jhoak Posted March 12, 2012 Share Posted March 12, 2012 Well... Today marks 3 weeks without DirecTV service and I called and told them to cancell my account for good. I recently had the realization that I only watch maybe an hour or so of TV every evening. Considering my DTV bill had ballooned to over $150 a month I thought that $5 an hour was just too much. For the last 3 weeks I've been relying on "over the air" (I do have an antenna), NetFlix streaming by way of my Samsung BD player, and Amazon streaming by way of my HTPC. You know what? I don't miss DTV one bit. For the most part I can get the programs that interest me on demand and on my schedule. Yea... There are a couple of things that I used to watch that I can't get through my new "providers" but there is also a lot of content that wasn't available on DTV so to me it's a wash. HMMM... Lets see... DTV cost me ~$1500 a year and NetFlix + Amazon Prime costs me ~$190 a year. There's $1300 a year that can be spent elswhere. New music perhaps? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WS65711 Posted March 12, 2012 Share Posted March 12, 2012 You should brush up on your math skills . . . Watching that hour of TV cost you $5 for 40 minutes.. the other 20 minutes was commercials! And $150 per month for DTV is $1800 per year, not $1500 . . . So that's $1600 per year that can be sent elsewhere !!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jhoak Posted March 12, 2012 Author Share Posted March 12, 2012 My "math skills" are just fine thank you. [] My DTV bill was ~$100 a month for the off-season and ~$150 during football season. I did 6 months at $100 and 6 months at $150. Perhaps a bit on the high side but pretty substantial coin no matter how you look at it. I also had their DVR service so I really didn't watch many commercials. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neo33 Posted March 12, 2012 Share Posted March 12, 2012 Well... Today marks 3 weeks without DirecTV service and I called and told them to cancell my account for good. I recently had the realization that I only watch maybe an hour or so of TV every evening. Considering my DTV bill had ballooned to over $150 a month I thought that $5 an hour was just too much. For the last 3 weeks I've been relying on "over the air" (I do have an antenna), NetFlix streaming by way of my Samsung BD player, and Amazon streaming by way of my HTPC. You know what? I don't miss DTV one bit. For the most part I can get the programs that interest me on demand and on my schedule. Yea... There are a couple of things that I used to watch that I can't get through my new "providers" but there is also a lot of content that wasn't available on DTV so to me it's a wash. HMMM... Lets see... DTV cost me ~$1500 a year and NetFlix + Amazon Prime costs me ~$190 a year. There's $1300 a year that can be spent elswhere. New music perhaps? Did you just wake up from a long sleep? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WS65711 Posted March 12, 2012 Share Posted March 12, 2012 My "math skills" are just fine thank you. My DTV bill was ~$100 a month for the off-season and ~$150 during football season. I did 6 months at $100 and 6 months at $150. Perhaps a bit on the high side but pretty substantial coin no matter how you look at it. I also had their DVR service so I really didn't watch many commercials. Ok, I agree.. your math skills are fine, now that "the Rest of the Story" has come to light . . . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daddy Dee Posted March 12, 2012 Share Posted March 12, 2012 jhoak, I'm with you on this. Moved 22 months ago and didn't move DTV with. Also have Amazon prime. About the only thing I miss is ez football watching. I can watch most of what I want on espn or cbssports.com. There are a few razorback games I end up listening on the radio, which is ok. I love Chuck Barrett, the current voice of the razorbacks. It's not unusual to listen to him call the game while watching video on another source. DTV will continue to spend a small fortune on mail to you begging you to come back. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jhoak Posted March 12, 2012 Author Share Posted March 12, 2012 DTV will continue to spend a small fortune on mail to you begging you to come back. That's OK... They can also "continue" to kiss my lilly white @$$ because they're simply getting no more of my $$. [] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fish Posted March 12, 2012 Share Posted March 12, 2012 Good for you! These companies want to raise rates on their best customers instead of giving them a break. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators dtel Posted March 12, 2012 Moderators Share Posted March 12, 2012 Good for you! These companies want to raise rates on their best costumers instead of giving them a break. Exactly, we pay more for being with them over 5 years as someone signing up today. I need to find out when our contract is up, we had to sign a new one when there rented receiver stopped picking up HD channels because they changed to another satellite for HD. That was the excuse they used to require a second dish in the yard also. It didn't cost us any money but we had to sign a new contract, which we were NOT told until all work was done. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
