I have an OTA antenna for stuff on normal channels. Anything else, I search in several plugins I have installed within XBMC for a live stream. Either the Sportsdevil or NaviX plugins always has the games I want to watch. Quality can vary depending on the popularity of the game.

There are some paid options available. They're essentially pirated streams that you pay a monthly fee for. But normally HD quality.

Without a doubt, live sports is the main drawback with this setup. Sometimes it will require you to try 10-15 different streams before finding one that works great. It can be frustrating. But it will work. Technology and bandwidth has improved a lot in the last few years, so online streams are improving all the time.

My Current setup is like this:

Basic Cable with HBO - Cheaper to have internet with this than it is to have internet by itself (I too might go back to full cable once Google Fiber is in my hood - but maybe not) - We never watch it.



1 Chromecast
1 Roku
1 Family PC
1 Personal PC (also plex server)
1 Work Laptop
5 Tablets
2 Cell Phones
1 OTA DVR - We watch more than Basic cable
1 Slingbox at my Parents house in their basement who has Full Dish Network - Where I get my live sports.

Between netflix / amazon prime instant video / youtube and PLEX - I am never lacking in content - Programs I DVR on the OTA DVR can be copied to PCs/Tablets to be watched later as well

Another option that most people aren't even aware of, is going with a device capable of accepting a Cable card(M-Card). Cable companies don't advertise it. It's not necessarily cutting the cord, but you can cut quite a bit of money off your bill by essentially using your own equipment.

You can get a device like an HDHomerun Prime, and then get a cable card from your local cable company. It's much much cheaper and you can still get almost all the same cable channels. You pay a small fee for renting the cable card. Last I heard it was ~$10/mth. And you pay for whatever cable package you want. The HDHomerun acts as your DVR. It also allows you to broadcast that cable connection through your home network so you can also stream that cable from other computers/tablets/phones/set top boxes like the ones above/etc. You could then optionally open up your home network to also have that cable available from away from home.

For some it's a nice way to drastically cut your bill without actually cutting the cord.

free stuff, I get nervous that I'll click on the wrong link and a thousand popups will happen giving me a virus or something.

One of the best attributes of XBMC is that it provides you with all of the free stuff you want to watch in that regard, with none of the risks of popups or malware. You can run XBMC on any platform, and it provides an organized, easily managed front end with automatic download of movie covers/metadata/fan art. There's no chance of clicking on the wrong link and something bad happening. It's a breeze to set up. It will give you links for media from several dozen different sites at the same time. And because it's not running in a browser, there's zero risk of any type of popup or virus.

If you have any questions, I could point you in the right direction.

Fish. Best source for repositories?

Get a VPN and torrent any****ingthing you want.

Easiest method is to use Addon Installer. Complete instructions here: http://www.tvaddons.ag/addon-installer-kodi/

I also use a few things from SuperRepo too: Instructions: https://superrepo.org/get-started/

BTW Fish.

Posted this in the other cablecutter thread http://www.iflscience.com/technology...sktop-computer

Thoughts? I'm thinking the Ouya is too limited for me. Mostly b/c of how clunky it is to use.

Meh. Adding Windows 8 to an HDMI stick seems like a terrible idea.

The Linux version sounds interesting, as I'm sure there's some OpenELEC capabilities there. But the hardware specs are so much weaker that you'd be better off getting one of the established OpenELEC solutions. The FireTV Stick has the same specs with arguably better capabilities and much easier config.

We'll see once the device comes out...

Hell I wish Cox was like that. It is cheaper for me to have DirecTV's base (For Sunday Ticket) and Cox internet than to go with cox for everything and pay for Sunday Ticket Separately.

That is why I am really interested to see Dish Sling TV in action.

Fish - I know we've talked about this before, but could you maybe highlight some of your most used/favorite addons for XBMC and what you use each other for specifically?

I'll answer a few:

1Channel - this is my goto for watching just about everything.
Icefilms - I use this if I'm having trouble with 1Channel.
Sportsdevil - this gives me all my sports streams. The quality isn't the best, but I can also watch things that aren't even on network TV. Soccer, cricket, billiars, darts, UFC... if it's a major sport that's happening somewhere on the globe, there's probably a stream for it.


That's pretty much all I use. I think that Fish uses What the Furk as well. It's basically a pay service that does similar things to what 1channel does. You pay them. You subscribe to or request shows. They then grab those shows to put them on their server. You then have direct access to stream or download those shows at a fast, reliable speed.

Why not use Genesis? It displays both of those, plus other sites in its search results.

I'm and idiot - Fish answered these questions a few pages back in this very thread. Jesus.