A while ago I decided to cut the cord. And with an approach that nothing is permanent but we can easily become set in our ways I picked what seemed like the best option. I said goodbye to Comcast cable and hello to Hulu + Live TV. The main factor here was cost. Honestly, I was pretty happy with the selection of cable and my TiVo interface.
Now the cost of cable wasn’t insignificant with a $90+ dollar starting point and more service fees than seemed needed I was basically paying upwards of $150. Hulu comes in at $59.99/month for 3 months, then auto-renews at $82.99/month and I was already paying ~$10 a month for Hulu it was definitely cheaper. And way more it costs what it says it costs. Note I am still getting ads on Hulu (no ads is more expensive) but as I understand it that only counts for the streaming stuff but not the “live” tv. I do get a free Disney+ subscription which I’m not sure I would have paid for (and ESPN+ which I don’t use) so there’s that.
So how do I like it? Well, commercials are one of the drawbacks. TiVo had a great skip feature (that wasn’t solid on every show) but this fast-forward action is a pain. They do have a little scrub bar that sometimes has the commercials marked and sometimes it’s accurate. But it really can’t be counted on. And the bummer of streaming is you don’t see the whole picture full screen it’s a small window on the scrub bar so it’s much harder to see what’s up when fast-forwarding.
The other thing that I still have not gotten adjusted to is not having a list of season passes and upcoming recordings. So I’m never totally sure what’s being recorded. And in fact I had a couple of PBS shows that I set to record that definitely didn’t record. I’m not 100% sure those are the only issues. Now this could be some user error but I honestly think there’s something funky,
One other persnickety complaint is that the ‘continue watching’ section has become somewhat problematic. I think if I’m ever watching a live show or if a show I’m watching ends and it automatically prompts to a new show those all get listed on continue watching. So there are things in the list that I have never chosen or passed by in a moment.
This is also a remnant of my old luddite behavior but I also miss just turning on live tv. Now I have to click through like three steps to then select a show. The live tv interface has some pros and cons. I have come to like that it automates to show the most watched channels but the ‘all channels’ is alphabetical as opposed to being more channel-based where regular network stuff just comes up first. And I have had moments where my internet has gone out and I have regretted not having options.
So what do I like about it besides the price? I like that there are profiles for users to save shows, etc. I like that it seems to have a pretty deep ability to hold shows and not sure there’s a limit on the number of shows recording at a time. In general, the interface is fine and easily useable enough.
As for cost I still wonder if it would make more sense to cancel the live portion. I could watch a lot of shows through Hulu standard and then I’d have to do a little more sampling than I do now. I currently get Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Max in addition to Hulu. I have dabbled with Peacock, Paramount+, and Apple TV anyhow. If I don’t want to watch shows ‘live’ which is becoming less of an issue I could dabble more and save myself some money. But that’s an issue for future me. I could also get an antenna which I think about occasionally and going back to my TiVo but so far that’s not happening.
What are your tv solutions and are you thinking of evolving?
