Anyone Know About Roku, Sony, Hulu, Etc. and What They Would Go with to Save.

I had downgraded to basic cable a few years ago and finally cancelled it a couple of months ago. I have an indoor antenna that picks up all of the network channels, plus a few more. My antenna only cost $40, which was less than a month of regular cable and less than two months of basic cable. It's already paid for itself.

I do have high speed internet, which I pay about $55 a month for. I watch most TV online. I created a free account with Hulu and subscribe to the shows I want, so they are automatically added to my queue after they air. If Hulu doesn't have it, sometimes the channel's website will have it, like CBS, A&E, etc. I have cables to hook up my computer or iPad to the TV, so it is very convenient.

I used to have Netflix and Amazon Prime, but they don't have most of the new programming and it wasn't worth it for me to pay for it after the free trial. I have debated signing up for Hulu Plus, but I don't think I would use it enough to be worth the cost, when I can watch most of what I want on Hulu for free. Redbox is a cheap alternative for movies, even Blu-Ray.

I have Cox for internet and no home phone. I just use my cell phone. I haven't had home phone service since 2003. There aren't many internet providers here that don't have a bandwidth "cap" and are high speed, so I am kind of stuck with Cox. At least they don't raise the rates on internet as often as they did on cable!

I use Netflix. $8 per month. We have a smartv so no extra devices. I can also use it on my kindle fire. Hulu is great and also only $8 a month. You can watch certain things on there for free, too. We pay $60 a month for Internet through Comcast (It just recently went up 20 bucks!). I hate Comcast. I usually go through AT&T but we couldn't have it at this house. I haven't had cable in 3 years. I don't miss it.

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ETA: We don't have a home phone. We have 2 cellphones through Walmart Family Mobile. We get unlimited talk, text, and pics for $82 a month.

I can't help you with cable. we have dish. BUT I do watch hulu on my computer a lot because it is so stinkin' convenient and shows minus all the commercials take up less time:) (there are some, but not nearly as much)

We only use our cell phones. We did the vonage phone for a while, but it really was never used.

For three years we have been using Clear for our internet. It is a wireless hotspot. I really like it, but it is not a strong enough signal to cover our entire house. When we tried to do netflix through wii, it was a little sketchy and about every 8 months the little receiver peters out and we send in for a new one. I think it is $30 a month and the bonus is, we can take it with us when we travel or are in the car for extended (8 hours pluss) trips.

good luck.

We have no cable or satellite.

We have Netflix and Amazon Streaming (X-box downstairs, Bluray upstairs). We also connected the coax to the wall and ran the TV to search channels and found that we still get about 15-20 local channels, including ABC, FOX and NBC, so you might want to give that a try once your cable is shut off and you just have internet.

We haven't had cable for years. The only thing I miss is AMC and HGTV. Other than that, I certainly don't miss the ridiculous bill!

We got rid of cable in the kids' rooms and put in Roku. They are very happy with it, as they rarely watched the cable since they are particular about what shows they watch. We have hulu, as well, but I honestly don't know much about it. My hubby uses it and controls it. :) He seems happy with it.

We use our apple tv box to stream Netflix and subscribe to Hulu. We find plenty to watch and are satisfied with the content. BUT, we do not like any reality TV, which for the most part is unavailable with either of those subscriptions. We have Comcast internet, phone & TV during football season. We will drop the TV again next week :) DLS & Directv internet services worked poorly for us 5 years ago. AT&T and Comcast are pretty evenly matched in our area as far as good fast service and pricing goes. Good Luck!

We have a Roku and love it! We tried a "smart" blu-ray player first, but it wasn't as good at streaming videos -- we had a lot of issues with it, and it's more expensive than the Roku.

You can stream Netflix (which has the most content available and costs about $10/month for streaming), HuluPlus (content includes current TV shows and it costs about $9/month), and Amazon Instant Videos, to name a few. There are a lot of videos now included with Amazon Prime ($80 for the year), and you can also rent videos on Amazon and watch them on your TV with Roku.

We have high-speed Internet and home phone through ATT (U-verse). We had some issues with the installation, but the Internet usually it works well (better on the Roku than on our 5-year-old computer). I can't remember the pricing off-hand -- I know that it was really low for the first while and then goes up.

Good luck,
R.

We have Netflics with the roko. But we still have cable. Mostly because we could not get Ch 2 .. most of our shows are on 2 (CBS). on the roko, or hula etc.

S.:

I ditched cable years ago for Satellite. We have DirecTV. However, I do use Hulu. I love it when I am looking for older episodes of a show. Hulu has an easy search function and is user-friendly.

We have XBOX and Wii. We do NOT have blu-ray.

We have used Comcast/Infinity for home phone and internet service. We tried Verizon and it sucked. funny though - our cell phones are Verizon.

