RESEARCH COMPANY: 10% WILL DROP CABLE/SATELLITE BY 2016

[justpassingthough]

After reading this thread, I feel stupid for not cutting the cord. Our internet through Charter in Long Beach, CA is 100 Mbps and no cap. I use Netflix and Hulu through our Apple TVs, which can also give access to MLB and NBATV, but we continue to subscribe to DirecTV primarily for Sunday ticket.

I don't think I will ever cut the cord, though, because I like to have options. I'm an entitled, want it on demand person- as I've been trained over the past 10 years of media consumption- so I want several different vehicles for watching my programs. I realized this last September when driving home from Lake Havasu the Sunday morning of NFL kickoff and I hooked up my iPhone to the aux input in my car to watch the games on 3G. I couldn't do that if I didn't still have DirecTV.

They should really start chapters of Media Overconsumers Anonymous....

 

[fortmill]

I didn't get cable until DTV. With the antenna I have pointed away from most of the stations I get on cable, I got nearly perfect performance at first from five stations and their subchannels, if any. One by one, most of these stations have had significant problems at times.

One station performs perfectly, or nearly so, just about all the time. But I tend to keep the TV on the channel which I record "The Simpsons" from, even though I have seen just about all the episodes. It helps if I rewind through what I recorded because if the other station oncable airs the same episode, I don't have to see as much to know I've seen it. But instead of "The Simpsons", this station has been airing the hit show "No Signal" almost all the time lately. Even though the transmitter is in the same place as another station that does well. And both stations are on nearly the same actual channel.

I have another antenna that isn't nearly as good but I keep it on "Roy's Folks", a local news report sort of like Charles Kuralt. Some days the signal is perfect. Some days there's lots of pixellation and I just have to go to the web site a few days later.

If I wanted to watch the stations that are actually on my cable system, I'm sure it would be a nightmare even if I got an outdoor antenna. Aside from having to hire someone--no, don't tell me I can do it myself, because I know I can't--I don't know where it would go.

Imagine what it's like for people out in the country as I am who don't have cable. Just a few hundred feet down the road that's how it is. They don't get to pay for the cheap package with just WGN and the broadcast channels, as far as I know. And they're the ones who need it the worst.

Chimpanzee--Excellent DTV OTA reception is available in most rural areas, including the sandhills of North and South Carolina, with a modest outside antenna and in some cases an amp. Maybe you should think about a professional ant. installation. You pay once, then have free TV for many years. In many urban areas, an inside antenna works fine. I was in Columbia SC last week end and was blown away by the reception on the first floor of a 3 floor apartment building. The antenna was a broken up $8.00 RCA pair of rabbit ears on the floor behind a cheap Emerson flatscreen. All seven local stations (plus a bunch of subchannels) came in flawlessly, even the two VHFs.

 

[JeeperOne]

Well when you consider that one can find almost every show on iTunes & other places either live or available as a podcast, there's a lot of truth to that report

In fact, I've been wondering why I'm spending so much $$$ on cable when it's cheaper to get my shows over the Internet & pay the leagues for access to services like MLB TV & such.....

Cheers

 

[TheBigA]

MLB.com is a quarter the price of Extra Innings.

Pretty funny to watch Fox coverage of MLB, and have them promote DirectTV.

 

[KeithE4]

MLB.com is a quarter the price of Extra Innings.

Pretty funny to watch Fox coverage of MLB, and have them promote DirectTV.

MLB.TV is either $100 (one feed, usually the home team), or $120 (both feeds if available). Gameday Audio ($15 by itself) is included. Ridiculous blackout rules (TV only) apply.

I don't know what it is now, but I paid $160 for Extra Innings on cable 3 years ago. The advantage of cable is that picture quality is better. Picture quality on MLB.TV depends on the box (PC, Roku, etc.) - an old, low-end PC won't work, but just about anything made in the last 3 years should. HD is available, but not normally at 30 frames per second. It's more like 10-15 fps, with 30 fps when set to an SD or VHS-quality picture. The HDMI output performs better than the VGA output.

