Thinking of ditching cable for an Apple TV 3

whisper

whisper

Limp Gawd
Joined
Mar 16, 2003
Messages
466
The title pretty much sums it up. I'm feeling tired of handing over hundreds of $$$ each year to my rip off cable company for just a few shows and movies that I actually watch (the rest being mostly garbage). Now that ATV supports Netflix and Hulu, and of course all the content from the iTunes store, I think I could get by alright. Just curious if anyone else has thought about this or actually done it. Anyone using an Apple TV as their sole source of TV content?

I have a first gen ATV so I already have some iTunes content on hand, hence my decision to stick with an Apple device as opposed to something else (Roku, etc.)

Also wondering how it handles HD steaming over WiFi? I have a wireless N router broadcasting both 2.4 and 5.0 GHz channels which seems to work alright in general. But since my first gen Apple TV works by downloading and not streaming, it will be a change. In order to hard wire a new ATV I would need to relocate my modem/router or run wires through the wall (would prefer neither of these options).
 
Can't say much on the ATV as I've never owned one, but I cancelled cable a year and a half ago when I picked up a WDTV and a Mohu Leaf antenna for OTA stuffs.

You will never regret it.
 
Yep started with just Netflix about 2 years ago and added Hulu Plus a year ago. I'm not big on the Hulu but my wife's likes having TV shows. Between us and our kid the ATV3 is pretty much playing stuff 12-14 hours a day. We then supplement with Netflix DVD to door for other stuff.

Love it. But it does work best in an Eco system with multiple apple products.

The ATV only needs about 40 megaBITS per second to play back and buffer good HD content. So divide by 8 and your looking at 5MB/s.

What's makes me mad about Cable is that you pay $80-$100 a month. It's riddled with may more commercials and even though you have all the channels you still have watch what they choose. It's absurd.
 
I bought my apple tv3 a few months ago and I love it. It's mainly used as a netflix machine. I only have cable because my apt. complex provides it. If you have an extensive iTunes library of movies and tv shows then it is great.

It also gives me the ability to use airplay to stream from my iMac to my 42" TV which is nice as well.

It is good but it is just like westrock200 said, it does work best in and ecosystem with multiple apple products.
 
I exclusively live off of Netflix and Amazon Prime. Can't ever see myself going back to cable.
 
I'm considering ditching cable, too. I see how you can watch movies and TV shows through Amazon Prime (which I have), Hulu, Netflix, etc. How do you watch stuff like sports and news? Do you just watch OTA HD broadcasts? What about ESPN, CNN, NatGeo, Discovery, etc.?
 
Ive always debated back and forth on ditching cable company. I watch maybe 5 out of the 260 channels provided to me and the dvr ends up watching it for me because it fills up so quickly before I get around to watching things.
 
Do it. I dropped DirectTV two and a half years ago and couldn't be happier. Between Netflix, Hulu Plus, and select shows on iTunes, it comes out as only a fraction of my old satellite bill.

If you really need all the sports channels then its a different story, nothing can beat the packages that cable/satellite companies get you, but I think it'll get there eventually
 
Ive always ]wanted to do this but I watch alot of premium cable content and I am unable to find a way to get it without cable.
 
Do it!!!! You wont regret it.

The streaming image quality on the AppleTV3 is outstanding... Much better than the PS3 or 360 using PS3mediaSever IMHO. My only real beef is that it's not able to run XBMC, since it's not been jailbroken yet... so I'm in the process of converting my entire media collection over to MP4 format and properly tagging them so iTunes can read them correctly... which has been a giant exercise in frustration (audio tracks keep getting left out). Only have around 200GB of conversions to do *sigh*. Once it's done though it'll be worth it.
 
If you're not into watching sports: do it.

If you follow a sport/sports religiously: the cable company has you by the balls
 
Have been Amazon/Hulu for a few years now. No cable for maybe 5 years?

