I am cutting the cable cord tomorrow (and canceling the cable service too)! Wish me luck. Honestly, I haven't watched anything on cable but the news in nearly 4 weeks.
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You bought an AppleTV. You cancelled your cable. Now what?
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It doesn't require cable as some models can receive over-the-air (free) signals. But it works really well with cable.
If you watch a lot of live sports in HD, you'll want to keep your TV service. I'm a huge F1 and MLB fan and I love the HD broadcasts I get off DirecTV.
My Apple TV library supplements DirecTV; I don't buy TV shows and I rent Standard DVDs from Netflix. I'll use the Apple TV for renting an occasional HD movie. Probably will do that more and more as Apple builds up their library.
My Apple TV library supplements DirecTV; I don't buy TV shows and I rent Standard DVDs from Netflix. I'll use the Apple TV for renting an occasional HD movie. Probably will do that more and more as Apple builds up their library.
I'm in Canada and I was itching to cancel my cable. I didn't even wait for tv shows to arrive on iTunes Canada, Podcasts were enough for me and when 
TV Take 2 enabled podcast browsing, I was in.
I save about $100 per month and spend little to nothing on TV shows. I've discovered HD podcasts that I love and have become the norm for me.
ON Networks and Revision3 have some great podcasts.
The only thing that I can say I truly miss is random tv watching. You know.. sometimes you don't want to program what to watch, you just want to be fed it. So every now and then, I switch to my TV's ATSC receiver and watch the local networks.
The only big frustration is thatTV take 2 is FULL of bugs. It's slowed down to a halt these past few days. I often get freezes, spontaneous restarts and other annoying bugs.
I lowered the res to 720p from 1080p and that seemed to have helped a bit. Looking forward toTV 2.1
TV Take 2 enabled podcast browsing, I was in.I save about $100 per month and spend little to nothing on TV shows. I've discovered HD podcasts that I love and have become the norm for me.
ON Networks and Revision3 have some great podcasts.
The only thing that I can say I truly miss is random tv watching. You know.. sometimes you don't want to program what to watch, you just want to be fed it. So every now and then, I switch to my TV's ATSC receiver and watch the local networks.
The only big frustration is that
TV take 2 is FULL of bugs. It's slowed down to a halt these past few days. I often get freezes, spontaneous restarts and other annoying bugs. I lowered the res to 720p from 1080p and that seemed to have helped a bit. Looking forward to
TV 2.1This is a terrible thread 
. I just sat down and worked out what I *really* spend on cable, and what ATV/ITS would cost if I just factor in what I actually see.
Oy veh!! I'm being shafted! The number of overlapping channels are insane!!
Time to have a talk with the family ...
. I just sat down and worked out what I *really* spend on cable, and what ATV/ITS would cost if I just factor in what I actually see.Oy veh!! I'm being shafted!
The number of overlapping channels are insane!!Time to have a talk with the family ...
It seems like those of you who have done this (got an appletv, got rid of cable) are really pioneers in this new wave of media viewership. 5-10 years from now, do you honestly think that people are going to be paying $100/month to view a hodge podge of channels that do/don't necessarily have any appeal whatsoever to the customer? I don't.
I think in that amount of time, the cable chanels will either have to offer a-la-carte' channel offerings, or they will go out of business on the TV side of things. Competition from Apple and other downloadable content vendors are really positioned well as 'game changers' as it sits right now.
The next few years will be very interesting to watch as companies like Apple get more and more content to provide, and cable behomeths begin to lose some of their power.
I think in that amount of time, the cable chanels will either have to offer a-la-carte' channel offerings, or they will go out of business on the TV side of things. Competition from Apple and other downloadable content vendors are really positioned well as 'game changers' as it sits right now.
The next few years will be very interesting to watch as companies like Apple get more and more content to provide, and cable behomeths begin to lose some of their power.
totally happy !
I have cancelled cable in my main residence as soon as the atv was announced and I got it. I already have two of them.
99% happy I should say. Is it a perfect products, no, not at all. But it works fine for the purpose and it'll only get better.
