OT: Tired of my satellite/cable bill. Help

[dgtatu01]

We live very close to the broadcast antennas for Louisville so we can use a very inconspicuous antenna for network TV and it comes in in HD. I realize not everyone can do that. We also use Sling for basically ESPN and SECN. I pay $25/month for UK sports, college football and the occasional Monday Night Football game. I watch nothing else on Sling. We pretty much Netflix or Amazon Prime everything else. Total cost per year:


$25*12 Sling
+ $15*12 Netflix
+ $89 Prime (although some of this cost could be attributed elsewhere in budget)
+ $70*12 200 MBps Internet
$1409/year for freaking TV & internet

 

[cricket3]

you serious, Clark?

There's a lot of IF's and it could crash your Smart TV. It's true for Time Warner in Lexington but SEC Network isn't HD and has a weird ratio.

 

[delk4three]

I'm using Playstation Vue and it's been great. Especially since we got the new FireTV box yesterday. It streams at 60 megs and really smooths out sports and those little tickers that scroll on the bottom. It will also work for some 4K which doesn't really apply to me. Have it for the FireStick as well and it's great on everything except for sports because it only streams at 30 megs. So now the stick has been relegated to the lesser used tv in the bedroom.

35 bucks a month for 60+ channels including the main sports ones I wanted/needed, ESPN family, SEC Network, Golf Channel, and Fox Sports Ohio. I looked at Sling as well but it just didn't seem to give you as much bang for your buck. The packages vary by location however. They just recently added WKYT and WYMT as live local channels as well. The other locals are On-Demand programming only. You can use up to 5 different devices as well and can create your own profiles similar to Netflix. I also use the Kodi app.

One thing of note and I'm not sure if this applies to the user who said Vue was awful, but don't use a Roku box for Vue. For some reason it really does suck on that device.

I have a Roku stick and tried Sling a few months ago. I had horrible buffering issues with it, currently trying a free week trial on Playstation Vue. Had no buffering issues at all, pleasantly surprised because of my previous experience with Sling. Picture comes in very nice, no lag or buffering at all so far and I only have the Spectrum $15 a month internet plan.

 

[KyCatFan_rivals45723]

I rarely have any issues, but then I have the 50 Mbps Internet. Maybe your settings need to be adjusted. The Vue app might be using a slightly lesser picture quality that isn't too noticeable or maybe works better at slower speeds. Also how close to your router is your Roku stick? Mine is in the same room and only about 10' away. Watching a movie on Epix right now and no quality or lag issues at all.

 

[delk4three]

I rarely have any issues, but then I have the 50 Mbps Internet. Maybe your settings need to be adjusted. The Vue app might be using a slightly lesser picture quality that isn't too noticeable or maybe works better at slower speeds. Also how close to your router is your Roku stick? Mine is in the same room and only about 10' away. Watching a movie on Epix right now and no quality or lag issues at all.

My router is in another room, maybe 30 ft from my tv. The picture quality may be lower, but I honestly can't tell much a difference if that is the case. It could just work better at slower speeds I guess. I have Netflix and it runs well even with the slow speeds I have. I was surprised it's working well watching live events .

 

[KyCatFan_rivals45723]

I think some apps play at a certain quality depending on your speed. For instance I believe the Vudu app checks your speed and gives you the options of quality based on your available speed. I checked my SlingTV app on my phone and you can pick the setting speed or select best available.

 

[delk4three]

Yea, If I knew the Playstation Vue would run so well with my internet speed I would of tried it sooner. Sling was just horrible with my internet speeds so I just assumed my internet was too slow for live tv. Glad I tried the Playstation Vue.

 

[al.ksr]

Another vote for Vue. It works great on my 6mbs U-verse connection (no other option for me in Georgetown, sadly). I'm using a Roku stick with no issues. The interface leave something to be desired since it doesn't have the grid layout. But performance wise, not a problem.

Personally, I think Sling sucked, at least for my speed. It was constantly buffering. I just feel like Vue has a better compression algorithm. Also, you only get 1 stream for the Sling ESPN package (unless they recently changed it). You have to subscribe to the top package to get ESPN and the Fox Sports channels.

$35 for ESPN + Fox Sports + +multiple streams + DVR + it doesn't buffer constantly on 6mbs?