I could wire it up either way, cable or antenna, but there is only one coax outlet in that location.
but all you need is coax for the attenna and an AppleTV
Like I said, you wire your home the way you like it and I'll do the same. I don't want an Apple TV in the kitchen. I have everything I need already. I have an Apple TV in the family room. I only have the two TVs, cable, antenna and Apple TV.
And how much did you pay for your TiVo with lifetime? $500? What happens when it breaks? I've done the analysis between buying tivo boxes and sticking with cable boxes and it would take 3 years to recoup the tivo hardware costs.
Do you get ESPN, TNT, NFL Network? Dont think so.
And what happens if my cable provider decides not to support the Tivo box I use? I'm screwed that's what.
of course if all you care about is OTA broadcast than Tivo is the way to go. But if you are getting cable content it is too risky to use a Tivo, IMO. TimeWarner could change their standards and I'd be screwed.
Get a Slingbox with a tuner, transmit OTA channels to your mobile device, or use your computer's HDD/SSD as a DVR.
I have a 19" full 1080 HD TV in the kitchen. It fits right under the upper cabinets and it is hooked up to cable without a box. You can't get the premium channels but nearly everything else comes through. Perfect for watching the news in the morning.
Same for me.
My office has an ancient tube TV hooked directly to the wall without a box... and I get about 70 channels. That's honesty plenty for me.
I have all the biggies: Comedy Central, all the Turner channels, all the various Discovery channels, all the news channels, etc. It's pretty much every channel you think of when you hear "cable TV"
I think they call this "basic expanded" cable.
The rest of the house has cable boxes and DVRs that can get 500 channels.... but I never feel like I'm missing anything with just the 70 channels I get downstairs.
I think people get lured into paying for the "ultimate package" when they could really get by with just the 70 normal cable channels. Plus... many of the channels over 100 are just duplicates of the channels under 100. I get CNN on channel 47... and on channel 201.
It used to be that the higher-number channels were HD... but that's not true anymore. HD is available on all the channels now.
The upper channels include more obscure channels. But like I said... I never miss any of them downstairs.
My office has an ancient tube TV hooked directly to the wall without a box... and I get about 70 channels. That's honesty plenty for me.
I still think many people are underestimating how much it will cost to "so-called" cut the cord. You might end up paying considerably more for the privilege of getting rid of the channels you don't want. If you end up paying $10-20 a month for each of the a la carte channels you might want like ESPN, tennis, golf, HBO or whatever else is not included with Apple TV, you could easily surpass what you used to be paying for cable TV when you add in the faster internet for a "good" streaming experience.
I still think many people are underestimating how much it will cost to "so-called" cut the cord. You might end up paying considerably more for the privilege of getting rid of the channels you don't want. If you end up paying $10-20 a month for each of the a la carte channels you might want like ESPN, tennis, golf, HBO or whatever else is not included with Apple TV, you could easily surpass what you used to be paying for cable TV when you add in the faster internet for a "good" streaming experience.
Agreed. And I think people need to seriously look at what their cable company charges for "Internet" and "Internet+TV"
They might find that they can get most of what they want by just getting the expanded channel package and a DVR.
No streaming service will have "everything" yet... but pretty much all regular TV shows appear on cable.
Considering the cable companies will jack up the price of internet alone... if might be better to just get the TV bundle.
If you get internet by itself... then start adding a la carte channels or other over-the-top services... it might be more expensive.
But it's nice that there are finally options in this space.
While I think unlimited should be standard for land connections, how on earth do you bump up on 300gb a month?? That's 10gb downloaded per day. I didn't realize it was possible to consume that much data.
10GB a day is nothing.
My children watch Netflix at the highest quality setting. Then there's YouTube. Oh, and if their friends come over on the weekend and binge watch Netflix that's a big surge.
Then I watch training each day through Lynda.com and infinite skills.com plus Netflix. Movies purchased through Apple can be 3-8GB.
Love Lynda.com. I started using it almost a year ago and have completed several advanced coding programs.
It became immediately apparent why they use Flash and not HTML video once you see all the interaction with the text and the tracking of the minutes for each chapter. Excellent instructors and very professional video editing. 5 stars all the way.
I pay around $120 for cable, land line, and internet. Standard Triple Play discount. If I cancel cable part, then internet alone jumps up to $60 or more. Add that to your $30 AppleTV bill….
When your discount is up the price will go up considerably.
I still think many people are underestimating how much it will cost to "so-called" cut the cord. You might end up paying considerably more for the privilege of getting rid of the channels you don't want. If you end up paying $10-20 a month for each of the a la carte channels you might want like ESPN, tennis, golf, HBO or whatever else is not included with Apple TV, you could easily surpass what you used to be paying for cable TV when you add in the faster internet for a "good" streaming experience.