I can get HD OTA and then just stream whatever else I miss. If I want to see a football game or something on ESPN I just go down to the pub ;)
 
thelead said:
If you're not into watching sports: do it.

If you follow a sport/sports religiously: the cable company has you by the balls
Click to expand...
This kinda sums up my predicament. As a huge football fan -- Roll Tide!! -- I'm pretty much stuck with cable. I also watch NatGeo, Discovery, Military and a few others. Until sports and other channels are available to stream, I'm a willing hostage of Comcast. One day, probably in the not too distant future, we'll be able to order subscriptions to single channels instead of having to buy packages with channels we never watch. That's when things will get interesting.

robvas said:
If I want to see a football game or something on ESPN I just go down to the pub ;)
Click to expand...
Not me. I'd much rather watch on my 60" HDTV at home.

Man cave >>> local pub.
 
Well, I went to the Apple store today and bought two ATV's - one for the big TV downstairs and one for the bedroom:) Signed up for Netflix and Hulu, and cable TV will be cancelled after next weekend. I'm keeping it for a few more days so I can finish up watching some shows I had DVR'd. Total savings each month, factoring in the new cost of Netflix+Hulu will be around $75. ATV's will pay for themselves in 3 months.

I have an iMac, 4S and iPad mini so plenty of other iDevices to use with AirPlay. That should be a nice perk even though it wasn't the main reason I decided to make the switch.

I don't watch much sports right now - no time with a 4 yr old and baby at home:rolleyes: The only thing I will miss at least a little bit is my HBO subscription. But all the shows eventually get released on DVD/Netflix/iTunes so that's just something I'll have to live with for now. I think the extra grand in my pocket at the end of the year will more than make up for it. One day HBO will dissociate themselves from the cable companies and allow people to subscribe to their service a la carte. I think the creation of HBO GO is the first step in this direction but admit it will probably take years before it finally happens.

Now that I have everything in place I feel pretty good about it. Also, the picture quality over WiFi is awesome!! It actually looks better than the picture I was getting from my cable company (guess I'm not too surprised). Thanks for all the input which was really helpful for me!
 
Yeah comcast's picture quality is pretty sad. FiOS really is much better. I think the satellite providers are a tad better still. However a good signal of OTA is even better!

The discovery, history, food, syfy and AMC are really what keep me a paying customer.
 
Don't forget to check out the HTPC sub forum for talk about streaming, storage and operating system questions. (XBMC, Plex..)
 
pwrusr said:
Yeah comcast's picture quality is pretty sad. FiOS really is much better. I think the satellite providers are a tad better still. However a good signal of OTA is even better!

The discovery, history, food, syfy and AMC are really what keep me a paying customer.
Click to expand...

Yeah, in the last 10 years I've only had service from two companies - Comcast and RCN. Both offered comparable HD pictures which I can easily see are inferior to the HD I'm now streaming from my ATV. Can't speak for FiOS but I have some friends/family who have it and despise their customer service, as well as rip off prices. Not sure about satellite, but the thought of having an ugly dish on my roof or porch never appealed to me:p

I do enjoy some of those cable channels but again, with the limited time I have to watch right now it's just not worth the extra cash. Plus, some of that content is available through iTunes if I really need it. I will definitely purchase the next 8 episodes of Walking Dead through iTunes starting in Feb:)

I am also ordering the Mohu Leaf which should arrive on Friday, and that will give me some live HD channels to round out the selection. Overall this is going to be a great change for me.
 
just made a huge mistake and signed a 2 year contract with centurylink :(

as soon as it's over, i'm doing this and never looking back. if Google offers TV in my area by then, I'll go with that. Otherwise, it'll be Netflix (which I already have anyway...) + Hulu + whatever else
 
This is what I would do.

My entertainment needs are low. Netflix and occassional iTunes movies is enough for me. It's $8 a month.

