You need a stick or appleTV box type solution if you don’t have a WiFi enabled tv. Smart tvs have apps that allow you to easily connect to many streaming services. I have a large LG 4K tv. It has many available apps. Right now I use YouTube tv, Netflix, prime video, Disney +, appleTV, and hbo max. I just checked and they do have an xfinity app but it is listed at “beta”. Not sure about other smart tvs
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Other benefit to us with going with YoutubeTV is unlimited DVR. We never had one before getting rid of cable (they wanted us to pay to rent the DVR and then pay a monthly service charge each month for DVR capability). Included with YoutubeTV. And with app on my phone its easy to add something to the queue to be recorded.
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The unlimited dvr on Directv Stream automatically deletes recordings after 90 days. In addition, it appears that one can’t time shift recorded baseball games. That is to say, you can’t watch a recording game while it’s recording. You have to wait until it’s finished recording to watch from the beginning. I’ll know for sure if that’s the case after Thursday (opening day.)
YoutubeTV DVR recorded shows remain for 9 months. And you can time shift. I often start something I am recording after it has started live and YoutubeTV asks if you want to start at the beginning or live. Skipping commercials I usually am caught up to the live version by the time it ends.
we cut the cord about 4 years ago and haven’t looked back. Now we just use our Roku. The only downside I’ve experienced is when DH works on some live event show and I can’t watch. ie. He worked on Annie Live and I wasn’t able to figure out how to watch it so I have yet to see it, but he also worked on JC Superstar a few years ago and that one I was able to see so I don’t know what changed. I hadn’t thought of YouTube TV though so maybe will try there. But yes, we have also def. been happier without that ridiculous cable bill.
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You can watch regular shows while they’re recording. The problem, if there is one, is live sports such as a baseball game. I’ve only read about this online. I’ll be able to test it Thursday.
Pretty sure that ours can record live sports and let you watch it while its recording (and start watching it after it starts). You could try it out on an NBA game today?
No thanks. I’ll wait for baseball. Is your experience watching dnr sports on Directv Stream?
We did the same back in 2018. Never looked back! To be fair, we’ve never been big network TV watchers (and we don’t watch sports), so it was a no-brainer for us. We also dropped our landline at that time (we had a bundle). I love not paying a ridiculously big Verizon bill every month!
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We cut the cord many years ago. Our streaming line up is Netflix, Hulu(not live) Amazon(it is given with prime membership) Disney+ & ESPN+(those two came with a bundle offer with Hulu from Verizon) and lastly AppleTV(Free for 12 months decided to keep it). Paying for all that even with the increased prices over the years is still way cheaper than what I paid for DirectTV.
I do have Mom’s login for DirecTV so on my apple boxes I can get some channels like FX, SYFY, ESPN and such.
Yes I have lost some live sports, but I don’t have the patience to watch much of it these days. That setup is probably costing me around $50(I don’t include Amazon as I would be a member either way). We do have to get Internet separately. So we have that cost.
Over the years we have found some very interesting shows on the streaming services. Some with many seasons. Some old shows we didn’t watch the first time around. Like we just finally finished 8 seasons of the TV show Castle. For many months we always had something to watch.
Lastly D19 has been able to use all our streaming services while at college and in her apartment.
I could never go back to paying $150-200 for TV.
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I looked into getting rid of cable recently. I’d love to get rid of it, in fact.
But I found the cost is roughly the same as our cable bill. Once you pay for the internet service provider and then add one or more of YouTube, AT&T, Apple+, Hulu, Disney, Paramount, blah, blah, blah, it’s the same price or more and I want live sports.
We looked at it, but can’t get the Boston Bruins games…so we continue to pay for cable.
This is what I thought (without researching). There are so many streaming services out there that I would have thought the overall bill would be equal to or more than a triple-play (e.g., cable, high-speed internet, alarm).
I will keep a watchful eye on this. Oh, b/t/w, it doesn’t hurt to contact the cable company and tell them you’re canceling. I almost guarantee that they will find a way to keep you!