Adding to that, if the cable companies have fewer subscribers to pay for networks they have to buy on contract they'll have to charge more for the other services you buy, naming Internet, because there is a lot more competition for IP phone service.
And that's without taking into account all the additional bandwidth you'll use from getting all your television shows via the Internet, and directly from the cable service, which will give reason for them to both increase rates as well as have data caps.
It's not going to be pretty, and the only way I see this working for the hands in our pockets is if a company, like Apple, figures out how to share the profits so that network X no longer expects cable company Y to give him Z amount and cable company Y is fine with a company, like Apple, giving them a kickback based on the number of users watching television over their last mile internet connections.
When your discount is up the price will go up considerably.
Well that's true. I've been paying between $80-$120 for the last 10 years actually but only because every year or two I switch back and forth between Cablevision and FIOS. Last week I was back to Cablevision and for the first time my promotional price is not below $100… They are finally working together to raise prices
Agreed. And I think people need to seriously look at what their cable company charges for "Internet" and "Internet+TV"
Considering the cable companies will jack up the price of internet alone... if might be better to just get the TV bundle.
Just my own experience, but telling. I did cut the cord a couple of years ago with Time Warner. I called to get an internet only package which turned out to be $60/month. They pitched me a number of other offers which I flatly rejected. Then, they finally offered be the "broadcast" TV package + internet rate -- $40/month. So the internet by itself was $20 more, than if I took the basic local broadcast station package. And that's the basis of their license deals with the broadcasters (and others), if too many people cut the cord, the broadcasters raise the license fee since they don't reach as many viewers. And so yes, they have to pass the loss on to the consumer.
And how much did you pay for your TiVo with lifetime? $500? What happens when it breaks? I've done the analysis between buying tivo boxes and sticking with cable boxes and it would take 3 years to recoup the tivo hardware costs.
Do you get ESPN, TNT, NFL Network? Dont think so.
And what happens if my cable provider decides not to support the Tivo box I use? I'm screwed that's what.
of course if all you care about is OTA broadcast than Tivo is the way to go. But if you are getting cable content it is too risky to use a Tivo, IMO. TimeWarner could change their standards and I'd be screwed.
TiVo lifetime is currently $400 after $100 discount (hunt a little and you'll find the code). My complete TiVo system with external Stream, lifetime service, 3-year extended warranty, and 3 TB upgrade (self-installed in minutes) paid for itself in 1 year. A TiVo 3-year warranty costs only a few bucks, if you want it. In 10+ years of use of 2 older models, no TiVo has ever failed on me. Of newer models (Premiere and Roamio), they're running fine. The only TiVo failure I've ever encountered was of an internal modem, which was easily remedied with an external modem from weaknees.com.
Most sports is available "at no cost" on the Internet. Check out espn3.com. Smaller ISPs don't have it, but larger ISPs provide access to espn3.com. (It's not really "at no cost" because you're paying for access in your ISP bill.)
The greater Internet offers lots of other entertaining crap for free, too. Why waste good money on cable/satellite TV?
Time Warner will not be changing its standards without permission from the FCC.
To me the WORST part about CableTV is the HORRIBLE cable boxes they give you. Most of them are POS and old as hell. Yet the still charge you $20 a month, EVERY MONTH per box. Also horrible is the user interface. Straight from the 1990's. So aweful.
With AppleTV that will end.
Things I'm looking forward to with AppleTV:
1. Cheaper. Pay $30 instead of $90
2. Better user interface.
3. Own your own equipment instead of paying $20 a month for POS crap
4. Better picture quality
5. Watch anywhere with iPad/iPhone (TimeWarner does not allow this)
But what about DVR? The ultimate is if you don't need a DVR and you can simply stream shows from the past few days.
Add Hulu for $8/mo, you will access to past programs as late as next day, so you don't need DVR. I heard that Apple will also include local broadcasts. If so, Apple + Hulu = no brainer.
Apple could make it free and it would make no difference. Comcast caps our data usage at 300 GB a month, which we struggle to stay under even now. Comcast demands $10 tribute for each additional 50 GB beyond 300. We would end up paying way more than $30 a month if we used AppleTV as our primary media delivery system.
Comcast and the corrupt politicians that let them get away with this need to be taken down.
300GB is enought for you to watch 10 hrs/day video in HD for 30 days straight. What's your complaining about?
Add Hulu for $8/mo, you will access to past programs as [early] as next day [but this not very common so if you wanting to stay current with a series change are […] you do […] need DVR [and a current cable or satellite subscription.]
