Getting Rid of Cable- What am I missing?

[inliner311]

@Cavatt I guess NBC universal is seeing the value of ad-driven free-ish streaming. Their new streaming service isn't going to charge people who already pay for cable, satellite, etc. They said they will go the Hulu route and charge if you don't want ads. People who don't pay for TV will have to pay but I think it's a step in the right direction. They said it will be 5 minutes of ads for every hour of content.

https://variety.com/2019/tv/news/nbcuniversal-streaming-service-details-1203108034/

 

[bcort]

That's it.. I'm getting rid of Directv Now. They're raising their prices again, where I should just go back to regular cable. I have the basic plan with three streams- $45. They're increasing that price by $10 near the end of April, so $55.

What streaming service should I go to? Here's the deal... I need three simo streams. That's an extra $10 for Hulu, so $55 there for Hulu + Live TV. Youtube TV already allows three streams but they don't support Firestick (and while I would be ok getting a knockoff app to make it work, I don't want my grandfather doing so..). Even so, Youtube TV is $40. A Roku is $30, so it would save me money after a couple months. Sling TV Orange + Blue is $40 and allows four total streams, but the streams break down into one Orange Stream and Three Blue streams simultaneously. I don't know what channels are on what, but I see that being an issue.

Any other services I should look at? What do you guys think between Hulu TV vs Youtubue TV?

 

[inliner311]

That's it.. I'm getting rid of Directv Now. They're raising their prices again, where I should just go back to regular cable. I have the basic plan with three streams- $45. They're increasing that price by $10 near the end of April, so $55.

What streaming service should I go to? Here's the deal... I need three simo streams. That's an extra $10 for Hulu, so $55 there for Hulu + Live TV. Youtube TV already allows three streams but they don't support Firestick (and while I would be ok getting a knockoff app to make it work, I don't want my grandfather doing so..). Even so, Youtube TV is $40. A Roku is $30, so it would save me money after a couple months. Sling TV Orange + Blue is $40 and allows four total streams, but the streams break down into one Orange Stream and Three Blue streams simultaneously. I don't know what channels are on what, but I see that being an issue.

Any other services I should look at? What do you guys think between Hulu TV vs Youtubue TV?

I've had YouTube tv for more than a year now and I like it. The fire stick thing is annoying but a Roku is easy enough to use for those who aren't tech savvy. I have a Samsung smart TV that the app works fairly well but will freeze up every once in a while when fast forwarding or picking a new show. Exit and restart the app fixes it.

Ive also use it on a Chromecast which can be slow at times but those are cheap and I had a Nexus player but that had some weird glitching in the video. I do like the Chromecast for TV's I don't use alot since I can use my phone or tablet to operate it and it's one less remote to go searching for.

 

[BMAN]

That's it.. I'm getting rid of Directv Now. They're raising their prices again, where I should just go back to regular cable. I have the basic plan with three streams- $45. They're increasing that price by $10 near the end of April, so $55.

What streaming service should I go to? Here's the deal... I need three simo streams. That's an extra $10 for Hulu, so $55 there for Hulu + Live TV. Youtube TV already allows three streams but they don't support Firestick (and while I would be ok getting a knockoff app to make it work, I don't want my grandfather doing so..). Even so, Youtube TV is $40. A Roku is $30, so it would save me money after a couple months. Sling TV Orange + Blue is $40 and allows four total streams, but the streams break down into one Orange Stream and Three Blue streams simultaneously. I don't know what channels are on what, but I see that being an issue.

Any other services I should look at? What do you guys think between Hulu TV vs Youtubue TV?

I have PlayStation Vue and I like it a lot. The app is on Firestick and Roku. I pay $53 for the basic+sports package.

 

[ChicagoCavFan]

Question regarding visual quality. We and my wife's parents have Xfinity. They have a low-end Samsung, and we got the mid-grade Sony (Sony has 3 classes - the high-end one was too pricey 2 years ago). Anyway, our pictures are night and day different. Theirs is much more crisp and fluid....ours on the Sony is not. Fuzzy edges, etc.

Can cable tv signals be degraded depending where you are on the line (for instance, we might be at the end of the cable line from the hub box, or whatever its called).

Any action I can take to remedy this?

 

[inliner311]

Question regarding visual quality. We and my wife's parents have Xfinity. They have a low-end Samsung, and we got the mid-grade Sony (Sony has 3 classes - the high-end one was too pricey 2 years ago). Anyway, our pictures are night and day different. Theirs is much more crisp and fluid....ours on the Sony is not. Fuzzy edges, etc.

Can cable tv signals be degraded depending where you are on the line (for instance, we might be at the end of the cable line from the hub box, or whatever its called).

