Playstation Vue.

Amazon fire stick, jailbreak, $40 a piece, stick them on every TV in the house and you have access to absolutely everything you could possibly want

You don't need a PS, you can use Roku, Chromecast, and a few other options. You can get a nice selection of channels for $35 a month, much cheaper for me than cable.

I cut the cord a few years ago. First before you do anything install a good HD over the air antenna and get that working. You are close to the HD sources where you live so you don't need a large antenna. Tivo sells a $50 OTA only box that they don't advertise ( at least they did a few years ago) that will allow you to record OTA shows or watch online content from most sources. It costs about $15/mo for the online guide service though. There are tons of other ways to get unlimited content free or paid based on your tech abilities and patience but eventually you'll find your ISPs bandwidth limit. At that point you'll probably have to pay for more bandwidth but at least you'll know what you're paying for.

except its absolutely illegal. this is the one hang up i have. id have to get a vpn.

+1 on antenna

I get around 40 channels. I just used the one still on the roof

Take a look at SlingTV. I've had it since December and I've been very happy with it. Also use HD antenna for locals.

This is a great Antenna
https://www.costco.com/Winegard-Amplified-HDTV-Outdoor-Antenna-FL6550A.product.100112735.html

Use this site to see what you can pick up in your area
https://www.antennasdirect.com/transmitter-locator.html

I have Hulu and Netflix. I like Hulu. It doesn't have everything, but it has more than enough for me. It mostly fails at cable shows being up to date. Network shows are on pretty quickly. I don't know what your main content you watch is, but for me it works well. I could never pay the price cable seems to want these days, but gladly pay for Hulu with out commercials.

More gray area than illegal. Legal to install kodi, what you choose to view with Kodi makes it more of that legal gray area. Speeding is also a crime, as is selling pins without reporting it on your taxes, as are lots of other things than many of us probably do on a daily basis. Life is a gray area, enjoy cheap entertainment I say.

fair enough.

I did try the new DirectTV Now service and was not impressed, I just cancelled it today actually. Sling was okay. The reality was though with a busy schedule anything that didn't over a DVR service or on demand service really doesn't help me much. I am keeping my WWE Network subscription, and likely netflix, but eliminating hulu as I rarely use it.

AMC is in Sling's base package at $20/mo so you can watch TWD live. New episodes are on demand the following day and Sling is beta testing their cloud dvr service which should fully launch soon. Prepay 3 months and they'll send you a Roku for free. Not a bad deal.

Except you're not stealing when you speed.
Stop buying pinball machines if you can't afford to pay for content!

I cut the cable about 3 years ago. I have Roku with Netflix and Amazon prime. I also have a antenna for the few local channels that are available. I don't watch sports or current TV shows. Most of the stuff I'm interested in is available on YouTube.

I pay for my WWE Network, Amazon, and Netflix currently, and up until today DirectTV now (previously hulu, sling, hbo now, and showtime on demand up until the end of last season of shameless). The Amazon fire stick offers things not available anywhere else like are you afraid of the dark season 1-7, as well as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's: The Lost World which is a weird low budget show that I enjoyed as a kid, and I've found a few shows or movies I did not know existed thanks to the service. But I get your point, I will not being stopping my pinball acquisitions anytime in the near future though.

I am pretty sure amazon is aware that the stick can be jail broken ... They could figure out a way to keep this from happening if they really cared.

Yup, me too. We've been without cable for 5 years now. We have Hulu, Netflix, Amazon Prime, antenna for local channels, and I occasionally use my mom's Comcast account to sign in for things like HBOGO or certain network shows that have On Demand. We run everything through Apple TVs with the exception of one Roku that's easier to access the Amazon things. It's right at $20/month because we pay the extra $4 to have no commercials on Hulu, and I've never wanted to go back to cable.

Roku + Tablo (OTA DVR) + SlingTV and we don't really miss cable and saving a ton of money. That replaced cable. We already had Netflix and Amazon prime so not additional cost.

I am in a private bit torrent tracker for TV shows. Basically every TV show can be downloaded by episode or entire seasons. I run a Serviio DLNA media server and WDTV live to playback to TVs. WDTV Live will pray every single file format I have tried. I can also watch stuff on the DLNA server on my phone or other smart devices.

For sports I have Sling TV (fox sports ohio for blue jackets and reds baseball). I also watch some channels on Sling like Viceland and El Rey Network (both are awesome).

I much prefer the Apple TV boxes, but Amazon isn't available through them without having to go around the world. We're already set up with the Apple router and iPhones so the Apple TV makes things simple, but had a Roku given to us so put it on the guest room tv. If you don't already have Apple everything, the others may be easier. Husband has everything hooked up through receivers and programmed remotes so I just push a button and everything changes inputs for antenna/Xbox/etc, so I'm not sure about normal ease of use.

Yeah, I didn't understand that with their advertising. They make it sound like people are ditching cable just because. I ditched cable because it was too expensive. Vue seemed to be about the same price.

I have Hulu. It's ok. But only have it because we're in this void of not being able to easily and cheaply DVR over the air signals. I've considered getting SlingTV. The price seems decent, and includes many of the channels I watch.

But we're just in this weird time where nothing seems perfect.

Same deal. They will give you a free Roku if you pay 3 months (60 bucks), Ive been very happy with it, no issues streaming sports on ESPN and it counts as a login for apps like ESPNnow or FXmobile, etc

Constant disconnect. Trouble loading. Sound issues. Only worked on Apple TV and not Roku at current time. Not available on Xbox or PlayStation at time. Best used on my phone since I was on att at the time.

