Team-BHP - Cutting the cord - Ditching Satellite TV

Voted No

Have subscribed to Prime, Netflix, Hotstar & Sony Liv.
When Disney Plus, HBO premium etc are available I will subscribe to that too.

But I cannot cut the chord since my parents require their dose of English news channels, Telugu & Tamil movies and other religious programming and are not comfortable surfing the OTT platforms for content.

Have unsubscribed all sports, English entertainment and movie channels from Tata Sky since no one watches them anymore on the STB and the monthly bill has come down significantly.

I haven't and may not cut the cord because sometimes I don't want to be in control of the content.

This is more applicable in the case of radio. When I play my playlist from my phone, I tend to be impatient and change tracks quickly. Because of this reason , I love the radio as you don't have the control and you listen to whatever they are laying - whether you like it or not.

Same way, with Netflix/ prime etc you select the movies. At times I don't want that control and just want to watch what is there on a movie channel at that point in time.

I cut the cord 3 years back. Actually I could have done it much earlier but due to lack of good throughput from Local ISPs.

I don't really remember when did I last watched TV as it has been baby rhymes for me for last 8 years with two kids, 8 and 4 now. Later with Smart TVs and reliable Internet connection, the DVDs and pendrives also went away. Now its only Youtube and the likes of Prime, Netflix and App based news channels.

I do miss them in case of live cricket matches and when some guests including Parents are visiting.

Overall I dont think I will ever go back to Cable TV . The voice based searches on apps on Smart TV and Alexa have further added to the convenience.

Quote:

Originally Posted by GTO (Post 4660717)

I am cutting the cord today.

Attachment 1916150
Source

Over the years, I have used my Tata Sky primarily for two forms of entertainment:

1. Movies. Now however, Hotstar + Netflix + Prime Video + Play Movies (pay per view) + Apple TV (pay per view) have completely taken care of my movie fix. In fact, I have a backlog of about 50 top-ranked movies that are still waiting to be watched on these streaming platforms. Pro tip = use "Just Watch" to find movies - here is a sample index of 1200 well rated movies on the usual platforms (you can tweak the Rotten Tomatoes & IMDB scores as per your preferences).

2. Sports. In particular, F1. Hotstar live streaming takes care of that.

3. It's not about the cost. But the fact is, I have used my Tata Sky box all of thrice in the last 2 months (for F1 races).

4. The new complicated TV packages & blackouts during the monsoon season have only firmed up my decision.

What about you? Are you sticking with Satellite TV? Ready to dump it? I'm not that big on TV shows, but am told they're better on streaming than cable TV anyway.

Thanks a lot for the tip GTO. 'Justwatch' is a gamechanger for some one like me who is contemplating on cutting the chord, but was having a hard time tracking shows across multiple streaming services available.

I cut the cord 6 months back. Though I was using d2h, which is considered as the cheapest service provider in the market, the possibility to stream real-time via Hotstar, Netflix & Amazon Prime has made things easier for everyone, especially for the kids and the cost is justifiable compared to the monthly charges by the satellite service providers.

I have voted "Others". The reason being the cord is partly cut for the last 2 years. When i parents come visiting, the cord is quickly mended and run temporarily on a weekly basis. In the last 2 years, i have probably utilized the cable maybe 6 weeks in total.
For entertainment - end up watching movies on Saturdays and serials during the week if we find time, we use Netflix (shared) and Amazon Prime. I dont watch too many new movies and therefore can bide my time for them to come through in one of these providers. For us its 1 hour per day on weekdays and maybe 1 movie over the weekend

For other entertainment (read child) - its a combination of these 2 + youtube. My son watches a lot of music videos. Luckily his tastes have not crossed 1980s and i have kept it with the classic rock. Thankfully his music teacher too is a classic rock buff. So it works. For others he watches a few cartoons and now Only Planet on Netflix. He enjoys the show a lot and therefore no issues. In all he gets 1 hour of viewing per day on weekdays and 2 hours on weekend

For News - its just the daily paper which thankfully has not become digital addiction. The Hindu still remains best in its physical form

The only thing is our music system is kept on from about 7am onward through the day and thankfully my trusty ipod does a good job.

Ever since relocating to Pune a year n half back, i bought myself a cheap MiTv which happened to be smart as well. Since then i am always hooked to:

Youtube
Hotstar
Amazon Prime
Netflix
Jio TV

I never felt the need for a proper cable connection. With the current internet speed and reliability its pretty feasible to cut the cord. For local news and sports hotstar comes to the rescue and there are multiple streaming apps offering live channel content both legally and not !

Over 80% of TV time on my home has shifted to OTT streaming services since past few months. Currently I am using chromecast device. I am considering buying a fire tv stick and finally disconnecting dth for a while atleast.

A question to people who are already using fire stick: Is the app store in fire stick good. Does it have all major OTT streaming apps available?

I ditched my Reliance BigTV DTH connection 4 years ago and stopped Airtel DTH 2 years ago. I somehow managed with YouTube + Hotstar + Prime the first year with FireTV stick and felt okay. Now I am completely spoilt with YuppTV for live TV and news, Hotstar, Prime, Netflix, Jio TV, SonyLIV on a AndroidTV. Also have AirtelTV mobile app for live TV on mobile as well.
More than the monthly bills, it is the convenience of the OTT platforms. Even my parents back home have started using YuppTV to view the shows they missed and youtube for other videos. Somehow they are not yet comfortable using Hotstar, Prime and other OTT which are little difficult to navigate and find the interesting contents of their language.

A dumb question. The fire stick cannot be shared between TVs right?

I have 3 Tv's and the only way to have this feature is to buy the stick for other 2 TV's.
I will be happy if someone says NO to above sentence :)

The reason for asking in this thread : i have 2 Airtel connection paired like 1+1 and because of that i cannot disconnect one. Fire stick workes great but it is limited to one TV.

Let’s see.. Dad watches (rather sleeps) in front of Arnab’s rants, mom watches Ekta Kapoor’s madness, and I don’t really have the time to watch. Though of late, even mom is using Hotstar, so it’s only Dad now But I don’t see it leaving our house anytime now, and it’s in great condition too. I get all my news updates from Google anyway lol: (as, I believe, many others do).

Cut the cord almost 2+ years ago.
Having a setup of Amazon Prime, Netfix, Hotstar premium (Thanks to Flipkart coins), Jio cinema.
Had been using a sourced version of the Jio tv to satisfy the ladies in the house but that stopped working some months ago. Have been using Thop Tv ever since.
I really can not see the need for a cable tv now. As most have already pointed out, can't stand the ADs now.

Quote:

Originally Posted by atnyia (Post 4661602)

I am living hybrid with Airtel Internet TV since April 2017. It has everything - TV, Hotstar, Netflix, Prime Video, Alexa integration, Google voice assistance....
2) For the existing TV, I am going to buy Fire Stick.

It turns out that I don't need to buy the Fire TV stick at all. My subscription has expired. I have removed the antenna cable. But, the box is playing OTT services just fine. I was under the impression that OTT services would also not work if I ditch the DTH subscription. In hindsight, I could have saved thousands since April.

Today is day zero of cutting the cord. It has been a pleasant surprise.