How I Cut the Cable and Said Goodbye to Cable/Satellite Television
(And Never Looked Back)
By Chris Morris
Ok, well, after a number of
requests, I am finally taking the time to write down what I did to finally say
goodbye to traditional paid television, and how I did it. My wife and I had been looking at ways of
saving money on television content for a number of years, but there was really
no plan offered by anyone that was significantly better than another. They all wanted you to sign up for offers and
contracts that were either misleading, or lacked all of the facts unless you
went looking for the fine print. We did
look at cable cutting several times, but there were previous issues that
stopped us, such as the lack of easy to use equipment, lack of high definition
signals, or anything else that made us cringe and forget the idea. In the spring of 2013, we took another look,
and some things had changed… Now, it was
possible for me to set up an environment without clunky hardware that would
frustrate my wife and kids (using a normal-ish remote control was a requirement),
have the high definition content we wanted, and not miss anything we were
watching before (mostly).
I will break this up into two
sections – first, the required equipment, at least from my viewpoint, and
second, the optional equipment. I
recommend reading everything because I think it will help put you in the right
mindset, and might alleviate many of the fears you might have.
REQUIRED
EQUIPMENT
Here are the
goods that I consider to be the minimums.
Of course, you could probably go even more basic, but then if you could
settle for less, you probably already are – a television and a set of rabbit
ear antennas are still the absolute basic minimums, and frankly, for a lot of
people, that is perfectly fine. I,
however, insisted on just a little bit more.
1.
The Antenna – One of
the big realizations that made me seriously consider doing this was that the
majority of the content my wife and I consumed was already free! We went through our list of shows that we
routinely record to DVR and found there were 11 of them…9 of which were
available on ABC, CBS, FOX, or NBC. That
actually made me sort of mad, first at my provider (I am trying to not name
names), then ultimately at myself for paying for something I could have been
getting free (yes, I was actually paying a surcharge to get my local stations). Anyway, I digress. In order to get shows from the freely
provided “over-the-air” stations (OTA), you are going to need an antenna. I was surprised to learn that a *lot* of
improvements have been made over the years in antenna technology. I did NOT want to go to the expense of
dropping in an antenna tower, such as those you see still standing by many
existing older homes. If you have one
though, I do recommend using it. The higher
you can get an antenna, and more clear of obstructions, the better your signal
will be – and those towers work great, but they are by no means a requirement,
as you will soon read. I have a
two-story home, and decided that I would be able to mount it on the top gable
end on the west side of the house and have it reach over and point toward the
majority of my local stations. I did a
lot of research on antennas before I finally settled on the RCA ANT751
Compact Outdoor Antenna. It is available
for under $50 from several retailers, and I highly recommend it due to its size
(this thing is SMALL), and signal receiving strength. I am actually pulling in several stations
from Detroit using this antenna, and it isn’t even pointing toward Detroit, and
is over 70 miles away! Of course, you
can use an indoor mounted antenna, and placing one in your attic is also a good
idea, but again, decreasing obstructions helps (some obstructions are not
show-stoppers…don’t let trees dissuade you, they don’t effect the signal as
much as you may think). When it comes
time to point/aim your antenna, use the following website to aid you: FCC Digital
TV Transition. This little antenna
should be all you need to get any station in a 30-mile radius, even with it
mounted in an attic, and well farther if mounted outside.
·
Tip: you can even use your existing
satellite dish mounting arm as well as the coaxial cable for the dish, if you
are already so equipped. You can even use the coax cables that are in your
home, as well as the cable splitter to distribute the signal to other
televisions in your home, if you have multiple sets.
·
Tip: Add a
preamplifier to boost your antenna’s signal, if you plan on driving more than
one television. I chose the RCA
TVPRAMP1R to go with my antenna, and it cost about $25.00.
One more thing you will discover – OTA stations have
more than one channel! So, instead of
punching in 11 for channel 11, you would punch in 11.1 for the main channel,
and 11.2 for the secondary stream, and 11.3 for the tertiary stream. I love this because my local ABC station has
an awesome 24-hour weather station, much like The Weather Channel on 13.3. Lots of cool stuff to discover!
2.
The
Receiver – I did not want to lose my ability to record my programs to
a DVR, and you are likely no different. For antenna users, there is nothing
better than a TiVo set top box.
TiVo? Seriously? Didn’t they go out of business years ago? Nope…
Again, one of my original requirements was ease of use by non-technical
folks, such as every other person in my family, so that ruled out complicated
home-theater PCs running Windows Media Center, or anything similar. TiVo is hands down the best to fill this
need. I purchased a TiVo Premier 4 set
top box – capable of recording 2 channels simultaneously while watching a
previously recorded program, pause, rewind, commercial skip, etc. This was nearly identical in capability to my
existing satellite provider equipment.