runninshine Posted March 12, 2012 Share Posted March 12, 2012 We killed our cable a year or two ago and I don't miss it all. The extra cash paid our property tax.[] If I want to catch a game or something special, I can always find a live stream. Then I just run an audio cable to whichever system In the house where I am watching and I have great sound. Now If I can just figure out how to get rid of our internet bill?[^o)] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mighty Favog Posted March 12, 2012 Share Posted March 12, 2012 Don't cha love how much better HD looks with an open air antenna?? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators dtel Posted March 12, 2012 Moderators Share Posted March 12, 2012 Don't cha love how much better HD looks with an open air antenna?? Thought about trying it but were on the outer edge of being out of range and was afraid to spend the money and it not work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fish Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 I'm 40 miles from the station and use a small antenna that looks just like the one on some cars, inside my house, works perfect. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elitedemo Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 I only made it 13 months with dtv...once the rates were raised I was glad to pay their silly out of contract expense. Even that fee pays for itself after not having them for 2 months. My programming is all over the air, netflix, and hulu plus for a whopping $16 a month, to me netflix is just as useless as directv, if they didnt have cartoons for the little ones theyd be out just as quickly as dtv since there streaming service has such a limited quantity of decent movies Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators dtel Posted March 13, 2012 Moderators Share Posted March 13, 2012 I'm 40 miles from the station and use a small antenna that looks just like the one on some cars, inside my house, works perfect. Might have to look into that again and recheck the miles, I could put it on a pole outside but was scared of lightning. I could see it now, lighting hits the pole, goes down the wires inside to the Tv and through all electronics connected and stops after the 8 Klipsch and the sub that are connected are smoking. [li] [:'(] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jhoak Posted March 13, 2012 Author Share Posted March 13, 2012 I could put it on a pole outside but was scared of lightning. I live in the middle of what's been called "the lightning capitol of the world". I've had an outside antenna on a pole for the 28 years I've lived here. Often times more than one. As long as the installation is done correctly and properly grounded the pole is no more attractive to lightning than a house without one. Heres a site where you can enter your address and it'll tell you what channels are available to you and how big an antenna you need to get them. http://antennaweb.org/Address.aspx Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators dtel Posted March 13, 2012 Moderators Share Posted March 13, 2012 I officially live in the sticks. I can get one station, ABC 41 miles away, and it does not change if I have the antenna over 30' in the air, I tried it twice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jhoak Posted March 13, 2012 Author Share Posted March 13, 2012 WOW... And I thought I was out in the "boonies". I'm a bit over 40 miles from the Tampa antenna farm and a bit over 50 miles from the Orlando antenna farm. As it stands now I get all of the major networks on at least 2 different channels each. I guess that's one of the nice things about living in an area with overlapping DMAs. In addition there are a BUNCH of indy, church and Spanish channels that I have mostly removed from the channel list on my TV. My next "project" is to split the antenna feed to the other 3 TVs in the house. I'll probably need to apply a bit of amplification to account for the signal loss by splitting 4 ways. I ordered a Roku box today. I have a 1X4 HDMI splitter and all of the TVs have a HDMI cable in place. The remote for the Roku is Bluetooth so I'm hoping that it'll work if I carry it to the kitchen or bedroom. We'll see in a couple of days. If it does and they're not too spendy I may just pick up additional Roku remotes for the other 3 rooms. It's going to be interesting to say the least. I've been looking at the Hulu + service. They offer a free 1 week trial. I'll need to decide if it's worth an additional $8 a month above NetFlix and Amazon Prime. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators dtel Posted March 13, 2012 Moderators Share Posted March 13, 2012 Thought I had something you could use, I was going to send it to you but it's not what i thought. I was thinking it was a signal booster. One is a Rf modulator, after looking it up it's for separating video game signals from Tv, or something like that ? The other is a video path power inserter model DPP44, after looking it up it's only for satellite dishes to boost the signal to the receiver, it says output voltage 28.0V. [] These things were in a box of misc wires and interconnects I keep, when I need something I go look in the box, you never know, it's about a 40% chance I might have it, on a good day. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jhoak Posted March 13, 2012 Author Share Posted March 13, 2012 Thanks for thinking of me. I'm 99.8% sure that somewhere in my vast collection of crap that I have a very nice 1X4 amplified splitter. The task now is to find it. Of course finding that splitter will be easy compared to running a bunch of RG6 through my attic and snaking it down walls to TVs. I'll muster up the ambition at some point but not tonight. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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