We use our Wii, and have streaming only Netflix. It's 11 a month, I think, and there's an endless variety of things to watch. They also recently added a YouTube channel for the Wii, so we pretty much have whatever we want to watch. I've never NOT been able to find something to watch...TONS of complete series of TV shows on Netflix, lots of movies and shows for the kids, and YouTube...well, we all know about that.

We use Qwest for our phone and internet, which is now Century Link. Our phone bill (with unlimited long distance, caller id, etc) and high speed internet (wireless) costs us a whopping total of about $60 a month. I know people who pay more than that just for a cell phone bill...crazy. We are in a five year price guarantee, and every time my bill goes up, I call and politely ask what they will do to lower my bill, and they give me a new deal that lasts from one to two years...and when that expires, I call again, they give me another deal, etc...they are very good at customer retention.

As an adult with children, I have never had cable. Never. I relish it when we go on vacation, but there isn't too much there that I can't get with my combo of youtube and netflix.

We ditched cable years ago. We put an antennae in our attic and got about 50 channels from that alone; basic local channels and some sattelite channels.

Just yesterday we set up Netflix or the 1 month free trial. I'm not sure if we will keep it or not, we just aren't a tv family.

Our home phone is Voipo, only $5 a month for unlimited use.
Our internet is Comcast which is $39.95 a month.

If you have high speed cable and live in an area where you can pick up over the air channels, you could try a boxee box which will let you record up to 2 channels to the cloud so you can watch them later (like a Dvr). I have a DVR and hate to give that feature up. I haven't tried this yet but am thinking of giving up my cable.

We ditched cable and satellite 2 years ago and only watch Netflix instant streaming on Roku, so our TV/movie watching is basically free. I love it, but I rarely have time for watching anything, so the occasional movie or show at night, it's plenty for me even with no live TV. It did suck during the Olympics, Thanksgiving parade, Inauguration....I do miss some live shows at times, but no biggy, it's still well worth it since if you MUST see something from live TV, you can find it on youtube later. There are limitless TV series available through Netflix, Amazon, and all the other stations who stream through the devices. We have a Verizon bundle with cell, landline, and internet for $168/month. From what I gather all phone companies pretty much stink equally, so if you find a super cheap internet alternative-even better!

We haven't had cable in about four years! We use the antenna to get the basic channels (really easy, great picture no problem) then stream Netflix and Hulu through a Roku box in the living room and Netflix on the BluRay player in the den. It's worth it to buy a decent antenna with a little stand that sits behind the tv (then plugs into the cable input) so you can still watch live programs on the major networks. Hulu works pretty much like a DVR you don't have to program. It has most of your shows the day after they air, but there ARE ads. Netflix is just older stuff (we like it for our son's shows and movies).

We're actually about to try cable again because with our phone and internet, the bundle with cable costs the same, and the price for the dvr (on just one tv) is the same as we're paying for Netflix and Hulu each month. We'll see if we like it better, then decide from there.

We got rid of cable over 10 years ago. We had some debt and cut out unnecessary bills. We only missed it for a couple of weeks. Netflix and such were not around yet.

Today, we still don't have a cable package but we do have Netflix and Hulu. Oh, and Amazon Instant View, but that is coincidental. I shop on there a lot and that is why I have Prime. I didn't do it for the video aspect.

I watch on my computer sometimes, but we stream through a PS3 in the living room. Just a few months ago, I got a Roku box so that I could use the services on a tv in my bedroom. I like to watch stuff while folding laundry.

We do have a good internet connection. We'd need that regardless because I work from home and my husband often has to connect remotely to his employer's servers.

On a related note, we have a no-frills landline (no caller ID, not even call waiting) and no cell phone.

Although I still have internet and a land-line phone, I canceled cable about a year ago, and I don't miss it at all. We use both Roku and the Wii to stream both Netflix and HuluPlus. The Roku gives you access to programmable channels, but not a whole lot that is mainstream. If you go to Roku.com you can search around to see what they have. If there are enough channels that you're interested in, the price of the Roku may be worth it. If you have a Wii, and are looking at ONLY the basics like Netflix and Hulu, the Roku is unnecessary. Also, some of the newer TV's and Blue-Ray DVD players have the Netflix and Hulu options, making both the Roku and the Wii unnecessary.

I currently pay $19.98 a month for Netflix and that includes unlimited streaming to any device that is programmed, anywhere that I am at, as well as DVD rentals. I get 2 DVD's out at a time for the fee I pay, but there are other options. For streaming alone the price is $7.99 a month. HuluPlus is also $7.99 a month for unlimited streaming, and the shows are newer than Netflix. I have never tried Amazon so I can't comment on their service.

Internet can be pricey for anything high speed, but Comcast has a program called Internet essentials. It is for low income family's and in order to qualify you must have at least one child that is enrolled in the federal free lunch program. Those who qualify can get high speed internet for $9.95 a month.