Of course, now better is available: TiVo ROAMIO OTA. This thing will record 4 shows
simultaneously, and is only $50 for the equipment and $15/month
thereafter. They do have other models
available, but this looks like a really good deal (I paid $100 for a
refurbished model). The monthly charge
is for the channel guide and software updates.
Personally, I think this is well worth it – gives you the ability to get
show details and set up regular recordings with ease, just like you are
probably already used to doing. Of
course, you could always get one off of eBay used, and forego the $15/month,
but you lose the program guide, and recordings have to be set up the
old-fashioned way, just like an old VCR.
I only bought the one TiVo set top box for our house – the other
televisions never had DVR capabilities, and I didn’t think they needed them
now. Virtually all televisions made in
the last 6 years have what is called an ATSC tuner, capable of receiving the
new digital signals broadcast by stations (contrast that to the older NTSC
tuners that received analog content before that, and require a converter box).
3.
Internet – This is
almost a given these days. The Internet
has become as ubiquitous in the home as electricity and water. If you do not currently have an Internet
Service Provider, do get one. Since I
would have Internet regardless, I don’t really count this toward my monthly
revolving charges. In the case of cable
cutters, Internet service is usually needed in order to fill in the holes left
by the absence of a television service provider (more on how we do this
later). You don’t have to have the
fastest service out there, but it should be faster than a 2Mb/sec download
rate. One thing you have to consider is
that many ISPs out there are limiting the total amount of downloaded data on
their networks, especially those that are themselves television service
providers. That being said, I have a cap
of 400GB per month, and the closest I have come to that limit is hitting 75%
during the month of December when everyone was home and burning through
downloaded digital content with reckless abandon. I hit the 75% warning between Christmas and
New Year’s Eve…after that, I stopped even looking at my usage.
4.
The Roku – This
little device has had more to do with the cable cutting revolution than any
other single advent. I will write
specifically about the Roku, but there
are a number of other noteworthy competing products out there, such as Apple
TV, Google TV, and Amazon Fire TV. The
idea behind all of these devices is that they plug into your television using
standard cables that you are already familiar with (HDMI, A/V cables, etc.),
connect to your network via either a wired connection or wireless, and deliver
content to you over “channels” which bear more resemblance to apps installed on
your phone or tablet, and therefore provide a fairly familiar experience for
most people. There are several models of
Roku out on the market, available from most anywhere you can buy technology,
including Walmart, Best Buy, and Target, and range from $50 up to $100. The channels or apps you can install give you
content from a number of well-known providers as well as rather obscure. It can be fun to just install some and see
what is out there. The two main content
providers out there that I find useful are Amazon and Netflix.
Between these two providers, I have found virtually every show offered
on cable/satellite-only channels. Amazon
Prime, in addition to giving you free 2nd day shipping on all
product orders, gets you access to a HUGE movie and series catalog, as well as
access to almost all current season shows (usually delayed by 24 hours). Previous seasons are available, usually for
free, and current seasons are available a-la-carte or you can purchase an
entire season. The advantage here is
that you are now only paying for the content you consume, rather than paying
for everything and watching only a fraction.
A season of any particular show is usually around $25.00. You can also rent movies on Amazon, saving
you a trip to the video store (and the aforementioned content that is available
free to Amazon Prime customers is roughly equivalent to having free access to
your video store’s non-new release section).
Netflix is great as well – if it isn’t on Amazon, it’s on Netflix, as
well as several Emmy-winning Netflix-only series, such as House of Cards. Amazon Prime is about $100/year (which works
out to about $8.33/month) and Netflix is $8.00/month. Well worth it! In addition to Amazon and Netflix, I
mentioned other channels. Many
cable/satellite-only stations have channels for Roku, such as History, CNN,
Smithsonian, A&E, and many more.
These channels will offer a lot of free content that you would normally
only be able to get by watching the channel, though a good portion of it
offered by some networks is only available if you subscribe via cable or
satellite – I just say forget it and look for those programs on Amazon or
Netflix. The truly great thing about
consuming content like this is that YOU decide what you want to watch and WHEN,
rather than having to take it when “they” want to give it to you.
So, that pretty much covers the required stuff. If you want to just cut the cable, you need
not read any further. With what I have
written above, you will need about $200.00 in upfront costs (budget $250, just
in case of fluctuations, connecting cables, etc.), and plan on about $32.00 per
month in revolving costs, plus whatever additional shows you want to see.
If, like me, you got excited by all of this, and want to see
what other cool things you can do, keep reading…
OPTIONAL
EQUIPMENT
Welcome,
Neo! I am glad you chose to take the red
pill and go beyond the essentials! In
this section, I will go over some of the cool things you can do with this
technology.
