Podcast #919: Confessions of a Cord Cutter

Confessions of a Cord Cutter

We received a great email from our listener Dennis Comfort describing his journey to becoming a cord cutter. Well maybe a cord swapper. Whatever you call it he saved $90 a month! Thank you Dennis for sharing your experience with us!

First, why did I do it?

I've had Comcast for years, used to have Century Link (fiber), and also at Directv at one point. Directv was ok in my old house, but where I live now, there are simply too many trees and I didn't feel like fishing coax cable runs through my house. I tried Comcast again, and had it for a while, then the Century Link sales guys showed up on my front door and convinced me that my life would be better. What I found, after switching, was that 1) their DVR user interface was a shambles, their Internet was sometimes intermittent, and frankly, I missed my Tivo. So, goodbye Century Link, hello Comcast (again). Been on Comcast for the last several years and have happily enjoyed my Tivo Bolts (two of them in the house). However, my Comcast bill was getting out of hand. I decided to look for alternatives. Cost drove this decision.

Requirements

I did consider keeping Comcast -- didn't look forward to training the family on another user interface. I created myself a list of decision criteria to help drive the planning:

• Reduce the monthly bill.
• Keep getting local channels including PBS.
• Keep network channels.
• No need for 500 channels - I probably watch 10-20 of them.
• Need to be able to record and watch shows later.
• Need solid internet connection for home/work stuff.
• Need at least 1080P, 4K would be great (my Bolts already do 4K as does my FireTV). One of my TVs is Samsung 50" 1080P, the other is 65" Sony 4K.
• Minimize the number of remotes (before the switch, I had two --- FireTV, and a Harmony One remote).
• I don't want to go into the walls and move cables.
• We also do watch Netflix, Prime Video, and Hulu.
• Also watch HBO and Showtime.

Alternatives

• Keep Comcast - and the biggest reason I would have done that would have been if my final new monthly bill was within a few dollars of Comcast - then not worth switching.
• Century Link - no.
• Directv - no.
• Apple TV 4K with a streaming service
• • Sony Playstation Vue
  • YouTube TV
  • Hulu TV
• Keep in mind that as of today, no streaming service provides access to PBS; for that, I need Comcast or an OTA antenna.

What I Did

Installed free trials of Vue and HuluTV. Didn't consider YouTubeTV but I can't remember why.

HuluTV and Vue could go relatively neck and neck on features; there are distinct UI differences, but Hulu didn't offer HBO and Showtime; Vue has both.

• I bought an Apple TV 4K and signed up one month of Vue Core plus HBO/Showtime.
• I bought an inexpensive OTA HD antenna and stuck to an inside wall of the house (too far to reach the windows and not burying cables) to see if it was good enough.

What I found out

OTA HD antenna, even again an inside wall, works GREAT, especially for PBS.. it's not perfect, and now then it will pixelate, but I don't care.

• I love Apple TV 4k. I'm looking forward to the Apple TV + content. it helped, i'm sure, that our house is already deep into the Apple ecosystem (despite the fact that I swore off Macs and Apple for years while I worked for a large software company with an M in the name).
• The Apple TV does a great job at being THE UI into all of my content except PBS (I can live with that).
• I am hooked on Multiview with Playstation Vue so I can have up to four PIPs on my screen at once and switch between them.
• It's convenient that the Harmony remote will control EVERYTHING (the family room set up is the Samsung 50" and a Sony soundbar/subwoofer setup (with HDMI switching) so one remote does it. Or you can still use the Apple remote and even control the volumne on the amp.

What Isn't Great

The Apple TV remote glass trackpad can be a bit squirrely - I have it set on the lowest response setting and it's still takes some practice -- but we can live with it.

• Sony Vue is great, but there are a few bugs... yesterday I was watching the Seattle Seahawks throw away the game to Baltimore and concurrently was switching back and forth to the movie, US Marshalls. After about 10-15 switches, Vue got confused and mixed up the two shows so that if you chose football, you got the movie and vice versa. Easy fix... re-add both shows, but still a bug.
• Can't really skip commercials any more. Oh well.
• I do miss Tivo, BUT.... I got to thinking about this... we probably only watch 10% of all the content record with Tivo. And, we don't really need to record Tivo-style any more as we can stream pretty much anything anything. So as much as I teared up just a tad as I disconnected the Bolts, they aren't needed. (one of your shows talked about how Tivo has missed the boat in several areas... too bad we can't get a Tivo app on the set top boxes.. i'd pay for that).

Result

• I'm saving about $90 /month in Comcast costs, and I got a new deal on my internet so my throughput doubled from 500mbps to 1Gbps for $6 less to Comcast (from what Internet-only would have been for 500mbps).
• I bought a second Apple TV for the theater room (65" Sony) and all is good.

I'm happy. I can live with some of the nuances, and I'm free from the cable company.... for content. We will see how the next 6 months goes.. so far, so good.