Sling Tv vs Direct Tv Now

[victorian1111]

Sling Tis better. I use it right now and how no problems in work

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

With this thread resurrecting and having several old posts from me pushing traditional options by working them to get long-term promotional pricing, I'll now chip in that my own setup has shifted to a new option (that I'd now recommend for OP given he's in Houston with well over 130 local channels flying around his airwaves for free AND he already has Xfinity service as I do)...

• HDHomeRun boxes from Silicon Dust. These are boxes you can plug into your home network and stream either OTA (local) channels and/or cable to any TVs and now Amazon Fire in the home. I picked up both their Prime box (for Xfinity cable programming) and their Extends (for OTA local channels & subchannels). They now have a Quatro product that has 4 local OTA tuners in one box, unlike those Extends which are only 2 tuners.
• The $25 Channels App. Most people look right over it because they can't imagine paying $25 for a TV app but it brings ALL of the programming from those HDHomeRun boxes together in an attractive (cable TV-like) UNIFIED, on-screen guide, merging OTA locals with Cable channels. This app allows you to put your channels in any order, set up a FAV channel list, hide any channels you don't want, etc.
• The $8/month Channels App DVR- a full-featured, traditional hardware-like DVR that brings all of those key features NOT available on virtual DVRs to any TV in the house. Your DVR capacity is then NOT limited to ANY size- just add hard drives- and the recorded programming is accessible on ANY TV or computer or mobile device.

Some key benefits:

• HD video with 5.1 Surround Sound- home theater is still a home theater. Discrete sound instead of fake surround is coming out of the correct speakers. Video generally won't hiccup.
• Not one byte burned against the broadband cap.
• No cable lease box rentals (which is where a LOT of the cord cutting cost pain is most prevalent)
• A "real" DVR without limitations like having to watch recordings within X amount of days, not being able to skip commercials, etc. All the videos are accessible, not in some proprietary format (they can even be run through HB if desired). No waiting a few hours or a few days to be able to watch something- I can start watching any recording immediately.
• Mobile devices and computers are fully supported too.
• I still have "triple play" pricing (minus leased boxes) so it's overall cheaper
• I have ALL of the channels I want rather than compromising by doing without some favorites.
• The setup is traditional & simple, rather than having to lean on hopping app to app and/or box to box. Less tech savvy people in the household don't need a seminar to learn where they can find their favored programming or use this box/app for this show and this box/app for that show and switch to this input for this show but this input for that show, etc.
• Hiding all of the bundled channels I never want to watch is easy, leaving me with a nice clean guide of only the desired channels I would buy if the al-a-carte (let me pick only the channels I want) dream existed now. I've put them in my desired order too (including bundling together select locals and cable channels as applicable), rather than getting them in some default order.
• When broadband is down, I still have up to all of the channels and access to ALL of the DVR recordings. If broadband is down such that it takes cable with it, I still have ALL of the local OTA channels + DVR recordings.
• I can feed any number of TVs in the house without adding a lease box to every one (or any) of them (they will need an TV or Amazon Fire stick though).
• Since I still have a cable subscription, apps dependent on a cable service authentication work too.
• And many more.

Back when I was investigating this "cord cutting" option, I was very close to going with Playstation Vue (as seemingly best of that kind of service). I'm so glad I went this way instead. It may seem like a lot of things to coordinate but, once it's set up, it is really great. It may be a bit scary when you look at the hardware & software outlays, but almost all of that is ONE time.

For OP, he can get rid of ALL Infinity box lease fees, switching to as little as a single Xfinity cablecard to go in a HDHomeRun Prime box. If OP buys his own modem, he'll save the modem lease fee. Since he will still have an Xfinity "double play" or maybe "triple play" service, that service will just cost less by getting hardware fees out of his bill. If he follows earlier advice, he should be able to get Comcast to give him promotional rates for 1-2 years at a time instead of paying more than those rates. The xfinity tv mobile app gets all of those channels playable on mobile devices and many of those channels playable away from home too (there's also a Channels app for iOS mobile devices too). The competitive fallback if Xfinity won't give him promotional rates can STILL be earlier recommendations such as DISH if op doesn't want to compromise benefits like 5.1 surround, full benefits of a DVR (without virtual DVR compromises) and access to his local channels at better resolution than he'll get from any alternative.

Did I "cut the cord" per the general definition? No, but almost no one is really cutting their cord either (because they still need broadband to make even a Netflix-only option work). What this does do is cut the price without some big compromises while still working great through TVs.