Cutting the Cable Umbilical Cord (Finally :))

[nefan65]

I'd LUV to cut the cord. We have Comcast Digital TV, and regular Internet. Combined, and taxes in Southern Maine we're paying about $150/month. My son has a Hi-Def screen for his XBOX in his room. I have a good mind to get a Hi-Def antenna for his LCD, and see how it works. If it does, I may go that route, upgrade to the Power Boost, and setup Plex or something...The only reason for the local stuff is sports [Football, Baseball, Hockey, and the occasional golf]. I think Plex or the similar will give us some of the other stuff we'd miss, like Comedy Central, etc.

 

[irishv]

I wish that I could cut the cord; if there was a legal way of reliably receive ESPN, ESPN2, and other live sports channels during college football and college basketball seasons in SD or HD (preferred), I would do it, too. Sure, there are some websites that have lines to games streamed, but to save bandwidth, they only stream in sub SD quality that looks ok only on smartphones, tablets, and small laptops--don't look good at all on a 50" plasma. For the rest of my TV viewing, I usually download from the multitudes of streaming sites or from the antenna in the attic.

In my experience, ESPN3 provides more coverage than the two cable channels. The quality is decent for SD, but no where near as good as their HD channels. The quality on XBox 360 looks much better than I get through Plex, so I'm not sure if Microsoft has some sort of deal with them. Hopefully Apple brings that to the ATV soon.

I'm lucky in that most of what I watch is available on local channels: ND football on NBC (home) or ABC (away), Bears games on FOX, major golf tournaments on CBS or NBC. NCAA tourney on CBS. ESPN3 has had everything else (Big East basketball), although obviously at lower quality. Cubs split their home games between WGN and Comcast sports, so I miss about half of the season. If I cared that much (or if they were any good), I could pay for MLB.tv.

 

[jljue]

In my experience, ESPN3 provides more coverage than the two cable channels. The quality is decent for SD, but no where near as good as their HD channels. The quality on XBox 360 looks much better than I get through Plex, so I'm not sure if Microsoft has some sort of deal with them. Hopefully Apple brings that to the ATV soon.

I'm lucky in that most of what I watch is available on local channels: ND football on NBC (home) or ABC (away), Bears games on FOX, major golf tournaments on CBS or NBC. NCAA tourney on CBS. ESPN3 has had everything else (Big East basketball), although obviously at lower quality. Cubs split their home games between WGN and Comcast sports, so I miss about half of the season. If I cared that much (or if they were any good), I could pay for MLB.tv.

Yep, I've done ESPN3 before wit my MBP, but sometimes it looks terrible on a 50" Plasma. Maybe I might have to try it again with UTP instead of wireless, even though I replace my old D-Link router with an AEBS recently. Unfortunately, many SEC games are split amongst ESPN, ESPN2, Fox Sports South, Sports South, and CSS, but some are now on CBS & ABC, which I do pick up in HD with my antenna. I've just been enjoying the rest of my channels thru analog cable that Comcast forgot to filter out. Unfortunately, they are about to cut out the analog soon, so I'm about to have to subscribe to something soon.

 

[irishv]

Yep, I've done ESPN3 before wit my MBP, but sometimes it looks terrible on a 50" Plasma. Maybe I might have to try it again with UTP instead of wireless, even though I replace my old D-Link router with an AEBS recently. Unfortunately, many SEC games are split amongst ESPN, ESPN2, Fox Sports South, Sports South, and CSS, but some are now on CBS & ABC, which I do pick up in HD with my antenna. I've just been enjoying the rest of my channels thru analog cable that Comcast forgot to filter out. Unfortunately, they are about to cut out the analog soon, so I'm about to have to subscribe to something soon.

I hear ya. ESPN3 seems to be decent when they are broadcasting the game in HD. For some of the lower tier games only shown on Gameplan or ESPN+ (whatever they call it now), the quality can look pretty bad. My mini is hard wired to the router, so I'm not sure if wifi makes much of a difference.

The way I see it, if Comcast provided the sports channels (ESPN, ESPN2, Comcast Sports, Fox Sports) in HD with the basic package, I would probably pay. I'm not willing to pay an extra $10 a month for HD on top of the regular tv package (and then another $10 for dvr). That's how $70 turns in to $110 pretty quickly. Again, hopefully Apple continues to expand offerings on the ATV to include more leagues.