Cable TV here is like $75 for some crappy standard package.
 
we ditched cable a few months ago, and figured we'd pick it up again in anticipation of the hockey season but........

anyways, the company called back and offered us a really great deal, so we signed on with no contract. As it is, no one is really watching tv in my house, so it might just get cancelled again.

All the shows i want to watch, I can buy as a season pass off iTunes, or i just use handbrake and convert my movies into .mp4 format to stream from iTunes to ATV.

Did a whole bunch yesterday, and it works without a hitch. Plus, I love that I can organize, give covers etc to my movies, and have them accessible through any of the 2 ATVs in the house.

The next logical step in this would be to buy a mac mini and use it exclusively as a iTunes server.
 
This may be a little off topic, but I've been playing around with Airplay and discovered that it works horribly over 5.0 ghz WiFi. The lag and stutter is so severe as to be practically unusable. When I connect all devices to the 2.4 ghz network it works really well. I can't see any reason why 5.0 ghz would naturally be "less efficient" since the bandwidth provided by my router should be similar/equal on either channel. It's a strange glitch - not sure if anyone else has seen this using Airplay and Apple TV 3?

My antenna arrives tomorrow, looking forward to seeing how many OTA channels I can pick up:)
 
I would love to dump cable, but it is stupid shows like "dance moms" and fricking "cake boss" that my family watches that prevent me from cutting the cord.

Is there any TV service that provides recently broadcasted TV shows?
 
The Mohu Leaf antenna arrived and after playing around with the position a little, I was able to lock in 31 channels all in HD. A few are in spanish so will not be as useful for me, but it still leaves me with around 22-25 free channels. Not too shabby! Between this and the Netflix/Hulu/iTunes combo I don't think I could ask for much more. Now to figure out what to do with all the money I'll save:)
 
What kind of channels can you get with mohu leaf? I would cut the cord but the wife sometimes just likes to watch the food network and stuff like that. So I think directv I'm stuck with.
 
HardUp4HardWare said:
I would love to dump cable, but it is stupid shows like "dance moms" and fricking "cake boss" that my family watches that prevent me from cutting the cord.

Is there any TV service that provides recently broadcasted TV shows?
Click to expand...

TSRH. All those HGTV and DIY shows are only sporadically available online.

I'd cut the cord in two seconds flat if I could. I'm all all set to cancel DirecTV as soon as the contract is up and just keep my cheapy cable connection.
 
31 OTA channels? Screw you lol. I can get all of one and its not HD.
 
When you all say you ditch cable, do you mean whole package including internet? Or do you just keep internet and ditch the tv part.
 
Just ditching the TV part but keeping broadband internet. Broadband is required for streaming netflix, hulu, etc. plus whatever else you like to do online:) But the TV part was by far the most expensive part of my package. Due to another price hike that was scheduled to go into effect for my plan, I would have paid $161/month for my TV, internet and phone. Now that I'm down to just internet and phone it's $65 (add in netlix and hulu and I'm at $81).

If you're big into the niche cable channels like HGTV, Food, etc. then you'll probably miss some of your content. But there are others like Discovery, TLC and Comedy Central which seem to be well represented between Hulu and Netflix (but not necessarily the current seasons). Anyway, just comes down to whether those extra channels are worth the $80-100 every month.

As far as OTA channels I'm able to get most of the major networks including CBS, ABC, NBC and FOX. I also get the PBS stations in my area like WGBH and WGBX, which are great for kids stuff and the occasional documentary, etc. The rest seems to be a mix of channels that I can't say I've seen on cable (MeTV, ThisTV, Create, Kids, World, etc.) and a couple oddballs that I've seen before but never really watched (ION, ION-life, Qubo). I doubt I'll spend a lot of time channel surfing but it's nice to have the big networks and some other random stuff without having to pay anything.
 
whisper said:
Well, I went to the Apple store today and bought two ATV's -
<snip>
I have an iMac, 4S and iPad mini so plenty of other iDevices to use with AirPlay. That should be a nice perk even though it wasn't the main reason I decided to make the switch.

