Cable Cutter

May, June, and July 2011 Bills: $64.95 Across the Board

Sun, 07 Aug 2011 12:10:58 -0400

Finally some consistency in the bills. Just one screenshot is needed for each of the past three months:

Our only other cable-cutting expenses this summer were buying Seasons 3 and 4 of “Mad Men” on Blu-ray — an extremely worthwhile investment — and signing up for Zediva (a review will come soon).

Our running tally should show some pretty nice overall savings for the five months of our cable-cutting adventure!

The number of free TV channels seeping through our cables, however, has declined, likely because our cable company has been shuffling its station lineup. Many of the HD channels we were getting have disappeared — we now only get the big networks (ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, PBS) in high def — and they have not been replaced by standard definition selections. We’ve mainly been watching CNN, Travel Channel, Comedy Central, ABC, NBC, and FOX. A limited group, but hey, it’s free.

We're Back

Sun, 07 Aug 2011 10:26:00 -0400

We interrupt our long blog silence by telling you all that we’re back!

Both S and K had to study for and take professional licensing exams this summer, which really threw a wrench into our upkeep of this site.

Now that we’re back, we will post our cable bills for the past several months and update the running tally of the savings we’ve seen by cutting cable.

And on August 26, our six-month anniversary of cutting the cord, we will post our reflections on our cable-cutting experience and our future plans with cable TV. We are about to move from Georgia to a new state, and are debating whether our new home will be Internet-only or whether we will go back to cable TV.

We also plan to post reviews of online services we’ve used that are of interest to cable cutters.

Because our studies diverted our attention from not just this blog, but also the news, we won’t be updating this site’s news section with stories from the summer. The big cable-cutting news from the summer was the Netflix price hike, and the potential sale of Hulu.

With the recent stock market decline and S&P downgrade of the U.S.AA+, people will likely continue to look for ways to save money while still enjoying life. We hope that by continuing to share our experiences, this blog can be among the many resources available to those who are considering shrinking their cable bills by going Internet-only.

April 2011 Bill

Sun, 08 May 2011 20:05:48 -0400

Mediacom may have fired a salvo against cable cutters. Our bill this month is $3.00 more than last month. Why? Allow them to explain:

Of course, we checked last month’s statement, and no such announcement was made. No big surprise there.

At any rate, we’re doing very well with our $65.00 bill. We don’t feel like we’ve missed anything that we could have gotten from cable, although we have been on the road a bit recently and have filled any void by going on a Mario Kart Wii binge and using some gift cards to buy Seasons 1 and 2 of “Mad Men” (review: excellent through Season 1). K might have caught some of the NBA playoffs, but they’re not really on his radar. There might be a different story once the new season of “True Blood” starts.

Here’s the damage:

Cable-Cutting News Roundup, Post-Spring Break Edition

Sat, 16 Apr 2011 17:10:00 -0400

Some news stories about cable cutting were published while we were out on spring break. We’ve added them to our news section.

March 2011 Bill -- Big Savings

Sat, 16 Apr 2011 16:50:37 -0400

We returned from a nice spring break trip to find this beauty waiting for us:

So that’s 60 bucks for Internet-only versus 200 bucks for cable and all the fixins. What have we missed by paying $140 less? Nothing, really.

How to Watch March Madness -- LIVE -- on Android

Thu, 17 Mar 2011 12:59:00 -0400

THIS… IS… AWESOME!

K is currently at work, watching the opening game of the First Round of March Madness on his HTC Droid Incredible.

This is something of an accomplishment, considering that NCAA® March Madness on Demand® claims that the only mobile devises it’s available on are Apple devices (i.e., iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch). Thank goodness for Flash on the Android!

K is not on a Wi-Fi network, but is streaming the game via Verizon’s 3G network. The picture pauses to buffer here and there, so far only during commercials. Overall the game looks good … real good.