1.
Another
Antenna – We talked about antennas in section one. I was content with getting all of my Toledo
stations for quite a while, but I knew there were more out there just waiting
for me to pick them up off of the airwaves.
You can add a second antenna and point it in another direction and
combine it with your existing antenna. You
do need one piece of specialized equipment to combine the antennas, since you
cannot just get a signal splitter and use it in reverse (I will spare you the
electrical equations that show why) – the Winegard CC-7870 Antenna
Coupler (I got mine for under $25 from Amazon). Now, I am receiving channels from Detroit, Flint,
Jackson, and Lansing, Michigan just by pointing a second antenna to the NNW (my
Toledo stations required me to point my first antenna almost due west because
of my location in relation to them). The
advantage of getting stations from several major markets is sports. A lot of games are blacked or are otherwise
unavailable on the local stations for my market, but are available elsewhere. This also serves as a great backup for the
local stations. Ever had a storm coming
in and were annoyed beyond belief due to news interruptions or on-screen
overlays on your favorite program? Just
switch to another market’s affiliate and enjoy your program!
2.
Plex – Do you
have a large private movie collection?
Ever wanted it available on any television in your house without using
the DVD/Blu-Ray disc, or even on a mobile device from anywhere in the world? Well, Plex is your
answer! With this software installed on
your home computer, you can essentially have your own private Netflix. Of course, it’s not quite as simple as
that…you do need to convert your disc-based media to a digital format that Plex
can read, as well as a computer powerful enough to convert, drive and store the
movies (but then, almost any computer manufactured in the last few years will
do just fine). Do make sure you get
yourself a large hard drive. I bought a
3TB drive, and have used 2TB of it to hold my 600+ movies and 40+ shows. Here is how I did it:
a.
Plex – The
software is free for the basic version, but the paid version gets you
additional features (such as sharing content with friends) and costs only
$3.99/month, $29.99/year, or just pay $74.99 for a lifetime subscription. Personally, this software is so awesome that
I ponied up the $75 after using it for 2 weeks.
This takes care of downloading all of your cover movie or TV series art,
movie/episode synopsis, and starring actors.
Plex has a channel for Roku (and others), as well as apps for Android
and iOS for remote viewing on-the-go.
b.
Handbrake – This Open Source software is
free of charge, and is what you need to use to encode and compress your movies
from their disc-based format to a digital format you can easily store on your
hard drive. Most DVDs are compressed
from about 9GB down to 1.5GB without any noticeable loss of quality; Blu-Ray
from 25GB+ down to 5-10GB.
c.
AnyDVD – This software is the best solution out there for
decrypting the movies on the discs (DVD and Blu-Ray movies are encrypted to
prevent people from easily copying movies they do not own, however, if you own
the movie, it is perfectly legal for you to make a copy for your own, personal,
non-commercial use). AnyDVD costs about
$82.00 USD per year. I think it’s a
little steep, but given the amount of time, effort, and lack of a better
solution, it’s worth it.
3.
PlayOn & PlayLater – Closely related to Plex is this additional software
suite that fully rounds out the cable-cutting experience. I personally don’t use it as much as I
thought I would, but it is still rather noteworthy. Much like a Roku, you add “channels” to this
software. Play-On allows you to view
these channels on your computer, or other devices such as a Roku (yes, it’s a
bit confusing…you have channels on the software, and then load the Play-On
channel on your Roku). A lot of these
channels have duplicate content to what is available on a Roku, such as
Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, etc.…so why bother, you ask? Well, two reasons: 1) there are more
channels…some that are…unpublicized…because they broadcast cable or satellite
content that you normally have to subscribe to.
Sorry, but I am not going to go into further detail on that one because
I am not going to support or assist in illegally downloading content…you’re on
your own there. 2) PlayLater allows you
to record content for private viewing later.
Especially useful when you want to save content off of Amazon and
Netflix. Now, while these providers, and
their ilk, would rather you not know this, so long as you are again recording
for your own private, non-commercial use
this is perfectly legal. The same laws
that allowed you to use a VCR to record a program off of the TV years ago apply
here the same, but the second you make a copy for a friend or take even $0.01
for it, you are breaking the law – keep that in mind (I am not passing
judgment, but my goal is to teach you how to stick it to the cable/satellite
providers legally without
stealing)! PlayOn & PlayLater cost
$69.99 as a lifetime bundle. Other
pricing options are available.
Well, that’s it, I think.
There will certainly be nuances to your own implementation that are
different from mine, but hopefully this will help you along. This can turn into a rather neat hobby, if
you let it! Enjoy!