I could not wait to get rid of that f***g cable box as what it does is nothing other than bringing toxic pollution into my house. 1000 channels of crap ! And to top it all, I am paying for it !? nuts. Cable is an insult to my intelligence.
Now there were a few exceptions: ch 13 for example (the news hour, Charlie Rose) which for the most part I can still get on the web. Then my occasional hockey game and most important of all my F1 races. And the latter is why I am 99% happy.
In my vacation home I still have cable, exclusively to watch the F1 races (imagine that!) which are only on w/e so I don't miss any of them.
Power to us: PPV is the only way to go.
I have cancelled cable in my main residence as soon as the atv was announced and I got it. I already have two of them.
99% happy I should say. Is it a perfect products, no, not at all. But it works fine for the purpose and it'll only get better.
I could not wait to get rid of that f***g cable box as what it does is nothing other than bringing toxic pollution into my house. 1000 channels of crap ! And to top it all, I am paying for it !? nuts. Cable is an insult to my intelligence.
Now there were a few exceptions: ch 13 for example (the news hour, Charlie Rose) which for the most part I can still get on the web. Then my occasional hockey game and most important of all my F1 races. And the latter is why I am 99% happy.
In my vacation home I still have cable, exclusively to watch the F1 races (imagine that!) which are only on w/e so I don't miss any of them.
Power to us: PPV is the only way to go.
I have been perplexing about this as well, but I can not and do not think it's time to cancel cable at all, I have a few issues no one seems to be able to provide answers for lets see what happens in here!
1. What do I do since I have 3 Tv's in my house. I cant buy 3 Apple Tv's at least at current prices. Than still im not sure I could stream content from one to another.
2. I own a 57DLP TV and since only movies are in 720p Its a complete waste of the $3000 TV I bought last year...
3. I do not watch TV on my computer EVER I have a Family, so unless I constantly spend money to buy Dora, and other shows at 1.99 an episode I would spent more money than I do for Cable.
I currently pay 158.00 a month for HD-DVR, Phone, and 16gig Internet Access from Comcast..
I want an Apple TV but I can not find a GOOD reason to.. Plus the fact that Anything I buy can only be used on the Apple TV..
Does anyone know any EASY/CHEAP UPNP Devices I could stream from my PC to the bedrooms on demand? Something My wife can use?
Also could someone explain if you can keep basic comcast and hook it up to the APple TV? I do not want 3 different boxes sitting on the TV.
1. What do I do since I have 3 Tv's in my house. I cant buy 3 Apple Tv's at least at current prices. Than still im not sure I could stream content from one to another.
2. I own a 57DLP TV and since only movies are in 720p Its a complete waste of the $3000 TV I bought last year...
3. I do not watch TV on my computer EVER I have a Family, so unless I constantly spend money to buy Dora, and other shows at 1.99 an episode I would spent more money than I do for Cable.
I currently pay 158.00 a month for HD-DVR, Phone, and 16gig Internet Access from Comcast..
I want an Apple TV but I can not find a GOOD reason to.. Plus the fact that Anything I buy can only be used on the Apple TV..
Does anyone know any EASY/CHEAP UPNP Devices I could stream from my PC to the bedrooms on demand? Something My wife can use?
Also could someone explain if you can keep basic comcast and hook it up to the APple TV? I do not want 3 different boxes sitting on the TV.
you have too many tv's !
To me, the answer to your questions is quite simple in your case: it cannot be a replacement for your cable boxes.
Just like for those who watch lots of sports .... no way they can get rid of their cable. Unfortunately that's the way it is. I just hope that one day things will change.
To me, the answer to your questions is quite simple in your case: it cannot be a replacement for your cable boxes.
Just like for those who watch lots of sports .... no way they can get rid of their cable. Unfortunately that's the way it is. I just hope that one day things will change.
No, you can't stream content between
TVs. You can, however, stream from one central iTunes library to multiple TVs. Why? Just because the rentals aren't 1080p? Better get used to it then. 1080p rental video content is a long way off. Additionally you can only get up to 1080i Hi Def from either cable or satellite. Do you only use that TV to watch Blu-Ray discs?
Not true. All video content purchased from the iTunes store can be used on almost any video capable device Apple sells.