Android users, here’s how K pulled this early-round upset. Hopefully you’ll enjoy the same luck on this St. Patty’s Day:

Open the standard Internet browser.
Go to http://www.ncaa.com/mmod/player/console.html, to launch the March Madness On Demand player.
If a window pops up asking for your favorite team, simply refresh the page and it should go away.
Sit patiently through the obligatory commercials.
After the commercials, the day’s games should be listed in the middle of the screen. Ignore this — it doesn’t seem to respond to tapping on the screen.
At the top of the screen should be a ribbon with today’s games listed in chronological order. If the ribbon doesn’t show the current game that you want to watch, you’ll need to tap on the scroll arrows on either side of the ribbon. K has to press very slowly and repeatedly to make it scroll, but eventually it has worked. You might need to pinch-zoom in on the scroll arrow to make it work.
Once you see the game you want, press on it slowly and repeatedly until the screen responds.
The screen size is difficult to manipulate in the MMOD player. If you want to zoom out, hit your phone’s Menu button, then Settings, then change the Default Zoom to Far.
Sit back and enjoy!

Update: Don’t know if it’s the phone, the format, or the network, but it’s buffering like crazy now, like every 15 seconds. K’s tried multiple resets, but to no avail. What a shame. But the fact that this almost worked shows how close we are to being able to view live events on our mobile devices. Pretty, pretty cool.

Any problems with the widget, such as an inoperative “Watch Now” button, is attributable to the tech folks at NCAA^® March Madness on Demand^®.

NYT 3/16/11: A Clever End Run Around the Movie-Streaming Gremlins

Thu, 17 Mar 2011 11:48:03 -0400

NYT 3/16/11: A Clever End Run Around the Movie-Streaming Gremlins:

Wish we’d known about this site before it gets swamped with New York Times reader traffic. It sounds simple enough, though, that copycat businesses should be popping up anytime. Looking forward to checking it out. Best of luck to them versus the movie companies.

Update to March Madness Post

Wed, 16 Mar 2011 22:03:51 -0400

K just updated our prior post about NCAA March Madness On Demand. Click here to view the updated post.

Netflix outbids HBO, purchasing Kevin Spacey/David Fincher original series, 'House of Cards'

Wed, 16 Mar 2011 11:39:34 -0400

Netflix outbids HBO, purchasing Kevin Spacey/David Fincher original series, 'House of Cards':

engers:

Good news for cable cutters.

WashPost 3/14/11: Time Warner Cable launches iPad application that shows live TV in the home

Wed, 16 Mar 2011 11:38:16 -0400

WashPost 3/14/11: Time Warner Cable launches iPad application that shows live TV in the home:

TV in the bathroom: Not just for millionaires anymore!

P.S. Don’t forget to sani your iPad afterward.

March Madness On Demand

Tue, 15 Mar 2011 22:02:00 -0400

K just watched the opening game of the 2011 NCAA March Madness tournament, a play-in between Arkansas-Little Rock and UNC-Asheville, live on the Internet!

NCAA® March Madness on Demand® will provide every single game of the college basketball tourney, on the ‘Net, for free.

Getting into the game was simple. K just entered some info about his favorite team, preferred time zone, and zip code, and sat through about 3 minutes of advertisements before the live feed began.

The image is standard-definition, and was about 30 seconds behind the true live feed (we get TruTV, which showed the game, on the cable still pumped into our house). There are plenty of interactive features available, such as box scores and a Twitter feed, and even a “Boss Button” for watching at work. ~~When multiple early-round games are on simultaneously, K thinks that they can all be played in the various frames.~~

We get CBS and TruTV — two of the stations showing the tournament games — through our cable. For the games not shown on those stations, K will certainly be watching on the Internet.

Update: K just watched the entire second half of the Day 2 play-in game, UTSA vs. Ala. St. He scrutinized things a little more, prompted by Kev’s comment below.

K hooked up the HDMI cable to put the Internet game on our living room TV. He then used picture-in-picture to put our TruTV cable feed next to the Internet feed.

The TruTV channel that we get is standard definition, not HD. The Internet game actually looked crisper than the game on SD cable. K noticed that the Internet picture would sometimes waffle between levels of crispness, and thinks that the server adjusts the picture quality depending on your Internet speed. K ran a few Internet speed tests during the second half of the game, via speedtest.net, and found speed levels ranging from 11.5 mbps when the game was turned off to 5.0 mbps when the Internet feed was running.

There were no pauses for buffering. This is probably why the Internet feed is roughly 30 seconds behind the live feed, to build in a buffer. Good move on their part. However, although there wasn’t a buffer, the picture was a bit jittery. Not as smooth as the cable feed. The jitters were amplified when the Internet game was shown on our TV’s full screen. People prone to seizures should use caution.