Any action I can take to remedy this?

Are you using a cable box or steaming?

 

[ChicagoCavFan]

Cable box - we both got the same system

 

[inliner311]

Cable box - we both got the same system

That's a odd one because everything is digital so its basically you get the picture perfectly clear or you don't get it at all. Is everything plugged in with a HDMI cable? You might want to check your settings in your cable box to see if it's outputting at the right resolution. Someone could have accidentally set it to output at 480p or 720p instead of 1080p.

 

[gourimoko]

Question regarding visual quality. We and my wife's parents have Xfinity. They have a low-end Samsung, and we got the mid-grade Sony (Sony has 3 classes - the high-end one was too pricey 2 years ago). Anyway, our pictures are night and day different. Theirs is much more crisp and fluid....ours on the Sony is not. Fuzzy edges, etc.

Can cable tv signals be degraded depending where you are on the line (for instance, we might be at the end of the cable line from the hub box, or whatever its called).

Any action I can take to remedy this?

Digital signals can be degraded, but it can also be deliberately reduced in quality depending upon where you live. For example, you might be getting a much lower bandwidth signal than they are getting.

We have the same problem here in Pasadena. I have an LG 65C7P .. the image quality from Charter was absolute garbage - virtually unwatchable. This was across a mid-level TV in the bedroom and my top-tier TV in my living room.

However, my friends in SD have a lower-end LG, non-OLED, and their picture was much better than mine. When checking the signal quality (dBmV and SNR), I noticed their line had slightly better quality but that wasn't really the issue. The issue was that there were fewer CPE nodes on the CMTS (don't ask how I know, lol).

So the issue was that Charter (TWC Spectrum actually) was overprovisioning their network in Pasadena much more so than they were in this part of San Diego.

If you have a QAM tuner, you can actually diagnose these signals directly by measuring the variable bitrate of the signal.

Now, all this being said, Xfinity is either fiber or DSL; so they won't have the same kind of issues you'll get with cable given the individual lines are not shared the same way cable lines are.

In fact, the issue you're having was so stark and so bad for me and the fact that nothing that I could do locally could really change the issue; all of this led up to me finally cutting the cord.

I simply could not justify paying money for a product that I knew I couldn't enjoy; and when comparing it to Vue and YouTube TV, that had vastly better picture quality, there was really nothing holding me back. Get fast internet, and a collection of streaming services.

Amazon, Hulu, Netflix, and Vue + 400 Mbps. That's where I'm at right now, and I don't even watch TV all like that, lol.

 

[2 For The Brew]

Cable sucks.

I've got Fios

Nice thing about much of the Philly area -- it's Verizon AND Comcast and they compete like hell in this market.

 

[ChicagoCavFan]

Thanks for the input fellas. Yea, I know about the output settings and others to potentially improve the picture quality. I actually get into the menu and enhance all the gamma and other settings to optimize the color settings - so I'm pretty anal about the quality. I wonder if it may be due to mine being a 65" and theirs being 55 (or whatever size Samsung has in the range)....

Anyway, will just go on living life.

 

[bcort]

Just a note to anyone thinking about Hulu and sharing the streams. While Hulu can have multiple streams at once, you have to select a home network and then outside of that network only mobile streams work. You can't have a firestick/Roku/Chromecast outside of your home network.

Anyone know if that's the case for Youtube TV?

 

[Phills14]

Just a note to anyone thinking about Hulu and sharing the streams. While Hulu can have multiple streams at once, you have to select a home network and then outside of that network only mobile streams work. You can't have a firestick/Roku/Chromecast outside of your home network.

Anyone know if that's the case for Youtube TV?

I'm not sure. I've used YouTubeTV as my cable network for almost a year I think. I have multiple smart tvs hooked into it and I use a firestick on other all seems to work fine. I have the app on my phone and ipad and it works well outside. I don't know if I've ever taken a firestick outside of my home network and tried it. I believe it's worked on my iphone and ipad using a hotel wifi if that makes a difference.

 

[theSTEREO.]

Going on a full year now of YouTube TV. Love it. Plan to keep it for a long time.

 

[inliner311]

Just a note to anyone thinking about Hulu and sharing the streams. While Hulu can have multiple streams at once, you have to select a home network and then outside of that network only mobile streams work. You can't have a firestick/Roku/Chromecast outside of your home network.

Anyone know if that's the case for Youtube TV?

I know YouTube tv will ask to verify my home location every once in a while on my phone and tablet. They will use both your IP and location services to verify it. Depending on what you watch it will reverify between 30-90 days.

I assume they do the same thing with Roku and other home devices. Chromecast might be different because you are using your phone or tablet to control it.