Nope,
TV has no DVR capabilities nor does it have the ability to decode any cable or satellite signals. Regards,
Michael
How close do you sit to that TV? If its further than 10-12 feet than your eyes can't resolve the difference between the two resolutions anyway. You ALREADY wasted that money buying a 1080p set instead of a 720p one, its not the
TV's fault. 
How close do you sit to that TV? If its further than 10-12 feet than your eyes can't resolve the difference between the two resolutions anyway. You ALREADY wasted that money buying a 1080p set instead of a 720p one, its not the
Thanks for the info but I knew this before investing. I sit almost 9.5 feet from the TV and I can see the difference. I use the PS3 for Bluray only there.
Everywhere else 720p would be perfect.
As for the person who said 3 Tv's is too much lol look in your average American Home there is at least 3 Tv's.. I actually have 5 if you count the ones in the basement.
It's definitely an investment up front but it can save allot of cake in the long run. I have three TVs as well....Living Room, Bedroom & my son's room. Already had one ATV for over a year in the LR & finally ripped our DVD collection & dumped the DVD player. Decided a few months back to clear out my son's clutter of 100+ DVDs & go straight ATV there as well.
That works out perfect because the clutter is gone, he can actually turn on his own movies & TV shows on his own. Ripped all of his movies to our 1TB TC, setup the parental controls & it's done.
Then we sprung for one in our bedroom. It is so much cheaper to purchase the stuff you want via iTunes then paying huge bills for a bunch of channels you could care less about. Plus with a busy schedule you might not even catch the stuff you are interested in.
By the time we sold our DVD collection, our son's DVD collection & our DVD player we had two ATV's right there. You just have to make sure you have a solid internet connection to handle the transfer as well as a descent size hard drive & a universal remote.
Between Podcasts, Rentals & iTunes content it is more then enough to get by. Plus you can always rent DVDs to rip if need be.
I actually canceled my cable a couple of years before ATV came out and went all DVD, mostly because we didn't want our children to be corrupted by all the filth and base consumerism.
I really missed ACC basketball for a couple of years, but can watch March Madness on over-the-air HD.
Between Netflix and iTunes you can pretty much watch EXACTLY what you want and not be bothered with the massive volume of garbage that cable/sat dumps into your home. It's great that the children are not constantly bombarded with overt and covert advertising. They have developed extensive attention spans and are much calmer than their TV watching peers.
When I do see TV now (in hotels or at friends' homes) it seems so completely inane that I wonder how I ever tolerated it at all.
I really missed ACC basketball for a couple of years, but can watch March Madness on over-the-air HD.
Between Netflix and iTunes you can pretty much watch EXACTLY what you want and not be bothered with the massive volume of garbage that cable/sat dumps into your home. It's great that the children are not constantly bombarded with overt and covert advertising. They have developed extensive attention spans and are much calmer than their TV watching peers.
When I do see TV now (in hotels or at friends' homes) it seems so completely inane that I wonder how I ever tolerated it at all.
Enjoying Apple TV
I had to jump in for the first time on this site and leave a comment. I've been reading this site for over a year now and finally joined the forum today.
My first Apple product was a 4GB IPod Nano that I purchased for Christmas 2007. My second Apple product is a 160GB Apple TV purchased one month ago.
I was a long-time subscriber of Comcast cable. I got tired of channel surfing through shopping channels, channels in Spanish, infomercial channels etc... I often wondered why I was paying for those channels. Often to the point of frustration.
In addition to the junk channels I have a busy schedule and would sometimes go a month without watching any TV... basically wasting my monthly subscription. And when I did have time to watch all the shows I liked watching were not on.
I canceled cable and got an Apple TV. I really enjoy the huge television show selection and free podcasts. My biggest complaint is the lack of rental titles, currently at 533. But honestly, the current movie rental selection is far superior to that of the Comcast On-Demand library and well over a hundred titles are available to rent in HD.
I considered Vudu before purchasing an Apple TV but was not impressed with two things- lack of TV shows and the locked off system. Apple TV allows me to sync any properly formatted media I want onto it using iTunes... as I am doing with my entire DVD library. And by the way, it looks incredible. Using the right tools to encode your video you won't see any difference in quality.