Streaming HD movies can eat up a bit of bandwidth.
And maybe somebody downloads Blu-Ray rips, that can be more than 10 GB for one movie.
Remember you are comparing the streaming quality with what you get from cable/satellite companies now. Tell you what, their quality is also compressed at around Hulu quality which is 0.65GB/hr. That means you can watch HD video with the same quality as Hulu for 13 hrs/day for 30 days without breaking the cap.
There are 4 people in my family and I work from home. That is only 2,500 MB a day each. Everyone has one computer and one laptop running both Windows and Mac OS X, and everyone one has or more handheld devices. Just the operating system updates alone put a huge dent in the 300 GB number. We literally watch no more than one or two movies a month through Apple TV. The rest of the bandwidth are game updates, new games, audio and video streaming (like YouTube for example -not full fledged sit down and watch TV streaming). With 4 tech savvy people it is a constant struggle. There is no way we could add streaming TV to that. Not even close.
Oh...your situation is not typical. Can't count that. I don't know what company you work for, but my sister and brother in law work from home too and their companies have dedicated internet for them at home...meaning..they have 3 ISP, 2 for works and 1 for themselves.
Just my own experience, but telling. I did cut the cord a couple of years ago with Time Warner. I called to get an internet only package which turned out to be $60/month. They pitched me a number of other offers which I flatly rejected. Then, they finally offered be the "broadcast" TV package + internet rate -- $40/month. So the internet by itself was $20 more, than if I took the basic local broadcast station package. And that's the basis of their license deals with the broadcasters (and others), if too many people cut the cord, the broadcasters raise the license fee since they don't reach as many viewers. And so yes, they have to pass the loss on to the consumer.
Same here with Comcast. I cut the cord a year or so ago. I ended up reluctantly agreeing to keeping a basic local cable package for $7 a month which I have literally never watched. It was cheaper than getting just Internet broadband. As much as I would like Apple (or, ?) to come up with an industry disruptor, as long as Comcast is my only real broadband provider, broadband costs will just go up and up and up to offset the cable cutters losses.
It is really going add up for most people. If you trim down your cable down to basics only just to get your local stations, and increase your broadband bits to accommodate more streaming, then buy HBO and Netflix, finally Apple TV streaming service, you are still going to be paying well over $100 a month in most parts of the US. Lets hope you don't want some other channel like golf or auto racing that you lost when you trimmed down you regular cable subscription.
Why do people keep factoring in the stupid broadband? You stream TV content over existing broadband which you already had regardless you want streaming or not.
I pay $45/100Mbps broadband from Comcast and currently don't use cable but Dish ($120/mo). I'll cut Dish in April and will cut my TV bill in half (HBO $15 + Appl $30-$40 + Hulu Plus $8 = $53-$63) while my broadband bill stays the same. I don't see why people are whining here.
Comments
I could wire it up either way, cable or antenna, but there is only one coax outlet in that location.
but all you need is coax for the attenna and an AppleTV
Like I said, you wire your home the way you like it and I'll do the same. I don't want an Apple TV in the kitchen. I have everything I need already. I have an Apple TV in the family room. I only have the two TVs, cable, antenna and Apple TV.
Get a Slingbox with a tuner, transmit OTA channels to your mobile device, or use your computer's HDD/SSD as a DVR.
Same for me.
My office has an ancient tube TV hooked directly to the wall without a box... and I get about 70 channels. That's honesty plenty for me.
I have all the biggies: Comedy Central, all the Turner channels, all the various Discovery channels, all the news channels, etc. It's pretty much every channel you think of when you hear "cable TV"
I think they call this "basic expanded" cable.
The rest of the house has cable boxes and DVRs that can get 500 channels.... but I never feel like I'm missing anything with just the 70 channels I get downstairs.
I think people get lured into paying for the "ultimate package" when they could really get by with just the 70 normal cable channels. Plus... many of the channels over 100 are just duplicates of the channels under 100. I get CNN on channel 47... and on channel 201.
It used to be that the higher-number channels were HD... but that's not true anymore. HD is available on all the channels now.
The upper channels include more obscure channels. But like I said... I never miss any of them downstairs.
My office has an ancient tube TV hooked directly to the wall without a box... and I get about 70 channels. That's honesty plenty for me.
I still think many people are underestimating how much it will cost to "so-called" cut the cord. You might end up paying considerably more for the privilege of getting rid of the channels you don't want. If you end up paying $10-20 a month for each of the a la carte channels you might want like ESPN, tennis, golf, HBO or whatever else is not included with Apple TV, you could easily surpass what you used to be paying for cable TV when you add in the faster internet for a "good" streaming experience.