 

[kenglish]

Isn't 2016 around the goal year that the FCC plans to pretty-much kill off over-the-air TV?

They are planning to announce a law, coinciding with the 10-year anniversary of the 9-11 bombings, that will allow the FCC to change everything around again, and allow stations to "voluntarily" go out of the broadcasting business, so they can sell off the TV spectrum to the broadband interests. Certain Congressmen, "grand-standers" as they are, want to make the announcement on 9-11-2011....calling it a "tribute to the brave firemen and policemen who lost their lives (because there wasn't enough spectrum) on 9-11". They justify this by saying some of the money made by auctioning off the public's OTA TV spectrum will go to buy fancy new radios for the police and firemen.

 

[Darth_vader]

Oh well. There's so little I watch these days on the local channels that, if it comes to pass, it probably wouldn't be any huge loss to humanity.

"Has anyone who likes live sport cut the cord?"

Hell no! Satellite wild-feeds of motocross events are far, far superior to the end product you get from the networks! No commercials, score banners, irritating announcer chatter, nothing. Only the views and ambience of the race itself. Almost like seeing it live at the track!

Oh yeah, the only cost I've ever encountered was that of purchasing my receiver and dish. (Latter of which was, in fact, given to me by a friend, but I am using a $30 after-market LNB that I purchased locally.) By now, when compared to a pay package like Echo$tar or Direct, my setup has undoubtedly paid for itself at least a few times over during the seven years it's been operational.

 

[vchimpanzee]

Isn't 2016 around the goal year that the FCC plans to pretty-much kill off over-the-air TV?

They are planning to announce a law, coinciding with the 10-year anniversary of the 9-11 bombings, that will allow the FCC to change everything around again, and allow stations to "voluntarily" go out of the broadcasting business, so they can sell off the TV spectrum to the broadband interests. Certain Congressmen, "grand-standers" as they are, want to make the announcement on 9-11-2011....calling it a "tribute to the brave firemen and policemen who lost their lives (because there wasn't enough spectrum) on 9-11". They justify this by saying some of the money made by auctioning off the public's OTA TV spectrum will go to buy fancy new radios for the police and firemen.

And if you believe this, you also believe Bush planned the bombings to boost his popularity.

At least I hope this is as big a crackpot theory as that one.

As for over-the-air TV, I certainly haven't had a good experience in the past week. I decided to see if I could fix what was messing up WMYV. It was perfect for the first year or so, most of the time, except when I replaced the TV and moved the converter box. It should still have done as well as WFMY and WXLV.

Then I discovered the connection to the antenna (Philips MANT410) was loose. I tried making it tighter but couldn't. WFMY and WGHP were not affected by this, though. I fiddled with the equipment and succeeded in getting WMYV back. But WFMY and WGHP had "no signal". WFMY is a station which has performed better than any other station. Some days I watched for hours with not even a glitch.

I'm not sure what I did next, but I noticed I was getting a signal even when the wire wasn't connected to anything! I discovered the connection to the antenna was loose. Two years, and I didn't even move the antenna, but somehow that wire pulled it loose from the adjustments I made. There was another connector, but when I tried to connect the wire, I got either lots of pixellation or a frozen picture on WFMY. It worked as long as I held onto the thing, but then the picture would freeze.

I gave up on trying to hook the thing up and disconnected it and then the wire just happened to touch the part of the antenna that picks up the signal, and everything was perfect, on every channel. Now it is a powered antenna, so I don't know if there was any benefit from that if it wasn't literally connected. Well, the next night, "no signal". Anywhere. I tried hooking it back up. It worked. Next night, "no signal". What is this thing DOING? I adjusted the position of the converter box. WFMY was back, perfectly. An hour later, "no signal". I adjusted the position of the converter box again. An hour later, all was still fine. In fact, I watched the entire hour of "Same Name" and had no problems. One glitch that didn't even affect the sound--though during the last moments of "Big Brother" I did have three or four serious glitches.

WMYV is like it was. After all that. Or maybe not. I'll soon find out.

 

[KTN Corp]

Isn't 2016 around the goal year that the FCC plans to pretty-much kill off over-the-air TV?

