Cutting the cord. Questions
 

Hi All:

I'm firing Xfinity and getting fiber pulled to my house. I presently have and use their "TV" services to get local channels and a bunch of others. I really only use the locals and ESPN channels to watch Formula One. I also have a DVR.

How do I do the same with fiber? The outfit I'm getting doesn't offer TV.

Thanks!

Assuming you have a smart TV. Just get a subscription to YouTube TV. Gives you all the broadcast channels and all the regular “cable” channels and ESPN for around $80 a month. Use your broadband to download apps to the TV like you have been doing on your phone forever.

Was literally just looking at it. Thanks!

And they have Sunday Ticket? Done!

Pluto, Tubi, and a few others have a lot of free channels and movies.

If I didn't have a family I'd pay zero for streaming entertainment.

YoutubeTV would be the best for your scenario for sure. You can configure your home family so that each family member can have their own separate channel list and DVR list. Works on pretty much any device.

My daughter and her husband used to have YouTube TV but got rid of it....she said they really didn't like it.

I tried it once on a trial subscription and wasn't impressed enough to change from Xfinity.

I need to look into this. I'm that idiot that pays entirely too much for services I barely use, and I throw paying Spectrum the bullshit fees they charge into that category. I really only use Spectrum for watching golf, the Royals ( :Lin: ), and the NFL.

I'm in the same boat; Spectrum keeps adding subscription services to their plan however I've paying $300 a month for phone/internet/TV and I watch about a dozen channels. A friend recommended Drogon TV for about $12 a month. I thought it was one of the jailbroken apps for the Firestick however this seems legit.

I don't pay for anything other than my internet bill. Samsung TV Plus is free and has a billion channels. I have an HD antenna for local channels. For sports on cable channels I just use streameast.

Having a PC connected to my TV is the key.

How well does the DVR function work on YouTube TV?

Honestly I find it to be a pain in the ass but as time goes by you adapt and learn to work around it. What they do is when you add a show to your library, they record EVERY SHOWING of that show, and stick it in your library. It's improved some, as they're getting better about just showing you the new recordings.

EDIT TO ADD: They will store an unlimited number of show in your library but theoretically they keep the shows for up to 9 months, However as I mentioned, they record every airing so if a 9 month old show gets shown again, they'll record it again and start the countdown again. I generally don't find this to be an issue.

Navigating their guide leaves a lot to be desired.

Weird but as long as it's there, I'm good. Thanks.

You're welcome. As a FYI, I recently dropped YTTV, not because of the DVR issues, as I said I've adapted, but they just raised the price another $10 a month AND I'm having an issue similar to what Frazod mentioned some time ago with Hulu Live. I'm now using the Verizon Home 5G internet and it works like a charm. But for whatever reason, they use revolving IP addresses. And YTTV uses the IP address to set your home viewing area. You can override with the app on your phone, and it's not THAT hard really but I just got annoyed with and finally said F it. Now I'm using a combination of OTA, Hulu, Paramount Plus, and Peacock to watch what I want, The downside will be when the NFL season starts again as my OTA is not that great. (I live in a condo, can't have an outside antenna) I"ll probably have to break down and go back.

As for this location issue, I've reached out to YTTV and can't get an answer as to why I can't just set my location and be done with it, regardless of what the internet IP is doing. ESPECIALLY when said location matches my billing address. The people at YTTV just can't seem to comprehend that simple concept.

EDIT TO ADD: Sorry I just realized I left out a chunk of infomation. I live in Jefferson City, Verizon Home 5G says I'm in St Louis, so they want to give me the St Louis locals. So I have to update my location using the geolocation services on the app on my phone and then it's good for awhile, and then all of a sudden I'm getting St Louis again. I probably had Verizon for 6 months without issues and then this nonsense started.

It can be an issue with sports, because it'll record the original airing and then if there's an overnight replay, it'll record that and it'll default to the most recent... so you're watching the replay and hey, there's the final score at the bottom of the screen! :banghead:

There's an easy way around it though, even though IIRC it's not exactly obvious when you go to play it... there's an option to choose which recording you want to watch.


I was traveling a bit and this became a pain in the ass... you can only change your permanent location twice in a year and have to log into your home account every 90 days, IIRC. I wasn't able to do that at one point, so I had to change my home location and then change it back. Shouldn't be an issue for the next rolling year, but still.

And it's only happened once outside of traveling, but I've had it complain about location before on my Fire stick, even after having it update from my phone.. and seems like you go in circles with it a few times before it finally figures it the **** out.


Overall though, I much prefer it to Dish, which I dumped due to them being ****ing assholes with contracts and constantly dumping channels for weeks/months at a time... I've only had one email from YTTV over a couple years saying Paramount stuff might be dropped, but it wasn't.

YTTV's app (Android) works really well and haven't ever encountered issues between devices (it happened quite a bit with Dish where I'd record something from my phone and would find out later it didn't).

My issue wasn't happening with travelling, it just thinks I'm somewhere I'm not based on my revolving IP address. Even though I haven't gone anywhere. So far they haven't limited me to changing it back using the app on my phone. But as I said, I got tired of dealing with it, and at a minimum I'm going to take a break from it during the summer rerun season.