OT: streaming and cable

We have Prime anyway because we shop a lot on amazon, so it’s an easy keep. There are some good series on there - Sneaky Pete, Ozark, The Boys, Hanna, The Expanse. The Borat move was hilarious IMO but maybe not your cup of tea.

We also have HBO Max for free included with our AT&T wireless family plan, again an easy keep, but I like their series and they get decent movies.

We pay for Netflix. That’s a must have for their movies and original programming.

We also have YouTube TV for our locals and “basic cable” channels. It’s decent for the price ($65) but the picture and sound quality blow. You can see lots of digital artifacts in the pictures and it broadcasts in stereo rather than Dolby 5.1. It’s fine for all of my consumption of fake news and late night liberal comedy but terrible for any action series or live sports if you enjoy big audio. Thanks to coronageddon, not too many new action shows on or live sports with crowds.

We’ll probably try Disney+ next month. I’m curious about the Mandalorian but want to wait for a few more episodes of S2 to drop and then binge both seasons.

Haven’t tried Hulu yet but may give that a go. I used to enjoy showtime and may want to catch up on Shameless and the last few seasons of Homeland. I also get nostalgic for Californication. I wish I had a writer to feed me lines like Hank Moody.

Signed, a liberal retard

I've had NETFLIX for years but their content isn't what I want. I am strictly a movie buff and don't much care for the made for TV movies. To supplement it I have added HULU/STARZ and start up free TUBI with commercials has some good stuff and they don't commercial you to death. I would say that 25% of their content is very good, 50% is OK and 25% sucks. I am probably watching it the most and may drop Netflix when things return to more normal and I am not stuck at home.

Antenna for local channels, Netflix mostly for their original content, currently watching The Queen's Gambit, sign-up for trial memberships if there's something I want to see as an exclusive like Greyhound on AppleTV+. Netflix seems like the best value still, even though they're raising the price for all but their SD level. Too many streaming channels are killing themselves with competition reducing available non-original content not to mention Redbox becoming the next Blockbuster (I think the last Blockbuster is in Bend OR).

I may be showing my age, or simply my lack of technical savvy here, but a serious question:

With so many different platforms to choose from, how does anyone possibly know what's on and when? I mean when you sit down to watch TV, do you check programming guides for all those different services? I only have a basic plan with Fios and Amazon Prime (since I have Prime anyway for buying stuff) and I find it annoying to switch between the two. I had Netflix and Hulu and got rid of both because it was way too much trouble.

Not sure if the newest "smart TVs" make it easier? Mine is about 5 years old and doesn't have a pre-installed app for Prime, and so far I've not been able to figure out how to add it, so I use a Fire stick, which means changing the input with the TV remote, then using the Fire stick remote, which is a hassle. On the other hand, my buddy just spent almost 3 grand on a brand new giant screen TV. It's so fancy and terrific that he can hardly use it. Best Buy's Geek Squad came to deliver and set it up, and even their tech couldn't figure out how to control the channels and the volume with the same remote. If you accidentally lean on the remote or press a wrong button, good luck watching anything at all until you find your way out of the endless menus and back to the show you were watching. What a waste. If there's a game or something we both really want to watch, he comes over to my place and we watch on my shitty little TV. At least we know we'll get to see it without interruption and aggravation.

The ones I use allow me to go online and pick out movies/programs that I want to watch and put them on a list. Then I simply go to my lists and pick out what I want to watch. I can keep them on the list to re watch or delete them. I probably have 200 movies on my 3 lists.

I had dish network for around 17years but ended up dropping them because I was tired of them gouging me on the price vs service then switched to cable and dropped them after a couple years because I was tired of them gouging me on the price vs service.
I've had a large outdoor antenna on my roof that I put up years ago and went back to that. I get about 60 channels for free. Granted they're not as good as the premium pay channels but the TV is mostly on as background noise anyway. Just like I avoid stripper ROBs I'm also avoiding TV ROBs!

