Need advice on cutting cable cost.

[ThatRaceCardGuy]

My last bill from Att was $215...sick of paying that much to watch only a few shows. I dont want to cut the cord from cable entirely. I would like to keep basic cable and internet, but still be able to watch the shows I like on HBO and showtime. I`m already a netflix subscriber, any other suggestions ? Can you buy season passes for most of the shows on HBO and Showtime?



Thanks!

[jjjayb]

Originally Posted by BWillie

I just got a pretty good deal from Comcast. $104 for the same shit I had. Still get espn1, 2, news, u. CBS sports, nfl network, nba tv. Etcetc. Basically I get all the sports channels except b10 network. Entire house dvr. Faster internet. Same if not better service as I was previously getting for $185. Had to do 3 yr contract but cancellation fee is only $300, and goes down a certain % each month. So if Google Fiber comes in 1.5 yrs itll just be $150 to cancel

I just signed back up because of that too. $100/mo here with 250Mbit connection. Only a 2 year contract, but rate is guarnteed for 3 years.

[Fish]

There's a new XBMC plugin for TV shows, that's been working really well for me.

TVOnline. It's just TV shows, but it works great and it's really reliable. You don't have to pick sources, it doesn't buffer, and the selection is good. This plugin is new, so future development will make it even better. You can subscribe to shows, and they'll show up in your library and new show will be added to your library automatically when they come available. It's pretty solid.

Info here:

http://www.xbmchub.com/forums/kinkin...-tvonline.html

[NewChief]

Originally Posted by Fish

There's a new XBMC plugin for TV shows, that's been working really well for me.

TVOnline. It's just TV shows, but it works great and it's really reliable. You don't have to pick sources, it doesn't buffer, and the selection is good. This plugin is new, so future development will make it even better. You can subscribe to shows, and they'll show up in your library and new show will be added to your library automatically when they come available. It's pretty solid.

Info here:

http://www.xbmchub.com/forums/kinkin...-tvonline.html

Cool. I'll give it a try. I don't watch a ton of current TV but will be helpful when GoT starts back up. How does it choose the source? Just bases choice on most views?

[Fish]

Originally Posted by NewChief

Cool. I'll give it a try. I don't watch a ton of current TV but will be helpful when GoT starts back up. How does it choose the source? Just bases choice on most views?

I believe it's all from tvonline.cc. There's a register process, but you can put whatever you want for email, it doesn't actually check the email and you go straight to the media. Breeze through that thread it has all the info. Would be nice for family to use, pretty simple and reliable.

[aturnis]

But can I watch DuckTales?

[ragedogg69]

Originally Posted by Fish

"If you want your father and I's marriage to continue,

reading that gave me an aneurysm, but I cannot figure out what would be proper.


what quality are the shows on tvonline.cc? I cannot watch anything but 720p rips of TV Shows.

[CoMoChief]

So how would you be able to watch like Chiefs games or MU/KU college bball games with these programs?

[ragedogg69]

Originally Posted by CoMoChief

So how would you be able to watch like Chiefs games or MU/KU college bball games with these programs?

sportsdevil add on or live stream apps like veetle or Navi-X. Supposedly, Mashup has high quality feeds, but if you install those add ons, it will also install ads and tracking software. I highly recommend you do not support the xunity add on team.

['Hamas' Jenkins]

Question for the resident HTPC experts.

I am too long out of the game, but am looking towards cord cutting myself. It seems like a good thing to do over X-Mas break.

I have the following right now in the living room:

HTPC:

AM 3 MoBo, AMD Propus 45nm 3.0 GHZ quad-core chip, 2GB DDR3 1333 RAM, 1.8 TB storage, Windows 7.

It's connected to the internet through a D-Link Wireless Bridge. Our router is a basic Linskys N router.

I want to be able to stream content to the connected TV and do our second LCD TV. I'd also like to function as a DVR.

We current have DTV and 30 MBPS internet. I'm looking to drop the DTV completely. I can build an OTA antenna myself and mount it in the attic.

I'd like to have Dual Tuner capability.

What would you recommend that I add to the setup from a hardware perspective (including STBs)?

It looks like XMBC is the de facto choice on here for software. I'll also sign back up for Hulu Plus.

My wife usually watches generic, dumbass Bravo programming, so I'm sure I can get that via Hulu, and I know I'm likely SOL w/ sports, but what might you recommend if I wanted to watch college basketball and football?

Many rheps to responders.

