In February 2011, I cut the cord.
I was a DirecTV subscriber for ten years and was tired of paying around $100/month for satellite service. I called Time Warner cable (I was already subscribed to RoadRunner Turbo at $40/mo.) and got what I thought was a more economical deal: $117 a month for RoadRunner Turbo and their standard digital cable package with one DVR. “We’re going to save almost $20 a month,” I told my wife.
So the satellite was turned off and the cable was hooked up and my family was enjoying the same programs, more in fact, albeit with slightly worse picture quality compared to DirecTV. But I still wasn’t satisfied. I had something like 100 channels, and they all sucked. Why I was paying so much for so little?
After talking to a friend, and doing a little research, I decided my family could handle cutting the cord. Time Warner had a 30 day money back guarantee (minus installation fees, of course) and I canceled my digital cable less than 3 weeks after it was turned on. What follows is what I’ve done so far.
Antennas Direct DB8
I bought a refurbished HDTV antenna from Solid Signal for around $60 with shipping. I took down the DirecTV dish and mounted the antenna on the dish mast. We grounded the antenna and installed a surge protector and active splitter on the main coax drop from the antenna. The living room already had two coax drops since it was required for the dual-channel DVR from DirecTV. One of those drops feeds our main TV while the other drop powers the active splitter in the garage. Total one-time cost: around $90.
I’m still blown away by how much crisper the HD picture is when using a terrestrial antenna instead of satellite or cable. DirecTV looked pretty good. Cable–not so much. The antenna blows them out of the water. I’m now getting the uncompressed digital signal straight from the towers. We get all the major local networks, all of which have sub-channels showing SD or alternate content. All total, we get around 20 channels OTA–free of charge.
We already had an Xbox 360 that was primarily used for watching Netflix. We also have a Wii on another TV which also streams Netflix. The kids now watch most of their shows on Netflix. The same friend told me about PlayOn, which is a service than runs on your Windows computer for streaming content from the Internet to the XBox, Wii, PS3, Roku, etc. We can watch shows from Hulu, YouTube, Amazon, Nickelodeon, Discovery, Cartoon Network, PBS, NatGeo, Pandora…. there are literally dozens of “channels.” It also supports plugins, and there is an active community adding more “channels” all the time. PlayOn normally costs $40 for the first year and $20 for each additional year. I got lucky and caught it when they were running a sale for $20 for the first year. PlayOn streams to both the Xbox 360 and the Wii.
Lastly, we wanted DVR functionality. I decided on the HDHomeRun from Silicon Dust, which I bought on Amazon for $120. The unit has two tuners picking up the signal from the antenna and plugs directly into my home network. It’s configured to record TV shows on the same Windows 7 computer than runs PlayOn, which is a Core 2 Duo with 4 gigs of RAM and 1.5 TB disk space. We also have a laptop running Windows 7 that the family uses. We can watch TV on either computer and the Xbox 360 on the main television via Windows Media Center. Windows Media Center downloads program information from the web and gives us guide functionality. I must admit; Windows Media Center is the best “DVR/tuner” I have ever used. The HDHomeRun can record two programs at once, does the whole “season pass” thing via WMC and stores everything on the desktop machine, all in full HD (if available), and streamed over my home network.
Here’s the really amazing thing: I’ve not heard a single complaint from anyone in my family. I was worried they would hate not having 100+ channels at their fingertips. In reality, by cutting the cord, we really didn’t lose much. I miss ESPN a little, and hopefully Time Warner will sign a deal with ESPN3 soon. (ESPN3 is available on PlayOn) The kids also watch less TV now which is always a good thing.
Total cost up front: $250. Includes antenna with related accessories and the DVR. Will be recouped with less than three months with no satellite/cable TV bills.
PlayOn: $20/year
Netflix: $10/month
Monthly cable bill: $0
I only wish I had done it sooner.