It’s been quite a few decades since I got my master’s degree in television and film at Syracuse University. I made many connections while there, but only one has survived four-plus decades, and that is my roommate for two of the three semesters. He had an expression I always thought amusing: “If it’s for free, it’s for me!”
I’m reminded of it frequently; most recently, when I decided finally to part ways with Comcast’s increasingly-expensive cable TV subscription service after 22 years, and make a go of it with free broadcast TV, paired up with Sling TV, HBO Max, Amazon Prime, and Netflix. So far as I can see, I have the only rooftop TV antennas in my neighborhood. I installed them 22 years ago as the digital TV transition began and added cable as a “plan B.”
Cable TV Used to be Reasonably Priced
Back in the late ‘90s, cable TV was reasonably priced. There was no broadband offering – everything was dial-up through AOL, or some other provider. And we had two traditional landline telephones, serviced by Verizon. I was just about to get my first mobile phone, and one of those two landlines was connected to a fax machine!
What a difference two decades makes. Aside from Japanese take-out restaurants, hardly anyone uses a fax machine these days. The TV channel package had gotten so pricey and we watched only a handful of channels on a regular basis. Gone! One landline has been removed; the other remains as a backup to our mobile phones. And my landline handsets are all now 2.4 GHz Panasonic wireless models, connected to Comcast’s Digital Voice service. Now, with one digital voice line and Blast! Broadband, my monthly bill has been cut in half.
Sling TV’s Blue package gives us the cable channels we want for $35 a month, including 50 hours of cloud DVR. (It’s a bit funky to use at times, but Comcast’s DVRs had also moved to the cloud on my last sidecar cable box.) Another bonus: as a Comcast broadband customer, I was able to switch to their mobile phone service, which buys capacity wholesale from Verizon’s network. No per-line charges, just $35/month for 4 GB of data (which we have yet to use up). $1200 a year back in my pocket!
I Did an Audit
To make this decision intelligently, I did an informal audit of the TV channels and programs we watch on a regular basis. Turns out; only about six were cable channels. The rest were all available over-the-air…for FREE. And as it turns out, I can watch 28 major channels with 70 minor channels of programming, including ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, PBS, CW, MyTV, and vintage channels (Decades, MeTV, Antenna, H&I, Comet, and others).
Pete’s TV Antennas
Next step was to find something to find, record, playback, pause, and fast-forward those OTA shows. I had a TiVo Bolt online for several years (sent to me by TiVo’s previous management for review) and it came with a lifetime subscription. The Bolt now became our primary content hub, and can record four shows at once to a solid-state drive. Bolt also supports a number of streaming apps like YouTube, Prime, and Netflix.
We’d used TiVo previously with cable TV, so going back to that control interface was easy. A TiVo Mini Vox satellite receiver sits in my bedroom, connected via 1.3 GHz MoCa, and gives me full control over the downstairs Bolt, sitting under my 55-inch LG OLED TV in the family room. I’m limited to 1080i/1080p video playback as no broadcaster currently supports 4K video – that will come with ATSC 3.0, I hope.
The Latest TiVo Receiver
I recently tested the latest TiVo receiver, the Edge. It’s as good or better than any current ATSC 1.0 receiver or TV I’ve used, particularly with multipath and echoes. Only two DVRs are included, but that may be a reaction to the increasing popularity of streaming with cloud DVRs, such as the Sling service uses. Both the Bolt and the Edge also have a clever Skip button – when prompted, you tap it and skip right through an entire commercial bloc instantly.
All in all; this new setup will net about $170 in savings per month. I can buy a very nice LCD TV with that savings in six months, or another OLED TV in nine! We don’t miss channels we never watched and Sling gives us the few that we do like, plus we aren’t forced to add a sports channel package to get Turner Classic Movies. (Yes, Comcast did that!)
As baby boomers, we get a kick out of watching shows from our childhood in color (my family didn’t get color TV until the mid-1970s). My wife is hooked on The Untouchables; I’m still trying to find The Avengers on Sling or OTA. But we also enjoy multiple quality HD programs (MPEG-2 encoders have gotten really good) and oddball documentaries and programming on channels like France 24 and NHK.
Best of all, I’m saving a nice chunk of change every month by watching mostly free TV. And as a wise man (guy) once said to me, “If it’s for free, it’s for me!” (PP)
