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Happy Black Friday!

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I hate the name. I hate the idea. I went birding with my daughter and out for dinner with our oldest friends (he's had an MG Midget and an MGB coupe - still driving his 1991 Mustang).
 
Good luck leaving Direct TV.
We canceled our contract when I realized that nobody was watching the Direct TV channels.
I called them up to cancel and got the "Why do you want to cancel? We can bump you up to a great Sports package" I said repeatedly nobody is watching it please cancel it. It took a while to get through to the phone person that what I wanted was to cancel. Was then told as it was in the middle of the month I would have to pay for next month as well.
Finally got it canceled but the month after we got a bill with a $0.01 credit and an offer for a better package. The $0.01 credit bills came for about 12 months even with me calling asking them to stop and to please mail me my one cent credit.
They finally gave up but it took a while.

David

Mickey Richaud said:
We weren't about to venture out into the breach. But I did score one Black Friday item online: a new Roku Ultra streaming device for the den from Amazon. We'll be leaving Direct TV next month when our contract runs out, and switching over to YouTube TV now that they offer local programming. Too far away from Knoxville and too many trees and hills to overcome to pick up local stations, so we've had to depend on cable/satellite. Looking forward to saving about half our monthly cost, and dealing with outages.
Click to expand...
 
DavidApp said:
Good luck leaving Direct TV.
We canceled our contract when I realized that nobody was watching the Direct TV channels.
I called them up to cancel and got the "Why do you want to cancel? We can bump you up to a great Sports package" I said repeatedly nobody is watching it please cancel it. It took a while to get through to the phone person that what I wanted was to cancel. Was then told as it was in the middle of the month I would have to pay for next month as well.
Finally got it canceled but the month after we got a bill with a $0.01 credit and an offer for a better package. The $0.01 credit bills came for about 12 months even with me calling asking them to stop and to please mail me my one cent credit.
They finally gave up but it took a while.

David
Click to expand...

Yeah, I'm prepared for battle; my son recently went through the process and had a similar experience. End of contract is the latter part of Jan., so I'll be calling around the end of Dec.

Isn't it curious how they only offer savings when you're ready to leave...?

But no amount of savings will keep us now, as we don't watch 75-90% of the channels. And the equipment has started failing after two years. Don't want to deal with it any more. And it will be great to get the satellite dish out of the front yard (only place they said it would work here, with all the trees and hills).
 
Isn't it interesting that there are so many channels available on cable and satellite, yet hardly anyone seems to watch most of them.

We could start a whole 'nother Pub thread on this. Not even including how the providers are compressing the signals to squeeze even more "stuff" into the spectrum - resulting in momentary audio dropouts, picture freezing and tiling, etc. And the dirty little secret: compressed HD video isn't really the true HD you think you're getting.

More bread and circuses! We sure have a lot of leisure time these days.
 
Mickey- Which Roku device did you get? I’m also looking into YouTube TV but don’t know anything about the streaming devices. Thanks for any pointers.
 
We already have an "Ultra" box. But the newer Ultra has TV on/off and volume and wider range, and was on sale for 1/2 off last week. The Streaming Stick + has the volume and on/off feature as well as wider wifi range. All three work fine, but the two newer ones offer a bit more. We bought the Ultra and the Streaming Stick +.
 
We ditched the cable service a few years ago. Now all we have is high speed 'net. All I watched anyway were documentaries and youtube videos on things that interest me. Got over the stick and ball sports many years ago, so the lack of sports channels doesn't bother me at all.

Now all I have is a Curiosity Stream, Netflix, and Amazon prime account. Haven't paid for youtube commercial free, since I can usually skip the ad after a few seconds.

One thing that's noticeable is how much all holidays are tied to the shows and commercials on regular TV. Without being bombarded by ads, the holidays are subdued. Just a quiet time off.
 
"Now all I have is a Curiosity Stream, Netflix, and Amazon prime account".

Alf, do you ever have "buffering" issues with the video? (What download speed is your internet provider giving you?)

Also, how do you get the stream to your TV? Roku, Chrome, etc.

Thanks.
Tom M.

 
Tom, we had a Roku unit for our TV that was hard wired to our router. Our TV predated internet ready stuff, so that was the easiest route for a non-tech guy like me to figure out.
Now I just stream whatever I'm watching to my laptop, and either use earbuds or bluetooth to a nice speaker for sound. Not sure of our network speed, but I've never had a problem with buffering even to the laptop that's on wifi.

Robby
 
Thanks Robby. This bears investigating ...
TM
 
NutmegCT said:
Alf, do you ever have "buffering" issues with the video? (What download speed is your internet provider giving you?)

Also, how do you get the stream to your TV? Roku, Chrome, etc.
Click to expand...
Hi Tom,
I have basic cable internet which is 100mbps. On a very rare occasion, it will buffer. Most times 1080p flows smoothly. Internet costs about $45. I went with Sony Vue for streaming through a Roku for another $45. Sony was the cheapest for me to get the Science channel. To get it from Spectrum cable was about $140. So I save about $50 a month.
 
Thanks Greg. I have basic cable internet (Spectrum), advertised as 100 mbps for $50/mo. But regardless of when I do a test (using Spectrum's own speedtest, as well as others), I'm never over 30, and usually around 18 or 19 mbps. That slow download is the reasons I'm concerned about dropping cable TV (also from Spectrum, at $40/mo) for internet only.
 
Why not try streaming with what you have as a test of your internet speed? HBO now had and may still have a 7 day free trial. Others may too.
 
I've actually done that a couple of times. In about 15 of two dozen tests, I get a "buffering" or freeze at least two or three times during the stream. In the evening, between 9 and 11 EST, I can get freezes every two or three minutes, especially on YT.

What download speed do you get from Speedtest.net? (or any other test site)

I just ran it: 19.1 mbps d/l.
 
Just did mine Tom:
Download= 36.44 MBS on Comcast cable
 
Thanks Elliot. What speed are you paying for?

I pay Spectrum $50/mo for "up to 100 mbps".
 
Honestly Tom I don’t know without looking at my bill but I think it’s around $50-$55/month.
Don’t know the speed.
 
Elliot - whaddayathink ... should I start a Poll? What speed people are getting from their internet provider?

Tom M.
 
Careful - varies by website checker. Just checked mine:

Speedtest: 84.51
XFinity (my provider): 43.3

Moral of the story: Don't trust the internet!

And at any rate, I've been running YouTube TV off my son's account and no blips or freezes so far with what I have.
 
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