buy my next house where I can't pick up locals.
Click to expand...

For most, it's not about access to those channels (because you're right, you could just use an antenna). It's about the DVR capability.
 
linds15 said:
An easy solution is a smart VPN such as unblock us or unotelly. It's "smart" in that it is only activated when its needs to be, unlike something like hotspot shield which is either on or off. I myself set it up on my router, and now all my apple TVs and iPads can play NHL MLB or nfl without the blackout restrictions. Sadly it doesn't work for nba, so for this I have to manually turn on hotspot shield when a game is blocked out
Click to expand...

Dude.... you may have just showed me the light.
 
GarrettL1979 said:
For most, it's not about access to those channels (because you're right, you could just use an antenna). It's about the DVR capability.
Click to expand...

It is totally about ease of access and ease of use - there are setups you could do with EyeTV on the Mac, but for those like me that don't want to make a big hassle out of watching TV - Aereo is great.

I'm so tired of messing around with crap just to watch video entertainment - Aereo is great
 
musicpenguy said:
It is totally about ease of access and ease of use - there are setups you could do with EyeTV on the Mac, but for those like me that don't want to make a big hassle out of watching TV - Aereo is great.

I'm so tired of messing around with crap just to watch video entertainment - Aereo is great
Click to expand...

Exactly.

That said, I still haven't tried Aereo, so hopefully I'm not getting ahead of myself here!
 
I haven't checked all the posts here, but is there anyone outside North America (assuming Canada is catered for) that has cancelled ?
 
I was without cable for about 6 months, but I missed a lot of sports and ended up going to the bar to watch them. So net cost was higher than if I just kept cable!
 
It's been 1.5 years now since I've been without DirecTV or any kind of TV service in my house.

I refuse to pay $75 per month just to watch my local news and reruns of Roseanne and Cops.

I work nights anyways so I have always preferred to buy my most favorite shows in iTunes. This coming season will be a bit less expensive though with no Office or 30 Rock. I only have a few other shows that are still current that I do buy episodes of.

I really don't care about sports so that's really never a concern.
 
linds15 said:
An easy solution is a smart VPN such as unblock us or unotelly. It's "smart" in that it is only activated when its needs to be, unlike something like hotspot shield which is either on or off. I myself set it up on my router, and now all my apple TVs and iPads can play NHL MLB or nfl without the blackout restrictions. Sadly it doesn't work for nba, so for this I have to manually turn on hotspot shield when a game is blocked out
Click to expand...

How do you use hotspot shield on the Apple TV? I'd like to purchase nba league pass next season, but it sounds like AirPlay won't work.
 
GarrettL1979 said:
How do you use hotspot shield on the Apple TV? I'd like to purchase nba league pass next season, but it sounds like AirPlay won't work.
Click to expand...

To clear things up as I may not have been clear. I have unblock us setup on my router so that my Apple TV app things it's in the states, enabling American Netflix and Hulu. For MLB and NHL, it lifts any blackout restrictions. I am in Canada so I do not have chess to the native nba app, and instead stream from the international gametime app. It airplays to my atv just fine, and if there is a blackout for a game, I turn hotspot shield on and circumvent it. For NFL there is no ATV app, nor an Nfl game pass app it canada or the us, but there is in the uk. With a uk account I downloaded the app, and stream games fto my atv. For this unblock us lifts blackouts
 
Yes and once you have the UK gamepass app, an NFL Gamepass account and unblockus you may then Airplay NFL games to the ATV. I did it all last season.
 
Yes, when I realized I could buy ~ 1 full season from HBO on DVD or iTunes every month and still come out ahead vs. paying for TV. It was also while I was working on my dissertation, so less distracting TV = win.

We've been purely Amazon Prime/Hulu/iTunes/Netflix for about a year now, and I really don't regret it.
 
cut it 3 1/2 years ago when I bought my appleTV 2nd gen. anything I need I can watch on netflix, YouTube, rent it off iTunes, rent from redbox or torrent the newest top gear here and there.

I'm paying 20 bucks a month now for Internet and about 100 cable channels, maybe 10 (major networks mostly) #stickinittotheman
 
StinDaWg said:
You have to subscribe to DirecTV to get that deal.
Click to expand...

Nope, you don't need Directv to get this deal. One of the many faqs on the internet are below. Let's say for some reason it doesn't work, Amazon has the best return policy on the planet. Worth getting it in my book.

http://www.fatwallet.com/Amazon-cou...-year-of-directv-nfl-sunday-ticket-400-value/

Also, from the EA Faq:
Is a DIRECTV subscription necessary in order to view NFL Sunday Ticket via computer, mobile or tablet?

No, it is not necessary to have a DIRECTV subscription. Each Anniversary Edition aspecial code for eligible gamers giving them the opportunity to unlock a special, 2013 regular season (17 weeks) trial of NFL Sunday Ticket on computer, tablet and mobile devices.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back