Netflix, Amazon. Both are no brainers, if you don’t use Amazon Prime for household items you’re crazy. Pluto (free) for news and a bunch of channels with older programming. Disney - The Mandalorian is great but the rest is meh unless you’re into Disney movies. So long as it’s $7/mo I’m fine, but I wouldn’t pay double. I have the NFL package too. I have Showtime at $15/mo through Amazon, because I’m a huge fan of Shameless but I’m going to drop it after the upcoming season. Also, fwiw most programming you can buy per season on Amazon. So, if there is a show, I’d rather pay $25 for the ten episodes than commit. I used to have DirecTv ($200/mo) then went to Vue ($80 now cancelled) then YTTV ($65). I enjoy not having that monthly expense and quite frankly with Covid, it’s not worth it as most programming is delayed. Sure, I don’t have ESPN but screw them woke MFs. They are the ones making that cable bill so expensive. The good news is trying these things like Hulu or YTTV are MtM so it’s easily canceled if you’re not into it. My advice is Netflix and Amazon then maybe try a month of a few and see if one sticks and if it doesn’t, cut it.

I have YouTube-TV (YTTV); which I hate having and being in some way affiliated w/ the leftist Google mafia – when YTTV started I think it was as low as $35/mo - now with taxes I’m paying around $75/mo (although there are more channels than b/f) – I have about 15 sports channels which was a big reason why I went with YTTV a while back, but now I watch about 10% as much sports as I used to so those channels are mostly a waste and my monthly bill is what it is mainly b/c of the cost of the sports channels particularly ESPN (I no longer watch woke ESPN nor woke NBA/NFL/MLB; and thus why I watch 10% as much sports; the only sports I currently watch are Fomula-1 and MotoGP) – out of the ~90 total YTTV channels I get, I only watch 2 regularly (Fox News; and Smithsonian Channel); and about 6 other channels that I watch pretty-regularly but not as much as the first 2 (National Geographic; ID; Fox Business; Motor Trend; Court TV; Comedy Central (mainly South Park and old reruns of Chapell Show); and 2 others that I watch sometimes (CNBC (used to watch it more but they can get a little woke(y) sometimes; and I sometimes watch “The Olympic Channel” since they show a good # of track-and-field events) – so out of ~90 YTTV channels, I currently watch ~10 – as much as I hate Cable (Comcast in my area), I may switch to them b/c I’d get approx the same channels for approx. the same price (since YTTV has been increasing their prices over the last couple of years) and right now I hate Google more than I hate Comcast – I’ve briefly looked at the other streaming services and it seems most of them have channels missing that I like (but I haven’t looked at them in a while).

For streaming I have NetFlix; Amazon; and ESPN+ (I get all 3 via my brother; he has a family thus why they have multiple streaming services for everyone’s preferences) – I’m mainly into documentaries – I stopped watching movies in the 2000s b/c I felt so many movies sucked - the “big budget” films were often just expensive special effects movies and thus why a movie was “good”; e.g. “Iron Man” was supposed to be “a great movie” that grossed tons of $$$ but it didn’t do much for me; neither other “high grossing films” like “Pirates of the Caribbean”; for me many of these movies are more hype than substance – I’m not into science-fiction stuff like the super-hero movies (with some exceptions here and there) – these days for w/e reason I rarely have the patience to sit thru a 90-minute to 2-hr+ movie although part of that is I fell out of the habit of watching movies – when the pandemic first started I did watch a good amount of NexFlix and Prime and ESPN+ stuff (mostly documentaries) that I had not had a chance to watch but over the last month or two I haven’t bothered to look for interesting stuff on them; and I’m not interested in watching woke ESPN+ at all).

Amazon Prime, Netflix, AppleTV+ (but it's free, about to run out and I likely won't be renewing unless something compelling comes along), and Disney+. My wife has some CBS subscription.

We got rid of Hulu.

We actually have two cable choices in our area and we just switched from Spectrum ($$ price increases over the years) to WOW, faster internet, all electronic TV box, ability to record and watch anywhere in the house.... Also, Amazon Prime, worth it for me just for speed of shipping and selection of products, TV options aside. Just went with WOW's Medium TV for now; may switch to YouTube or one of the others eventually.

None.

BTW I have just a super simple TV and have my laptop sitting next to the recliner with an HDMI cable running up to the TV. That way I can watch any Amazon content by just switching over the input..... not to mention any other available internet content.....PORNHUB.... on the big TV. I do recommend hard wiring a network cable to the laptop rather than relying on WiFi to ensure a smooth stream.