So to answer the question of how much money I'm spending on Apple TV... the answer is more than I did with Comcast. A lot more. Does that surprise you? Here's the thing- every penny I've spent on content for Apple TV is for content I want to watch. I've found content I want to watch when I want to watch it. That has me spending more money on TV than I ever have before. I'm not obligated to spend it. And I don't regret it because I am truly enjoying the experience.
I love it! I tell everyone about it. Ive convinced a couple of my friends to get one.
Thanks for reading.
I had to jump in for the first time on this site and leave a comment. I've been reading this site for over a year now and finally joined the forum today.
My first Apple product was a 4GB IPod Nano that I purchased for Christmas 2007. My second Apple product is a 160GB Apple TV purchased one month ago.
I was a long-time subscriber of Comcast cable. I got tired of channel surfing through shopping channels, channels in Spanish, infomercial channels etc... I often wondered why I was paying for those channels. Often to the point of frustration.
In addition to the junk channels I have a busy schedule and would sometimes go a month without watching any TV... basically wasting my monthly subscription. And when I did have time to watch all the shows I liked watching were not on.
I canceled cable and got an Apple TV. I really enjoy the huge television show selection and free podcasts. My biggest complaint is the lack of rental titles, currently at 533. But honestly, the current movie rental selection is far superior to that of the Comcast On-Demand library and well over a hundred titles are available to rent in HD.
I considered Vudu before purchasing an Apple TV but was not impressed with two things- lack of TV shows and the locked off system. Apple TV allows me to sync any properly formatted media I want onto it using iTunes... as I am doing with my entire DVD library. And by the way, it looks incredible. Using the right tools to encode your video you won't see any difference in quality.
So to answer the question of how much money I'm spending on Apple TV... the answer is more than I did with Comcast. A lot more. Does that surprise you? Here's the thing- every penny I've spent on content for Apple TV is for content I want to watch. I've found content I want to watch when I want to watch it. That has me spending more money on TV than I ever have before. I'm not obligated to spend it. And I don't regret it because I am truly enjoying the experience.I love it! I tell everyone about it. Ive convinced a couple of my friends to get one.
Thanks for reading.
I had to jump in for the first time on this site and leave a comment. I've been reading this site for over a year now and finally joined the forum today.
My first Apple product was a 4GB IPod Nano that I purchased for Christmas 2007. My second Apple product is a 160GB Apple TV purchased one month ago.
I was a long-time subscriber of Comcast cable. I got tired of channel surfing through shopping channels, channels in Spanish, infomercial channels etc... I often wondered why I was paying for those channels. Often to the point of frustration.
In addition to the junk channels I have a busy schedule and would sometimes go a month without watching any TV... basically wasting my monthly subscription. And when I did have time to watch all the shows I liked watching were not on.
I canceled cable and got an Apple TV. I really enjoy the huge television show selection and free podcasts. My biggest complaint is the lack of rental titles, currently at 533. But honestly, the current movie rental selection is far superior to that of the Comcast On-Demand library and well over a hundred titles are available to rent in HD.
I considered Vudu before purchasing an Apple TV but was not impressed with two things- lack of TV shows and the locked off system. Apple TV allows me to sync any properly formatted media I want onto it using iTunes... as I am doing with my entire DVD library. And by the way, it looks incredible. Using the right tools to encode your video you won't see any difference in quality.
I love it! I tell everyone about it. Ive convinced a couple of my friends to get one.
Thanks for reading.
Welcome to the forum! We are glad to have you. I enjoyed reading your story... and left with just one question.
Are you keeping all of your content, or deleting it after you watch it? If you are keeping it, how in the world are you storing it all?!?! If I spend "more" on iTunes as I did on cable, I would have thousands upon thousands of GB of data after two years time!
If apple added a subscription service, say 40 bucks a months or 50 for everything on itunes, including music, and vids, and tv shows (unlimited) id drop regular tv soooooo fast ! unless of course they want to add the ppv movies as well :-D
How about it apple? I would bite
How about it apple? I would bite