A few months ago I decided it was time to give up my satalite service and just go without. It seemed that most of what we were watching was on regular national networks that are free right out of the air. Here's what I have right now, free air antenna ($150) (I got a rooftop one because we are so far from the towers), Tivo ($50 for the box and $14.99/ month), Netflix ($26.98) (Includes streaming and 3 discs out at a time). We also had Hulu plus at $7.99 a month, but it's not really neccessary so we are canceling that too. Total is about $200 up front and $41.97 a month. I was paying $115 for Dierctv plus still had Netflix, so $141.98. So for a $200 investment, I save $100 a month. You can also drop some of the disc off of Netflix and buy a liftime of Tivo ($500, pays for itself in 3 years) if you like and save even more. You can stream Netflix through a game system. I use a Playstation 3, which is really great because the interface is much better than Tivo's for streaming and has a lot of other apps like Redbox and Amazon which both offer pay per view options.
So basically this breaks down like this, just about everything you watch is eith available for free over the air or you can get on Netflix by either streaming or DVDs. The downside is you might have to wait until the end of the season to catch up on Duck Dynasty and the Walking Dead, but is it worth $100 a month just to be able to see them sooner? If you really want to watch them there is are other alternatives Vudu and Amazon both offer season purchases of those types of shows, you can buy (as in own) the whole season for about $40 per show and watch them the day after they are aired. Still cheaper than $100 a month.
The Tivo service, if you are not familiar lets you pause and rewind live TV and lets record shows to a hard drive to watch at your leisure. I highly recommend it. There are other ways of accomplishing this, but Tivo is the best by far and easiest. It also serves as a D/A converter if you don't have one of those new digital TVs yet.
Is this the right thing for you? It depends on what you are watching/paying now and what you can do without. The best thing to do is look at what your paying right now and what you watch. Whatever you watch on a cable network you will need to look up what sources have it. You can use a search engine like Yidio.com that will look up Netfilix, Amazon, Redbox etc. and let you know which ones are offering that show. You can alos look up information on antennasdirect.com they have lots of info on how to 'cut the cord'.
I made the switch a few months ago and I don't think I'll ever go back. It's more principle that money. BTW, call your cable/satalite company right now and tell them you want to cancel. You'll be amazed at how low they can get your bill. Even if it's just temporary, they cna really knock it down when they think you are going to drop them.
I would be happy to answer any question you might have about this. Just shoot us an email, I'm happy to help.
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