[Bump]

I cut the cord on DTV and just use netflix and hulu. I'm thinking about watching stuff on project free TV, but I dunno...feel like I might get a virus.

But the way I look at it, DTV was great the first year, paying $40 per month. After that, without any sort of changes to my programming. The bill always ranged from $90 - 120 per month after that. Just for the regular cable channels, no HBO or anything like that.

I ended up cancelling 2 months early and gladly paid $40 to do so. Netflix and hulu cost me $16 per month. So the way I look at it, I've already saved around $350 since I have cancelled and feels great.

Now if I can get an alternative to comcast internet and their $80 per month price, that would be great. But the only other option here is RCN or Verizon. So, which would be the lesser evil? I don't know.

[NewChief]

Here's the dumbest XBMC "brick" story ever:

I installed Aeon Nox skin because I thought it looked cool. It has a "splash" boot screen on it, though, that it goes to before putting you into the main menu. The only problem with that, though, is that my MX2 remote control "home" button only causes the splash screen to reload instead of going to the actual main menu. No worries, though, because the XBMC remote app on my iPhone/Pad would navigate it to the main menu without any issues. All was well... until my XBMC remote app stopped connecting.

Now I'm stuck on the splash screen, unable to access my settings to change anything just because I installed a skin. I can't work on the box and troubleshoot it (I think all that's happened is that my box isn't hitting my wireless network now) because I can't get past this screen. XBMC was really running awesome up until then.

I think I'm going to have to do a fresh install from SD card.

[Fish]

Originally Posted by NewChief

Here's the dumbest XBMC "brick" story ever:

I installed Aeon Nox skin because I thought it looked cool. It has a "splash" boot screen on it, though, that it goes to before putting you into the main menu. The only problem with that, though, is that my MX2 remote control "home" button only causes the splash screen to reload instead of going to the actual main menu. No worries, though, because the XBMC remote app on my iPhone/Pad would navigate it to the main menu without any issues. All was well... until my XBMC remote app stopped connecting.

Now I'm stuck on the splash screen, unable to access my settings to change anything just because I installed a skin. I can't work on the box and troubleshoot it (I think all that's happened is that my box isn't hitting my wireless network now) because I can't get past this screen. XBMC was really running awesome up until then.

I think I'm going to have to do a fresh install from SD card.

Can you boot the device and browse files in the Android OS? If so, you can manually switch back to the default Confluence skin.

Navigate to ~/.xbmc/userdata/guisettings.xml You can edit that file to change back to Confluence, or simply delete the file and let it be recreated. You'll lose your other XBMC system settings if you delete the file though.

[007]

Originally Posted by Fish

That's the old unit, and for some reason more expensive.

Here's the shiznit: http://www.amazon.com/G-Box-Midnight.../dp/B00CH643A8

Like I said, the ATV2 is pretty aged and limited in hardware. But it is pretty nice for Airplay purposes. But the most recent iOS for ATV2 is what's called a tethered jailbreak. Meaning you need to hook it up to a computer and do a special tether boot in order to run XBMC. If you kill power to the unit, you'll have to do the tethered boot with your computer to get it working again. It's a PIA in most cases. And any ATV2 you find right now will likely have the newest OS on it. If it has an older OS, you can do an untethered jailbreak and use it as normal. But those are hard to find...

The Android boxes are the way to go now, IMO. You can simply download the Netflix Android app and run it directly from there. There's an XBMC netflix solution, but you'll have better performance running it natively through the Android OS.

Keep in mind that XBMC can access media from any protocol that is shared on the network. So you could simply setup an SMB, AFP, or NFS share from any/all computers, and add it as a source in XBMC and play media that way.

There's always a way...

Hmmm, I may just have to take a closer look at this box. My wife is a tv zombie and has me recording shit on three DVRs now. It would be nice to NOT have to utilize DVRs to get her shows.

[NewChief]

Originally Posted by Fish

Can you boot the device and browse files in the Android OS? If so, you can manually switch back to the default Confluence skin.

Navigate to ~/.xbmc/userdata/guisettings.xml You can edit that file to change back to Confluence, or simply delete the file and let it be recreated. You'll lose your other XBMC system settings if you delete the file though.

Nope. I can't get into the Android files. I boot into the Android Recovery screen, and it has four options:

From there I can do a factor reset/restore (which I'm assuming will wipe XBMC from the system), reboot, or restore from SD card or network drive (I think).

[durtyrute]

You wanna cut cable cost, cut cable.