K turned on the game at halftime. March Madness On Demand has their own halftime analysis crew, rather than using the network’s halftime gang, which is kind of funny.

Finally, K couldn’t find a button allowing multiple games to be played at once. He inquired with the March Madness On Demand tech people, and they said “that function is not currently available.” Lame. But K thinks he found a workaround which he’ll test during the First Round:

Open multiple browser windows.
Paste this address into each window: http://www.ncaa.com/mmod/player/console.html.
Pick one of the games you want to watch, and click “WATCH NOW.”
After the advertisement stops, click “GAME CENTER,” found directly below the score. This will make the game’s image small.
Resize the browser window so that only the game’s picture is shown. Move the window to one corner of your screen.
Repeat from Step 3 for the other games.

Update 2: Confirmed. You can watch multiple games by following the steps above. It’ll require a strong and fast connection, though, or you might get dreaded buffering on your feeds. To manage the sound, simply use the volume controls on the individual screens. Enjoy!

Any problems with the widget, such as an inoperative “Watch Now” button, is attributable to the tech folks at NCAA^® March Madness on Demand^®.

Newly Discovered: Zinc.tv and Crackle

Thu, 10 Mar 2011 17:16:03 -0500

This article tuned us in to Zinc.tv, a newly launched aggregator that we’ve added to our Links page. Tooling around Zinc led us to discover Crackle, which is like Hulu in providing TV shows and movies online. Crackle is apparently owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment. We’ve also added it to our Links page.

More Sports on the 'Net

Thu, 10 Mar 2011 16:51:32 -0500

+ + + $$$ =

A major deal has been reached allowing MLB and NBA games to be broadcast online via Apple TV. According to this Financial Times article:

The NBA will offer two packages to Apple TV users. For $65 per season, customers can choose up to seven teams to watch. And for $100 per season, fans will have access to all games through Apple TV. The MLB.TV package costs $100 per season, or $120 for an enhanced version.

Shiny new Apple TVs are going for $99 at the Apple Store. Read Apple’s explanation of the NBA/MLB deal here.

K isn’t the biggest NBA fan and doesn’t watch baseball other than the occasional Cubs game (we still get WGN through our cable), so it’s not the biggest news for him. It’s certainly a step in the right direction, though. Both of us love pro football, and we’d be very enticed to buy an Apple TV if the NFL would get onboard with a sports package after resolving their labor issues.

Free Movie Rental in PlayStation Store

Wed, 09 Mar 2011 12:58:00 -0500

We discovered this item this weekend, but didn’t try it out.

The PlayStation Store, in sponsorship with Toyota Highlander, is currently offering a free movie rental. The movie on Saturday night was “Stranger Than Fiction” (a good flick). Monday night it was “Ghost Rider” (never seen it). The promo might be ending this coming weekend. Just go to the PS Store’s Movies section and look at the big frame on the right-hand side to see the current free rental. This article has a bit more info:

Andrew Yoon, “Free movies available weekly on PSN via Toyota Highlander promo,” Joystiq (Feb. 18, 2011)

Stranger Than Fiction (Rotten Tomatoes says: Fresh)

Ghost Rider (Rotten Tomatoes says: Rotten)

Facebook Could ‘Become a Credible Threat to Netflix,’ Says Goldman Sachs

Tue, 08 Mar 2011 22:40:00 -0500

Facebook Could ‘Become a Credible Threat to Netflix,’ Says Goldman Sachs:

Is Facebook > Netflix for online video? Only time will tell.

The first step in the long road to superiority is described in this article: FB’s offering of a $3 rental of “The Dark Knight,” located here on Facebook.

Consider, however, the potential bias from source of the opinion about Facebook’s threat:

Goldman earlier this year invested $450 million in Facebook.

Update: Funny comment on slashfilm.com: “Can’t wait till they release the social network to watch on facebook. too meta for words.”

engers: Peel - What Google TV should have been. From Cable...

Tue, 08 Mar 2011 14:47:00 -0500

engers:

Peel - What Google TV should have been.

From Cable Cutter:

This app and gadget might create some iPhone envy for K, a Droid user. Here are links to the Peel website and media coverage of the device:

Peel website
Walt Mossberg, “A ‘Pear’ Gives Apple Devices an Easy Way to Control TVs,” Wall Street Journal (Mar. 2, 2011)
Erik Berte, “Mossberg on ‘Peel’ App: ‘Good Step Forward’ for Universal Remotes,” FOX Business (Mar. 3, 2011)
Jason Kincaid, “Peel: A Bridge Between Your iPhone And Home Entertainment System,” Tech Crunch (Mar. 7, 2011)

Peel is added to our Links page, under Hardware.