I cut the cord about 4 years ago and have never looked back. Usenet + sonarr + plex gives me almost all the content I want. Live sports is the only thing you miss.

How about this timing? Youtube announcement 5 mins ago.

http://www.barstoolsports.com/dmv/youtube-is-launching-a-35month-streaming-service-to-compete-with-cable-tv/?utm_campaign=SocialflowFB&utm_source=BarstoolFB&utm_medium=Socialflow

I cut the cord several years ago. Usenet with Sickbeard and Sabnzbd. I have Kodi setup on a server so all the TVs in the house can watch shows and movies. Exodus addon on Kodi has just about every TV show and movie. I also have Roku boxes on every TV with Sling TV to watch live TV - Walking Dead etc. We add HBO during the Game of Thrones season and cancel when its over. I have an antenna in the attic for local channels. It all depends on what you watch to find out what can work for you. Sports can be a challenge, especially Comcast Sportsnet around Chicago. But you can often find streams that are decent quality.

Hmm. YouTube TV that shows broadcast channels. Seems that they may have forgotten what their name means. It would be like calling it "DIY Professional Installation."

Cutting the cord was almost as good a feeling as quitting smoking. Just dumped DirecTV last month & their bullshit $200+ bills every month. I watch less than 15 channels on a regular basis. They're all covered with new setup.

Installed outdoor antenna in my attic. Get every local broadcast channel in HD. I can't DVR, but that's what Hulu is for. Run splitters to all your TVs in your house from attic.

I roll with PlayStation Vue on the PS4. Paying $44 for base package & HBO Now. You pick your favorite shows, episodes are stored in the PSVue cloud. Not sure how it works, all I know is my shows are there when I go to watch. It's an awesome interface too. Bought a PS4 TV universal remote as well, controls the TV, PS4 & my stereo receiver. One remote is liberating! You can also buy Amazon Firestick for additional TVs in the house and download PSVue app to watch.

Main reason my DTV bills were so high was from all the damn sports packages. Absurd. Paying all that money for league games that I would never watch. Now I downloaded NHL & MLB apps on the PS4, and pay like $80 just to get access to my out-of-market hometown team games (Sabres & Pirates). No more $200+ sport packages! I heard this might also be an option for NFL games (through DirecTV Sunday ticket app, but I'm not sure). If not, I can just watch NFL at the bar, or just save myself the torture of watching the Bills lose every week.

I also have the Netflix, Hulu & HBO Now apps, and have Amazon from already being a Prime member. Now I have so much TV to watch its absurd, and I'm not paying those bastards at DirecTV ever again. I also ran a hard line Ethernet connection from my router to the PS4. The streaming rates are fast as hell.

Overall I'm probably paying like $60 a month, but there's no commitments, free to cancel any service at anytime. Hope that helps. There's a million options to choose from. But staying with cable or DirecTV is just insane IMO.

I'm still on cable. Not using their hardware makes it a hell of a lot more tolerable. I bought a Tivo Roamio with lifetime service just about 3 years ago. Break even on that was about 6 months ago. I'm paying ~$165 total a month for a mid-tier cable package (includes all the important stuff like AMC, Comedy Central, History, ESPN) and 200/20 internet.

I have cable but I also watch Netflix and Crackle. I used to have Hulu but did not feel it was worth it so I canceled it.

Dump paid TV, buy a pinball a year with the money you save.

I have TiVo and a few TiVo minis.... It my home media center I can use in every room of my house. I can record antenna signals, watch tv from any room in my house and it has Netflix, Hulu, Amazon and a crap load of other services built in. Highly recommend it over the fire stick though I do have one of those too. BIG BONUS... TiVo has this "one search" feature that searches all the services for a title you are looking for. So say you want to watch John Wick but are not sure if it's on Netflix or Hulu or Amazon or whatever just type it in the one search and TiVo will tell you and take you straight to the app.

I pay for Amazon and Netflix and I've swapped passwords with a friend for Hulu. Works out great.

That TiVo hardware is a lot of coin. Add that monthly 'service fee' for maintaining the program guide and such...no thanks. I'm surprised TiVo is still around.

The best way to do it is to catch a deal on a refurb with lifetime service. They usually have a sale at least a couple times a year. I picked up a Roamio with lifetime service for $300 about a year ago. Minis can also be found for less than $100. Compared to cable company hardware and service fees Tivo isn't expensive at all. It's easy to use and easy to troubleshoot if there is a problem (usually reboot the Tivo). Any member of the family can figure it out.

We had cable tv at the office and it was crazy expensive. I installed a sling box at home where we also have cabletv. Then I ordered an amazon fire for the tv at office as it has an app for slingbox. Perfect solution. I tried PS Vue but it did not have regional fox sports.

This is what I use. $49 + $15/mo for OTA HD recording and access to all the online content you can watch is pretty hard to beat.
TiVo Roamio OTA 500 GB DVR and Streaming Media Player (2014 Model) - Works with HD Antenna https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00OLDNNRO/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_tai_HuUTybKPK6BJ8

I've seen Tivo sell OTA Roamio refurbs with lifetime service for as little as $200. I've heard you can even hack to OTA to work with cable by simply adding a cheap cable card adapter as the pins for cable card are already there. I have not tried this.

Tablo is $50/year for programming data.. I couldn't stomach TiVo (I used to be a big TiVo fan) still charging $15/month. Plus Tablo is stream only (no direct connection to TV) so I put it anywhere in the house for OTA reception and then rokus at each TV.