• Coffee House
  • Internet and Cable TV costs way too much now. Any better options? (p.6)
2016/01/04 23:39:13
bluzdog
A friend of mine turned me on to this guy: http://freetvee.com/ It's a pretty elegant solution. My Comcast bill is now $50/mo vs. the $212/mo that I was paying. I bought my own modem and router so I'm not renting any equipment. He built me a media PC with the internet connection and an antennae connected to it. I use Ooma for voip phone and it costs $8/mo. The only thing that I miss is ESPN during football season but Sling TV has a package that includes it. I figure the savings will pay for the equipment in no time and I have something to show for it.
 
Rocky
2016/01/05 08:31:09
Ham N Egz
bluzdog
A friend of mine turned me on to this guy: http://freetvee.com/ It's a pretty elegant solution. My Comcast bill is now $50/mo vs. the $212/mo that I was paying. I bought my own modem and router so I'm not renting any equipment. He built me a media PC with the internet connection and an antennae connected to it. I use Ooma for voip phone and it costs $8/mo. The only thing that I miss is ESPN during football season but Sling TV has a package that includes it. I figure the savings will pay for the equipment in no time and I have something to show for it.
 
Rocky


from what i read(I may be wrong) those streams are hosted by offshore servers, it will just be a matter of time until the DRM people shut those streams down somehow?
2016/01/05 09:44:25
Moshkito
codamedia
The problem is - the CRTC is terrible at implementing these types of things. I suspect six additional channels will end up costing more than 6 bundles. 



This is the part that is hard on cable, and will create problems later ... for example, ESPN is about 6 channels and to get ESPN, you have to put them on Expanded and make it "free", and not on a paid tier. Their other 5 divisions can be placed on any tier.
 
Problem number 2 ... they are owned by Disney ... and if you take out ESPN, you will lose Disney, or the price of the Disney channel just went up ... and ESPN/Disney are the two most expansive ones. They also have the greatest pull on cable, because they think they are bigger than the world.
 
I doubt this would be different in Canada, because Disney/Espn could easily say ... who needs Canada!
2016/01/05 12:55:08
jimusic
codamedia
The problem is - the CRTC is terrible at implementing these types of things. I suspect six additional channels will end up costing more than 6 bundles. 
 

Yes, that's our biggest problem - the CRTC ostensibly claims to be looking out for the viewers/subscriber/customers, but at the end of the day, it seems to be only 'at the permission' of the big 3 here - Bell, Rogers and Shaw.
Those who have really looked into it, have seen that the 'governing body' of the CRTC is really governed by those players who are so big now, they couldn't fail even if they tried.
 
Kind of reminds me of the whole financial scandal crisis of 2008 on Wall street.
Instead of anyone going to prison, the CEOs received record bonuses - and government bailouts - all at the tax payer's expense.
 
But I digress.
 
Moshkito
...I doubt this would be different in Canada, because Disney/Espn could easily say ... who needs Canada!...


That's yet another thing. With Canada being just over only 10% of the population of America, it's hardly worth the bother for many [most] US companies.
 
As it is, they are many channels and other things that we simply don't get here. The big 3 control those tighter than a prison, and the CRTC does nothing about it.
 
The biggest dollars pull the tightest strings, it seems. What else is new, right?
 
I read on some other sites, that Canadians pay way too much and much more than countries in Europe for TV, Internet, and cell phone service.
 
And with our dollar now slipping [again] to just 70% of the American dollar, we pay much more for almost everything.
Even our gas costs more, even though we produce plenty and ship a lot of it to America cheaper than what we have to pay for it here. 
 
But I digress yet again.
 
 
2016/01/05 19:23:49
bluzdog
Ham N Egz
bluzdog
A friend of mine turned me on to this guy: http://freetvee.com/ It's a pretty elegant solution. My Comcast bill is now $50/mo vs. the $212/mo that I was paying. I bought my own modem and router so I'm not renting any equipment. He built me a media PC with the internet connection and an antennae connected to it. I use Ooma for voip phone and it costs $8/mo. The only thing that I miss is ESPN during football season but Sling TV has a package that includes it. I figure the savings will pay for the equipment in no time and I have something to show for it.
 
Rocky


from what i read(I may be wrong) those streams are hosted by offshore servers, it will just be a matter of time until the DRM people shut those streams down somehow?




I'm confused and have some questions. What did you read? Who said anything about streaming? Who are the DRM guys and what are they going to shut down. How did these offshore servers get involved? Are you suggesting that I'm doing something illegal or underhanded, how did you get that from what I posted?
 
I'm only watching TV through the airwaves with an antennae. I do stream Netflix, Pandora and rent the movies from Amazon sometimes.
 
Rocky
 
 
2016/01/07 14:21:52
Ham N Egz
bluzdog
Ham N Egz
bluzdog
A friend of mine turned me on to this guy: http://freetvee.com/ It's a pretty elegant solution. My Comcast bill is now $50/mo vs. the $212/mo that I was paying. I bought my own modem and router so I'm not renting any equipment. He built me a media PC with the internet connection and an antennae connected to it. I use Ooma for voip phone and it costs $8/mo. The only thing that I miss is ESPN during football season but Sling TV has a package that includes it. I figure the savings will pay for the equipment in no time and I have something to show for it.
 
Rocky


from what i read(I may be wrong) those streams are hosted by offshore servers, it will just be a matter of time until the DRM people shut those streams down somehow?




I'm confused and have some questions. What did you read? Who said anything about streaming? Who are the DRM guys and what are they going to shut down. How did these offshore servers get involved? Are you suggesting that I'm doing something illegal or underhanded, how did you get that from what I posted?
 
I'm only watching TV through the airwaves with an antennae. I do stream Netflix, Pandora and rent the movies from Amazon sometimes.
 
Rocky
 
 




 
No your not doing anything illegal, this particular company appears to sell a PC optimized for media playback plus an outdoor tv antenna, so you receive OTA HD transmissions, which are free , plus something akin to ROKU with free channels  built into the PC for the internet content delivery.
they just take all the work out of putting together a system.
Now what i was referring to re jailbroke Amazon sticks with KODI, which DO receive pay content free,which are a little shady, I dont think this freetv thing does that, so ur ok
AFA streaming just about any internet media content is a stream, you tube is a stream, hula, amazon, etc
2016/01/07 14:36:39
jimusic
From reviewing much of their site, it seems they make their money mostly on giving advice for the best setup for you - to be as OTA as possible - plus the sale of the optimized computers, if you want to buy one.
 
They give a first consultation free, but after that you pay for any further advice.
 
My guess is that the initial consultation is fairly short and limited.
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