Agreed. And I think people need to seriously look at what their cable company charges for "Internet" and "Internet+TV"
They might find that they can get most of what they want by just getting the expanded channel package and a DVR.
No streaming service will have "everything" yet... but pretty much all regular TV shows appear on cable.
Considering the cable companies will jack up the price of internet alone... if might be better to just get the TV bundle.
If you get internet by itself... then start adding a la carte channels or other over-the-top services... it might be more expensive.
But it's nice that there are finally options in this space.
10 GB a day is nothing
While I think unlimited should be standard for land connections, how on earth do you bump up on 300gb a month?? That's 10gb downloaded per day. I didn't realize it was possible to consume that much data.
10GB a day is nothing.
My children watch Netflix at the highest quality setting. Then there's YouTube. Oh, and if their friends come over on the weekend and binge watch Netflix that's a big surge.
Then I watch training each day through Lynda.com and infinite skills.com plus Netflix. Movies purchased through Apple can be 3-8GB.
We regularly use 600-700GB a month.
Then I watch training each day through Lynda.com
Love Lynda.com. I started using it almost a year ago and have completed several advanced coding programs.
It became immediately apparent why they use Flash and not HTML video once you see all the interaction with the text and the tracking of the minutes for each chapter. Excellent instructors and very professional video editing. 5 stars all the way.
I pay around $120 for cable, land line, and internet. Standard Triple Play discount. If I cancel cable part, then internet alone jumps up to $60 or more. Add that to your $30 AppleTV bill….
When your discount is up the price will go up considerably.
Adding to that, if the cable companies have fewer subscribers to pay for networks they have to buy on contract they'll have to charge more for the other services you buy, naming Internet, because there is a lot more competition for IP phone service.
And that's without taking into account all the additional bandwidth you'll use from getting all your television shows via the Internet, and directly from the cable service, which will give reason for them to both increase rates as well as have data caps.
It's not going to be pretty, and the only way I see this working for the hands in our pockets is if a company, like Apple, figures out how to share the profits so that network X no longer expects cable company Y to give him Z amount and cable company Y is fine with a company, like Apple, giving them a kickback based on the number of users watching television over their last mile internet connections.
When your discount is up the price will go up considerably.
Well that's true. I've been paying between $80-$120 for the last 10 years actually but only because every year or two I switch back and forth between Cablevision and FIOS. Last week I was back to Cablevision and for the first time my promotional price is not below $100… They are finally working together to raise prices
Agreed. And I think people need to seriously look at what their cable company charges for "Internet" and "Internet+TV"
Considering the cable companies will jack up the price of internet alone... if might be better to just get the TV bundle.
Just my own experience, but telling. I did cut the cord a couple of years ago with Time Warner. I called to get an internet only package which turned out to be $60/month. They pitched me a number of other offers which I flatly rejected. Then, they finally offered be the "broadcast" TV package + internet rate -- $40/month. So the internet by itself was $20 more, than if I took the basic local broadcast station package. And that's the basis of their license deals with the broadcasters (and others), if too many people cut the cord, the broadcasters raise the license fee since they don't reach as many viewers. And so yes, they have to pass the loss on to the consumer.
And how much did you pay for your TiVo with lifetime? $500? What happens when it breaks? I've done the analysis between buying tivo boxes and sticking with cable boxes and it would take 3 years to recoup the tivo hardware costs.
Do you get ESPN, TNT, NFL Network? Dont think so.
And what happens if my cable provider decides not to support the Tivo box I use? I'm screwed that's what.
of course if all you care about is OTA broadcast than Tivo is the way to go. But if you are getting cable content it is too risky to use a Tivo, IMO. TimeWarner could change their standards and I'd be screwed.
TiVo lifetime is currently $400 after $100 discount (hunt a little and you'll find the code). My complete TiVo system with external Stream, lifetime service, 3-year extended warranty, and 3 TB upgrade (self-installed in minutes) paid for itself in 1 year. A TiVo 3-year warranty costs only a few bucks, if you want it. In 10+ years of use of 2 older models, no TiVo has ever failed on me. Of newer models (Premiere and Roamio), they're running fine. The only TiVo failure I've ever encountered was of an internal modem, which was easily remedied with an external modem from weaknees.com.
Most sports is available "at no cost" on the Internet. Check out espn3.com. Smaller ISPs don't have it, but larger ISPs provide access to espn3.com. (It's not really "at no cost" because you're paying for access in your ISP bill.)