Power to the people…
YouTube TV is $65/month. The Disney, Hulu & ESPN package is another $14/month. And you would need that to watch the World Cup later this year.
Or, the cheapest AT&T/Direct Stream TV package is $60/month (all the way up to $95/month).
AT&T Fiber is about $70/month, after the introductory period, IIRC.
I thought or wished that there would be a savings, but there’s not as far as I can tell. And about the only thing in life that I have to live for is watching sports. 
We have Comcast/xFinity and I’ve threatened to leave them a few times in the past couple years. They give me zippo, because I think they know they’re competively priced with the streaming services.
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Funny. I’m also with them. It’s not like I call all the time, so maybe it’s a once or twice-off occurrence.
I have some friends who were successful getting their cable bills reduced 5+ years ago by calling and threatening to cancel. Never worked for me. I even had a screen shot of one neighbor’s monthly bill. Sent to same cable company and said I wanted that deal. They refused. May have had some reason to think he was a greater flight risk than I was (he nickeled and dimed everything). But all of those friends ditched cable at this point.
Would think now cable companies are more receptible to those calls because there are more options today. Back then there really weren’t any so it was often a matter of calling your bluff. Maybe cable prices have come down. No idea. I view a business model of giving your best and most loyal customers your worst deals as a failed one. So I am not going back.
Definitely need to look at what you are paying now and what you want to watch to determine what it will cost you if you cut cable. For some people it doesn’t save much or even anything. We were paying a lot more for cable tv than we do for YoutubeTV and the streaming services we added. And we didn’t have premium cable tv channels or a DVR. I also like having no contracts so if there is a series or show you want to watch, you can cancel the streaming service after its over. And those we have through Amazon are easy to turn off and on as needed. Every time you looked at your cable remote I think they added another 2 months to your contract. LOL
Since we already had Netflix and Prime when we had cable, that wasn’t an added cost for us when we switched. We probably save at least $50 a month since we were paying over $200 and now pay about $140 for internet and YTTV. But there are other things we gained besides those dollars. We don’t have to call the cable company every 6 months and play games. We don’t have a ton of equipment and cables junking up our house. We can watch the same TV lineup no matter where we are traveling. We never have to think about DVR space (since YTTV is unlimited). We have a slick home screen where all of our streaming services (including our traditional channels with YTTV) live. If we want to move, it will be a breeze. We have no contracts and can even easily pause any service if we are on vacation.
It took some getting used to after having the same cable company for many, many years, but we are happy every day that we made the change.
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Re: reduction in cable costs. We quit cable…and all we asked for was the same bargain price they were giving as an intro. We got that junk mail often even though we already had cable.
They refused, so we ditched cable.
And of course within weeks, we were getting mail “we miss you” with a low new rate. Nope…too late.
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Various websites often give guidelines on how much different TV providers are allowed to discount, which varies on a number of factors, including things like how for how long you have been a customer. As I touched on earlier, I have satellite and consistently get substantial discounts below sticker price every month. My current discount is $50 below sticker price for TV , in addition to $30 discount for TV + internet bundle. I have previously had much larger discounts. I don’t know specifically about Comcast, but with many providers, it’s common to give long term existing customers as large or larger discounts than new customers, and/or generally trying keep long time customers happy.
My satellite provider has also given other benefits beyond just a discount on my bill. For example, once they gave me all movie channels free for 6 months. After a ~2 minute live chat earlier this week about AMC channel being down (total downtime was 3-4 hours), they gave a $12 credit to my account to compensate. Without these discounts, I would have switched to streaming long ago.
That said, the difference in cost is between satellite and streaming is getting close enough that I plan to try only streaming and no satellite soon, perhaps later this year. I’m planning to try a variety of different options one at a time to both see which ones I like/dislike the most and get a chance to watch the shows that are specific to that platform.
I only watch a small handful of recently broadcast shows, and rarely watch those shows live. Instead I am used to setting my DVR to record the shows I like, then watch them on my schedule when convenient, which may be months or even years later. I expect this style of viewing to lend itself well to streaming.
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