Suggestions on cutting the cord

[CougarJim1974]

Hey all. The cost of my DirecTV is getting jacked up, again…so I’m thinking about cutting the cord all together. What suggestions do you guys have on which services I should use to replace TV? I’m an out of town Coog so I need the ESPN channels and CBS Sports Network to watch our football and hoops games correct?

And explain everything to me like I’m in grade school. Technology isn’t my friend. lol

[UofHouston13]

youtubeTV! I was able to watch every away coog game this season and so far every bowl game that I can think about. You can watch from your computer or mobile device. The price is $35 a month with no contract so you can cancel any time. It has unlimited DVR capabilities if you need.

If you have a gmail account your setup is already 1/2 complete. I think the tv.youtube.com link is your first step.

[pesik]

Hey all. The cost of my DirecTV is getting jacked up, again…so I’m thinking about cutting the cord all together. What suggestions do you guys have on which services I should use to replace TV? I’m an out of town Coog so I need the ESPN channels and CBS Sports Network to watch our football and hoops games correct?

And explain everything to me like I’m in grade school. Technology isn’t my friend. lol

hulu tv is currently the best deal… it has everything for $40. but im almost certain its only that price because it just recently started…gut feeling is the price shoots up

sling tv orange package with the sports package will give you everything you need but cbssports …(we arent on fs1 but orange doesnt include any of the the fox channels if you like watching other conferences)

youtube tv is pretty good too but no cbssports (but does have the fox channels)

playstation vue used to be good but the price shot up recently

[UofHouston13]

youtube tv is pretty good too but no cbssports (but does have the fox channels)

[UofHouston13]

Ah my mistake. didnt think CBS Sports was different from CBS Sports Network.

[pray10]

Only 4 streaming services have CBS Sports Network:

• Direct TV Now (Costs $60 a month to get CBS Sports)
• FUBO TV (Has a ton of sports networks, but not ESPN - costs $39.99 after the 1st 2 months)
• Hulu
• YouTubeTV

If you do go with one of those options, get yourself a Roku device to be able to watch it on your TV (or a ROKU TV) and a digital antenna to watch over the air channels.

[UofHouston13]

If you have a laptop you can buy a HDMI cable to connect your tv to computer. (this is for the youtubeTV option, not sure about the others)

[FortWorthCoog]

I have a roku with sling and a digital antenna (also have amazon prime, shared netflix, logins to HBO/Showtime app). Only issue is the CBS Sports. I got a trial of Youtube TV to watch one of the games this year, but didn’t want to pay that much to keep it.

[CoogDentist]

I do PlayStation vue and Netflix and have not missed anything I used to watch. $55 PlayStation vue + 10 Netflix. Make sure you have a fast internet connection my speed is 25 mbs(whatever they measure it in). You can use PlayStation vue with anything eg roku or a PlayStation.

[CMCoog17]

If you have a good Wi-Fi subscription I’d buy a fire stick put kodi on it and do that. There are tutorials on YouTube fairly simple. You’d be able to watch new movies amd paper view fights as well as live TV. Currently one time payment $45 for the fire stick I think. the program is free. I’m just throwing more options. I use my girlfriends on my Wi-Fi (50 mbps)

[CoogDentist]

PlayStation vue has cbssn

[dansatjr]

Curse you CBS sports network! So hard to find in a streaming package. They’re actually a pretty good channel and cover us well when we’re on. Unlike ESPN let’s talk about Bama and tOSU until we’re blue in the face OK time for the Coogs game. Ok now halftime AKA as the Saban turns.

[CougarDave]

I used PS Vue for a year and it does have CBS Sports (everyone seemed to add it at the same time). I wanted to switch to YouTube TV but I already invested in Amazon FireTV and their spat is (was?) keeping YouTube TV off of the Amazon products.

Here are my thoughts and I know everyone has different experiences. I have FireTV with the game controller with a direct connection to my ISP router and a FireStick connected using wireless in another room:

1. For watching sports, I recommend connecting directly to your router. I have the 2nd highest speed from U-Verse home internet and still find the FireStick stream of sports to not be at the level I like. (The AT&T tech was out recently and said the router I have is the best one)

2. Use the different trial periods to see which of the services you like. SlingTV was advertising a free 21-day trial recently. Most have 5- or 7-day trials. For me, the HuluTV interface took some getting used to but the PS Vue and YouTubeTV seemed more intuitive.

3. I have not found one with AT&T Sports on them so no Rockets or Astros unless they are on TNT, ESPN or a local station.

Currently, I am paying only for Netflix but somehow my old login for the WatchESPN app is still working so I am going with it until I have to pay for something else to watch ESPN.

[Coogfans2ndAdmin]

Cutting the cord will save you IF you only watch a few things. If you want hulu, netflix, showtime HBO, ESPN… pretty soon you are paying almost as much with fewer channels.

The only other downside to cutting the cord is channel surfing. I tend to watch several games at once and bounce back and forth, PIP etc. I hate commercials passionately. Hard to do with streaming. Also I am a heavy DVR/ON Demand user, again hard to do with streaming as some things get blacked out or take hours or days to get posted for viewing if you can’t watch live.

But the prices are ridiculous with cable etc. My car payment is less than TV. That’s wrong.

If you complain loud enough and threaten to cut the cord the companies usually will drop their fees pretty significantly to keep you if you complain long and loud enough. I just got comcast to lower my price by $100 for 2 years.

[pray10]

PlayStation vue has cbssn

My fault, you’re correct.

[pray10]

3. I have not found one with AT&T Sports on them so no Rockets or Astros unless they are on TNT, ESPN or a local station.

There continues to be a delay on AT&T Sports moving to streaming. Seems that they’re holding out to appease the cable corporations.

[kelseym]

I recommend You Tube TV. It’s just like Hulu for live TV programming except you can’t get live HBO which only matters if you care about watching HBO boxing. As most people don’t, I would suggest You Tube. We use Hulu but tried out You Tube and You Tube is better. There are less glitchy issues for the live TV broadcasts and the design is sleeker and more intuitive. The only reason we have Hulu instead of You Tube is because of the boxing.

[coog93]

Look at setvnow. https://www.setvnow.com/?gclid=CjwKCAiApo3SBRA4EiwAty8i-oPSOZFr_vwNYz5tLBvGCE92mJQerBJjX0vg7_n0_SsobbqX9gD44BoCQ-YQAvD_BwE

[FortWorthCoog]

As far as internet, if you can get ATT fiber, do it. 100mbps and I consistently get 90-100. No BS like Charter where you actually get like 30mbps in the 100mbps package.

[CougarJim1974]

Thanks guys. Keep the comments coming. I’m going to take a bit to research this since I’ve been with DirecTV for 15 years. I love their service. I just can’t pay $115/mo anymore. And that was re-negotiated, down from the $140/mo since all my “credits” expired. I had been paying “just” $100 before that.

I don’t watch much TV, per se; just sports and crime drama series on network TV (The Blacklist, Criminal Minds, etc). My kids like their cartoon channels and the Food Network too. And I do use the DVR quite a bit since I don’t watch live TV much, except sports.