Who has done away with Cable or Satellite TV?
 

Hey All,

I just cancelled my Bell service, because I mean ... seriously, $100 a month and all I watch is hockey games in the winter.

Has anyone else done away with TV all together? Are there alternatives to Bell and Shaw for Television programming these days and is there anyone that doesn't make you buy all the advanced packages to get the NHL Center Ice package.

I figure people must find better alternatives ... I'd love to hear what they are. I definitely don't watch enough to justify the cost ... but does anyone offer a pick and play package where you can get only the channels you use?

Had StarChoice (later changed name to Shaw Direct).

Cancelled it a couple of years ago due to poor service, deceptive billing etc.

No cable or satellite service since then. Use Netflix for the kids. Adults have no time to watch TV anyway.

Managed to watch a bit of the World Cup soccer on cbc.ca

I hear ya there ... we just never really watch TV.

I'd love to find a place that would allow me to purchase CBC, TSN, and my NHL Center ice haha ... since all I watch is hockey

Are there online providers that anyone is aware of? Can you live stream hockey from anywhere for a fee?

I don't have cable or satellite , if I do need to watch something it's prob a movie streamed online or a documentary on YouTube :)

No time for full cable most nights there's nothing on tv being watched at all lol

I just dumbed my shaw down to basic cable. Recently purchased a media box called 'Ouya' from amazon. Installed XBMC on it and haven't looked back. Any TV show or movie is available to stream instantly, free of charge. Full seasons of shows, old or new, are available.

ive never had cable

I use this
http://www.monoprice.com/Product?c_i...seq=1&format=2

I get all the 7 HD off the air channels in Edmonton, plus I use XBMC

quit watching tv 3 years ago .

Been over a year now since I cancelled my cable.

Cancled cable and home phone, all I got in the internet, loving it

I have basic cable. Mainly use Apple TV that's jailbroken. Get any show, movie, sports, documentary known to man!


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Very interesting this XBMC
Will look into this soon. Am getting tired of paying through the nose for not much value.

Yup i have apple TV and a jail broken iPad i stream movie box too.. epic

I use an antenna for local and a jailbroken Atv with xbmc and hulu for everything else

I'm about to cancel, just waiting for the World Cup to end. I'll be calling Shaw shortly so my next bill is for internet only. It's the only bill I have that takes money a month in advance, before actually providing the service. How do they even get away with that?

I recently purchased a HomeWorX box which has an ATSC tuner since my older TV does not have an internal ATSC tuner. Only two over the air HD channels available here, but I don't care. I'll be fine with the local channels & news and get everything else via the net.

So tired of paying for basic cable & being charged for watching garbage TV laced with advertising. I'd love the ability to pick & choose a few channels as well, but none of the big providers work that way. You have pay for the basic crap & extra for the channels worth watching. I wonder who actually watches all the nonsense offered up these days as entertainment. Reality shows? Get out of the house, there's plenty of reality out there for free. Hopefully the trend of cancellations will continue & they get a wake up call. They've had it too good for too long. Heck, Shaw owns at least one network & I assume Bell owns a few of their own. No idea about Telus.

Net-only here. No cell service (keeping the old phone on for when I'm out of town), no decent tv service (and I watch all my stuff, limited as it is, online anyway), and a landline for work contact. Nice and simple, and leaves way more money for the tank! :P

I didn't have any TV all through university. Afterwards when I moved in with my now fiancée we got it... I've been pushing to cancel it ever since. The ever rising bill that those leeches at Telus send us each month makes me cringe. I really want to get rid of the landline as well as we both have cell phones.

XBMC on my ouya! Super cheap way to have xbmc on a tv other htan hdmi through lappy

Problem with XBMC is the legality of it. Just like torrent's you could be sued for downloading copyrighted material. They are starting to bring lawsuits against people downloading this material.

http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/04...perts-worried/

We canceled the dish about two years ago and our land lines two months ago. Mostly because of rising cost and strange charges . Plus there was not much to watch on the dish anyway. We save well over 200$ a month prob close too 300$ we use net flicks and I am going to look into use ing Xbmc

Some REALLY disturbing privacy issues identified in that article.

Who has done away with Cable or Satellite TV?
 

Never seemed to watch a whole show because of too many commercials. Would get bored and flick. Don't miss cable one bit.

Finally made the call to cancel Cable TV portion of my service, effective end month. Like pulling hen's teeth, what a rigamarole/run around. Funny how you're able make any addition or change online, but have to stay on hold on the phone for 15 minutes & go through 2 people to cancel part of a service.

A couple of evenings ago, a rep called to try & upsell me. Go figure. I wonder if any of the company execs are listening?

You only had to wait 15 minutes?
I should switch:biggrin:

We got rid of cable a long time ago. It seemed ridiculous having to pay extra $$ for a special package of 5 or 6 chanels on top of the basic, just so that we could watch one show once a week for a few months.

We ended up just getting the apple TV box, and watch stuff on netflix/itunes.