<snip>

Now that I have everything in place I feel pretty good about it. Also, the picture quality over WiFi is awesome!! It actually looks better than the picture I was getting from my cable company (guess I'm not too surprised). Thanks for all the input which was really helpful for me!
Click to expand...

Don't forget to pick up the Remote app for the iPhone and iPad. Info | Download.
It's schweet and puts the bundled remote to shame. Especially when having to enter text.
 
@ whisper

Ok I was just asking cause if I drop cable(including internet), I would have to go with dsl. Which I would have to go from 30/5 connection to 7mb/ 768Kb. Which probably wont be good enough to stream without any problems.

TWC customer (long time sufferer)
 
I skimmed most of what was said...

I got my ATV3 back in march (just short of a year ago) and I have no netflixks nor hulu accounts.

What does it get used for?

Airplay!

I install Airplay on my iPhone and iPad and stream videos from my home server using Air Video and it works like a charm. No need to convert videos from their native format (in my casues usually MKV) into an apple-friendly format.

Also the Youtube function is nice, but it's a pain to search using the letter-by-letter remote interface...

I lastly want to mention that the ATV3 can re-mirror audio from Airplay, so if you have a home stereo that doesn't support HDMI-in, you can mirror the audio to an airport and plug that into the AUX of the stereo and use it for your audio when watching videos.

The only time I had an issue was when I had my SGN2 (android phone) which there was absolutely no means of connecting to the AppleTV properly. But, for better or worse I returned it (and with a JB on the horizon, I'm sticking with Apple) so all's well that ends well. I'm actually considering getting a 2nd ATV3 for my other tv :D
 
LostStorm said:
@ whisper

Ok I was just asking cause if I drop cable(including internet), I would have to go with dsl. Which I would have to go from 30/5 connection to 7mb/ 768Kb. Which probably wont be good enough to stream without any problems.

TWC customer (long time sufferer)
Click to expand...

Yup, I think you could run into some problems with that dsl line. My current cable service is rated at 25/4 and in practice I usually get around 22-23 down and 2-3 up over WiFi. That's been more than sufficient for nice HD streaming so you should have no problems with 30/5.

Today was cathartic - I drove to the local cable office and dumped off all the old equipment. Also stripped several feet of coax cable from two rooms in the house. Feels like a weight's been lifted. I still wish I could get HBO a la carte - would probably spring for $20/month for that, at least in the summer and fall (True Blood, Boardwalk Empire, etc.). But that's exactly why HBO doesn't do it - people like me who would bail for half the year:p

Ah well, my sister lives a mile down the road and has HBO, so I'll just watch over there when I need to;)
 
Bling said:
my Airplay works fine on 5ghz and 2.4
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It's a known issue on the Apple support forums for some people. In my case, I can actually leave the ATV connected to the 5 ghz signal but the source device (iMac, iPad, etc.) needs to be on 2.4 ghz. This is fine since switching back and forth is extremely quick on the iMac and not too bad on the iPad - but having to switch the ATV would be a pain. I just leave ATV on 5 ghz and then drop to 2.4 on my iMac/iPad when I want to beam something over.
 
I'm about to make this switch myself. I picked up an ATV Tuesday and am going to put it in place tonight. I currently have two Tivo Premier's with tuning adapters and cable cards for each. I also have a regular cable box in my bedroom that I will be dumping as well.

I signed up for Netflix yesterday in anticipation of my switch tonight. If there was a way to record some OTA shows I'd be ecstatic but I will see how this goes. I'm fairly certain my household can survive without digital cable from TW, we can watch OTA shows when they're on, stream netflix or grab shows from iTunes when needed.

I'm not a huge iTunes user even though there are 2 iPhones and 2 iPad2's and a MacMini in the house. Are shows available on iTunes in a short time frame after they air on tv?
 
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