They are planning to announce a law, coinciding with the 10-year anniversary of the 9-11 bombings, that will allow the FCC to change everything around again, and allow stations to "voluntarily" go out of the broadcasting business, so they can sell off the TV spectrum to the broadband interests. Certain Congressmen, "grand-standers" as they are, want to make the announcement on 9-11-2011....calling it a "tribute to the brave firemen and policemen who lost their lives (because there wasn't enough spectrum) on 9-11". They justify this by saying some of the money made by auctioning off the public's OTA TV spectrum will go to buy fancy new radios for the police and firemen.

I guess I'm ahead of my time since I only listen to FM radio, mostly the NPR affiliate and other non-comm stations. I decided to watch TV last night and was blown away by the commercials and the lack of substantive news on TV--such as last night's news on KHOU: purple martins starting to migrate for the winter and converging in a Houston suburb's shopping center parking lot for at least a week. Another example: I didn't even know about the "scandal" here at the Houston National Cemetery until I was listening to Partisan Gridlock on KPFT and watched the 5pm/6pm local news (couple hours later) and saw the "top" story that was taken verbatim; hook, line, and sinker by the conservative media establishment. Oddly, KUHF made nary a peep about it.

 

[Darth_vader]

@vchimp--

Souinds like your aerial has a crappy amplifier that's dropping a bunch of noise into the line. Have you tried using an ordinary, generic, non-amplified rabbit-ear aerial like you'd get for $5 at Walgreen's? You should try that instead.

 

[sdwulfdawg]

Last week after 20+ years I snipped Cox Cable here in San Diego. Ohhhh they didn't want to go with a good WWE fight, but I already am on DirecTV and kept Cox going because of some of the government channels I like to watch, but not at $24.99 a month! If they would have put the digital subchannels on that basic level I would have had an extra incentive to keep it, but Cox in their infinite wisdom makes you buy the super duper digital levels at way higher cost in order to get them.

Because I'm more into movies than sports, i'm seriously considering jumping from DirecTV to Dish.

 

[vchimpanzee]

I didn't get cable until DTV. With the antenna I have pointed away from most of the stations I get on cable, I got nearly perfect performance at first from five stations and their subchannels, if any. One by one, most of these stations have had significant problems at times.

One station performs perfectly, or nearly so, just about all the time. But I tend to keep the TV on the channel which I record "The Simpsons" from, even though I have seen just about all the episodes. It helps if I rewind through what I recorded because if the other station oncable airs the same episode, I don't have to see as much to know I've seen it. But instead of "The Simpsons", this station has been airing the hit show "No Signal" almost all the time lately. Even though the transmitter is in the same place as another station that does well. And both stations are on nearly the same actual channel.

I have another antenna that isn't nearly as good but I keep it on "Roy's Folks", a local news report sort of like Charles Kuralt. Some days the signal is perfect. Some days there's lots of pixellation and I just have to go to the web site a few days later.

If I wanted to watch the stations that are actually on my cable system, I'm sure it would be a nightmare even if I got an outdoor antenna. Aside from having to hire someone--no, don't tell me I can do it myself, because I know I can't--I don't know where it would go.

Imagine what it's like for people out in the country as I am who don't have cable. Just a few hundred feet down the road that's how it is. They don't get to pay for the cheap package with just WGN and the broadcast channels, as far as I know. And they're the ones who need it the worst.

Chimpanzee--Excellent DTV OTA reception is available in most rural areas, including the sandhills of North and South Carolina, with a modest outside antenna and in some cases an amp. Maybe you should think about a professional ant. installation. You pay once, then have free TV for many years. In many urban areas, an inside antenna works fine. I was in Columbia SC last week end and was blown away by the reception on the first floor of a 3 floor apartment building. The antenna was a broken up $8.00 RCA pair of rabbit ears on the floor behind a cheap Emerson flatscreen. All seven local stations (plus a bunch of subchannels) came in flawlessly, even the two VHFs.

I refer you to the other thread.

http://boards.radio-info.com/smf/index.php?topic=195156.0