The greater Internet offers lots of other entertaining crap for free, too. Why waste good money on cable/satellite TV?
Time Warner will not be changing its standards without permission from the FCC.
Did I mention the TiVo experience is awesome?
Can't wait.
To me the WORST part about CableTV is the HORRIBLE cable boxes they give you. Most of them are POS and old as hell. Yet the still charge you $20 a month, EVERY MONTH per box. Also horrible is the user interface. Straight from the 1990's. So aweful.
With AppleTV that will end.
Things I'm looking forward to with AppleTV:
1. Cheaper. Pay $30 instead of $90
2. Better user interface.
3. Own your own equipment instead of paying $20 a month for POS crap
4. Better picture quality
5. Watch anywhere with iPad/iPhone (TimeWarner does not allow this)
But what about DVR? The ultimate is if you don't need a DVR and you can simply stream shows from the past few days.
Add Hulu for $8/mo, you will access to past programs as late as next day, so you don't need DVR. I heard that Apple will also include local broadcasts. If so, Apple + Hulu = no brainer.
Apple could make it free and it would make no difference. Comcast caps our data usage at 300 GB a month, which we struggle to stay under even now. Comcast demands $10 tribute for each additional 50 GB beyond 300. We would end up paying way more than $30 a month if we used AppleTV as our primary media delivery system.
Comcast and the corrupt politicians that let them get away with this need to be taken down.
300GB is enought for you to watch 10 hrs/day video in HD for 30 days straight. What's your complaining about?
I fixed that for you.
Streaming HD movies can eat up a bit of bandwidth.
And maybe somebody downloads Blu-Ray rips, that can be more than 10 GB for one movie.
Remember you are comparing the streaming quality with what you get from cable/satellite companies now. Tell you what, their quality is also compressed at around Hulu quality which is 0.65GB/hr. That means you can watch HD video with the same quality as Hulu for 13 hrs/day for 30 days without breaking the cap.
Problem is the cheapest package with ESPN is $90
I can get ESPN with sling for $20 but its only 1 user.
Thats the whole deal. I don't need 200 channels. I only need 20 or less.
You're right. I have Dish everything package and what I watch are HBO, HGTV, Foods, Travel and ESPN, well locals too. That're around 20 channels.
There are 4 people in my family and I work from home. That is only 2,500 MB a day each. Everyone has one computer and one laptop running both Windows and Mac OS X, and everyone one has or more handheld devices. Just the operating system updates alone put a huge dent in the 300 GB number. We literally watch no more than one or two movies a month through Apple TV. The rest of the bandwidth are game updates, new games, audio and video streaming (like YouTube for example -not full fledged sit down and watch TV streaming). With 4 tech savvy people it is a constant struggle. There is no way we could add streaming TV to that. Not even close.
Oh...your situation is not typical. Can't count that. I don't know what company you work for, but my sister and brother in law work from home too and their companies have dedicated internet for them at home...meaning..they have 3 ISP, 2 for works and 1 for themselves.
Just my own experience, but telling. I did cut the cord a couple of years ago with Time Warner. I called to get an internet only package which turned out to be $60/month. They pitched me a number of other offers which I flatly rejected. Then, they finally offered be the "broadcast" TV package + internet rate -- $40/month. So the internet by itself was $20 more, than if I took the basic local broadcast station package. And that's the basis of their license deals with the broadcasters (and others), if too many people cut the cord, the broadcasters raise the license fee since they don't reach as many viewers. And so yes, they have to pass the loss on to the consumer.
Same here with Comcast. I cut the cord a year or so ago. I ended up reluctantly agreeing to keeping a basic local cable package for $7 a month which I have literally never watched. It was cheaper than getting just Internet broadband. As much as I would like Apple (or, ?) to come up with an industry disruptor, as long as Comcast is my only real broadband provider, broadband costs will just go up and up and up to offset the cable cutters losses.
It is really going add up for most people. If you trim down your cable down to basics only just to get your local stations, and increase your broadband bits to accommodate more streaming, then buy HBO and Netflix, finally Apple TV streaming service, you are still going to be paying well over $100 a month in most parts of the US. Lets hope you don't want some other channel like golf or auto racing that you lost when you trimmed down you regular cable subscription.
Why do people keep factoring in the stupid broadband? You stream TV content over existing broadband which you already had regardless you want streaming or not.
I pay $45/100Mbps broadband from Comcast and currently don't use cable but Dish ($120/mo). I'll cut Dish in April and will cut my TV bill in half (HBO $15 + Appl $30-$40 + Hulu Plus $8 = $53-$63) while my broadband bill stays the same. I don't see why people are whining here.