Clark Howard 10/27/10: Free TV/Movies Online Guide

Tue, 08 Mar 2011 14:06:12 -0500

Clark Howard 10/27/10: Free TV/Movies Online Guide:

Clark Howard’s a cable cutter! The consumer advocate, who hosts his own CNN Headline News show giving money-saving tips to viewers, also has a website. The site not only has this article discussing the virtues of online TV and video. It also has a “TV, Satellite & Cable” category with occasional items related to cutting cable and receiving online media content.

As his callers sometimes say: “Thank you, Clark!”

iamryfly: Bye, Bye Cable TV - Cutting the Proverbial Cord

Tue, 08 Mar 2011 01:02:33 -0500

iamryfly: Bye, Bye Cable TV - Cutting the Proverbial Cord:

iamryfly:

A few weeks ago I did what some might deem impossible or unthinkable: I cancelled cable TV. In retrospect it was long overdue. With today’s technology and high speed internet connections, I can watch most of my favorite shows on-demand with little or no extra cost. Ditto for movies, news, and even…

CNBC 9/16/10: Third of Young Netflix Users Cut Cable

Tue, 08 Mar 2011 00:04:33 -0500

CNBC 9/16/10: Third of Young Netflix Users Cut Cable:

Earlier today, a buddy of K’s told him that cable execs are lamenting the lack of TVs being used on college campuses these days, because the kids are all watching content on their computers via the Internet.

Then this evening, K stumbled upon a very energetic YouTube post — “Would You Cut Your Cable?” — in which the host threw out an interesting statistic about declining cable usage amongst young people.

The stat came from a Sept. 16, 2010 CNBC Fast Money article about an “alarming” Credit Suisse survey, showing that out of about 250 Netflix subscribers:

37 percent of Netflix subscribers aged 25 to 34 substitute Netflix for pay television;
Almost 30 percent of users between 18 and 24 are using Netflix’s streaming service instead of cable or satellite; and
17 percent of Netflix subscribers of all ages and incomes are substituting that service for cable.

Now, 250 is a very small sample size. Nevertheless:

The [Credit Suisse] team downgraded the whole sector to ‘underweight’ from ‘market weight’ because of the oncoming ubiquity of high-speed broadband opening the door for these delivery services.

Long ago we ditched land-line phones and went cell-phone-only. Nearly everyone we know has done the same. Are cable boxes the new land-line phones? The stats — and our experience — are beginning to point to yes.

Adding a Few Items to Our Setup Page

Mon, 07 Mar 2011 16:52:00 -0500

After playing with our equipment over the weekend, and after reading some more websites (the good ones are added to our Links page), K realized that he had omitted some miscellaneous items from our Our Setup page.

A useful tool for our transition to a cable-less existence has been K’s HTC Droid Incredible smartphone. It lets us view our TitanTV customized channel lineup without having to fire up the laptop. We can also listen to audio content, such as Pandora and podcasts, through either its internal speaker or a connection cord into our stereo system. We used to occassionally listen to the Music Choice stations through our cable boxes, so the Droid Incredible has filled that void. (Also filling the musical void, and worthy of a future post, is Windows Media Player, which can sync wirelessly to both the PS3 and the Samsung TV.)

Another item is our public library card. Our library carries DVDs for check-out. We haven’t visited their selection yet, but we know that it’s there and free.

And, of course, we have our video rental cards. We have Blockbuster cards in our wallets, but they are rarely used because their prices are ridiculously high. You might as well go to the theater if you’re going to rent from them. We prefer our local video rental shop that rents Blu-ray new releases for $2.77, including tax. Another video rental option that doesn’t require a card is the local Redbox, but that has an older selection of Blu-rays so we tend to just hit our video store.

We rarely buy Blu-rays. We tend not to re-watch movies, so it doesn’t make sense to buy them: we have dozens of DVDs purchased over the years that are simply collecting dust on the shelf. The only Blu-rays we are thinking of buying are TV shows, but they need to be on special before we drop $30-$60 for them.