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If we're going to pimp products, I'll mention the ChannelMaster DVR+. Same one time fee, and 14 day channel guide included (some restrictions apply).

If we're going to pimp products, I'll mention the ChannelMaster DVR+. Same one time fee, and 14 day channel guide included (some restrictions apply).

OTA DVRs? Nah, can't find those anywhere.

Oh, got it. I'm surprised a long cable run had that profound of an impact on the number of stations you can receive. One time I experimented with swapping a 100-ft piece of coax for a short piece, and the attenuation was not too bad.

Anyway, I have a mast-mounted high gain amp, which more than overcomes all the splitters and long cable runs in my setup. You might want to try one too. Maybe you can get yourself up to 70 channels.

If you live in an area that offers decent over-the-air coverage, you owe it to yourself to at least try and see what you can get with an antenna. The FCC offers an online tool to determine what stations are near you by zip code, No Cable offers similar, and ChannelMaster discusses available antennas, signal-strength, and other useful stuff. We're talking full HD TV of the major networks, and probably a few TNT-like channels, all for free like your grandparents remember it when they were growing up, and all it takes is an investment in time and an antenna you can pick up at Radio Shack or Best Buy.

Seriously, it's great. I'm watching the game in full non-compressed HD and not dropping a damn dime for it, thanks to a 14-inch square of plastic I put in the attic.

And the best part, if you already have coax installed throughout your place for delivering Cable, you can re-purpose that same coax to deliver signal from your antenna to every room outlet. Even with a little antenna, coax is so good, even with splitters, the signal from the antenna can deliver HD to all your TV's. The secret is to use as much coax as necessary to place the antenna in a spot in your home where you get best reception, like your attic if you have one, or outside a window. I ran coax from a cable outlet in an unused bedroom into a closet and up through the ceiling into the attic. That connection lit up the remainder of the coax network, via a 1-5 splitter, so that every remaining outlet now supports over 30 channels. Who the hell needs Cable?

Now truly, it all depends on where you live. YMMV. But if you're in an area with good coverage, paying for cable TV is probably losing you money, with or without promotional triple-play deals (there's all those added fees for taxes and cable-box rentals). With an antenna, Internet, and maybe a subscription to Netflix or Sling, most people would have all they need. You got a perfectly good tuner in your TV, so use it.

I used HULU the first month it came out so I know how long it's been around. It's funny you mention Disney as a backer of HULU since Some of the best original content on Netflix are Disney properties (DareDevil, Jessica Jones, and soon The Punisher, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, and The Defenders). But the fact remains HULU is niche product (although 12 million subscribers is nothing to sneeze at) looking for that breakaway hit but the networks keep trying to get it using the old style pablum "we'll feed it to you when we're ready for you to have it" mentality. If I want that I'll get a Tablo/Channel Master DVR+ and an antenna.

Prime Video suffers terribly from a very poor selection of titles outside of USA.

The selection INSIDE the US sucks pretty badly too.

I find that Prime Video, has much less than Netflix, and any newer or popular movies, the few that are on Prime, are also on Netflix.

I have Prime due to the shipping benefits and the occasional free ebook rental....and I have Prime all my viewing computers, tablets, phones and TVs....but I rarely watch the Prime option.

That being said, Prime IS one of the pieces I'm looking at for cutting the cord.

I don't have a good OTA external antenna yet, so my first step will be cutting Uverse back to only HD basic...local channels (with DVR on it too). That will be about $30/mo.

I'm then looking to maybe try the Slingtv service, to get the cable channels I'd miss...CNN and Fox news channels (try to get left and right sides, I'll miss MSNBC for the far left slant if I cut the cord tho)....the Slingtv streaming service indeed looks interesting. You have options to get most of the ESPN channels for an extra $5 a month...which I only watch during College Football Season. Anyway, for the most part Slingtv will be only $20-$25mo. Going to this route will save me about $55 a month from my Uverse U200 package I currently have.

Anyway...I already have Netflix, Prime Video, YouTube, and maybe soon SlingTV that I can watch on main TVs and other devices.....soon, I look to maybe get a good OTA external antenna and cut even the Uverse Basics package...but I gotta either look to a commercial DVR solution, like Channel Master or maybe look into MythTV again, which I dabbled in awhile back that worked VERY well with OTA stuff.

But, back on topic. I have stuff on YouTube, I might try it on the new Prime system too and see which makes more $$.

that will still give me access to all the shows I like

* Mr. Robot - $24.99
* The Americans - $34.99
* Silicon Valley - $24.99
* Veep - $24.99
* Halt and Catch Fire - $24.99

For about the price of a month's worth of cable you could have all the shows you're interested in and save the other 11 months for something else. I did this years ago, picked up an AppleTV - works great for streaming Netflix and my purchased DVD / Blu-Rays I've been ripping into my iTunes Library - and now just get season's passes for the shows I watch. For local events I put a DB8e on my roof, though if you live in an apartment you could mount it to a weighted pole on your balcony or window.

All in, between my Netflix subscription, Crunchyroll (I really love Anime), DramaFever (I really love Korean dramas), and my iTunes seasons passes I spent around $300 annually on my entertainment - when you consider I used to spend almost $1,500 on cable its amazing how much money I saved. I also have more free time, less of it spent channel surfing looking for stuff to watch, and I never have to watch commercials unless I'm watching OTA, which is why I picked up a DVR+.

Unless you're big on sports, and the AppleTV has been getting all the big ones lately (Hockey, Football, whatever - I don't watch sports), or your shows aren't available digitally there really isn't much reason to get cable / satellite anymore. I've been cable free for nearly 4 years now and I can honestly say that I don't miss it.

Note: While I'm Canadian, I'm assuming you're an American and have used the iTunes prices from the US store

I've been using a MyHD HDTV PCI card for several months now. I'm a good 25 miles away from the transmission towers, have tall mature trees blocking my line of sight, and live on a lake where high winds are common, yet I've got DVDs full of bit perfect recordings of my TV shows. All it took was a nice UHF antenna sitting on top of my garage. I have no idea how it picks up signals through all those trees, but it's rare that I have any continuity errors. And after watching a show in 1920x1080i, the only thing you'll call marginal is the reduced quality of the DVD version.