We aren't big TV people, and it's more cost effective for us to just purchase the seasons on itunes or watch stuff on netflix.

XBMC is perfectly legal to have and use.

Saying XBMC in it self is illegal is a bit like saying your car is illegal because you can speed.

They are bring lawsuits against the downloaders, not XBMC.

That is why I further clarified my comment about downloading copyrighted materials which is basically how you get the movies and tv shows you want to watch without paying for cable. :)

gave up tv years ago and been watching the odd movies on Appletv and have a couple boxes running XBMC.XBMC n computer and laptops as well...:biggrin:

Any one ever wonder why TV programming isn't free since big corporations pay alot of money to have their commerals on the shows and sports we watch ? And we watch them even tho we pay for our programing?

Exactly! This is why Netflix is popular. If you pay there are no commercials. Hopefully, this is the future of entertainment.

So I've been off the cable TV for almost 2 months now. Took a while for the cable guy to finally disconnect or 'filter' my connection. Ironically in the news recently Rogers & Shaw execs are whining to the CRTC about going slow to implement pick & choose programming. It seems services like Netflix are finally starting to light a flame under someone's a$$, or not.

Meanwhile Telus is sending me plenty of glossy ads in the mail to entice me to buy into their optic TV world. More than once over the past few years I've mentioned to the Shaw telemarketers that I don't wish to pay for basic service with 5,000 useless channels that I don't watch and I don't intend to pay extra on top of that for channels I do find of interest. Is anyone listening?

And of course the CBC, subject to recent funding cuts from the government are also in "the sky is falling camp". I actually like some of the CBC programming but since I no longer have cable, no CBC television. The OTA ATSC transmitter on the hill in Vernon only transmits 2 HD channels, CHBC (owned by Shaw) & CHAN (no idea who they are, but the programming is identical to CHBC). Why does the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, who's mandate I thought was to bring Canadian culture & programming to Canadians everywhere not broadcast from up on the hill in Vernon along with CHBC & CHAN? Not a clue!

On the plus side, I'm getting a lot more work done around the house with only one channel to watch on TV.

Check out hockeystreams.com. Reasonably cheap for a 1 year subscription, and in high definition.

I just came back on the computer tonite because I'm totally bored with all the useless channels offered, I just trimmed the shaw account down to only include internet, phone with grandfathered long distance in north America and some hd channels along with a bunch of useless basic junk that's not worth watching. If you want the HD ones your interested in the crap comes with it. There's got to be a better way. :crazy:
Tell us more about "Ouya" & "XBMC" how and where you get it, what's offered etc. etc.

Anyone close to the USA border (Fraser Valley), with a major city to the south should be able to pick up a whack of OTA HD programming with a decent antenna on the roof. It's free! Granted there are commercials on all channels except perhaps PBS if you can pull that in, but the basic cable programming has commercials too & you're paying extra for that garbage. Honestly can't understand anyone in a place like greater Vancouver or Toronto so close to the border paying for cable. I suppose if money is no object..... but I'm on a fixed income & cost of everything keeps rising.

I have a HomeWorx box with amplified rabbit ear antenna & am able to pick up the OTA HD channels transmitted in Vernon. Too far away from major cities or US border to get anything else, so roof top antenna won't help in my case. I'll need to get a new TV or some other device that is Netflix capable for more programming options. I enjoy soccer, so I'm knackered in that regard. All I can do is stream the games on my notebook after they've been played, but better than nothing & also better than to continue paying corporate cable TV providers that don't listen to the requests of their customers.

wish I could just not yet brave enough

ATSC tuner with DVR takes care of that

Here you go
http://freetvedmonton.com/freetvedmo...-Edmonton.html

Before Shaw finally cut my service I compared the viewing quality of their HD version of CHBC (Global) with what I could get with my HomeWorx ATSC box. I was surprised to find the OTA version through the ATSC HomeWorx unit was actually better quality. I checked it out several times to make sure. A little research revealed that the OTA HD signal is UNCOMPRESSED, unlike the programming of the cable provider who needs to compress everything in order to cram 1,000 channels down their cable.

No harm in giving your provider a call. The simple request to remove the TV service will have them falling all over themselves to give you a better offer. As mentioned in one of my earlier posts, it's like pulling hen's teeth to get them to disconnect. It took over a month in my case. Getting hooked up is much easier. In most cases you can do it online, unlike getting disconnected where you have to phone them.

This link will allow show you where OTA transmitters are in your area. You just need to input your address.
http://www.tvfool.com/index.php?opti...pper&Itemid=29

EDIT: If you have a newer TV, chances are it already has an ATSC tuner built in, so you don't even need to buy the HomeWorx box I have for $60-70. So for an investment of just over $100 if you buy a good antenna with the HomeWorx box (which can be hooked to a hard drive & used as a PVR), you can give it a try before 'cutting the cable', so to speak. Don't know what your cable/internet/TV bill is, but it's likely more than $100 a month.