There are many reasons people watch television some for news others for seasonal programming and the biggest one sports.
After you cut cable off and are now on local antenna with internet access how can you get the specific things you are interested in that antenna broadcast may not or just does not cover?
There are options most will cost you a monthly fee.
Movies and TV you can pay monthly for Hulu, Netflix, Amazon and for live streaming television you have Sling TV, USTVnow.
The costs vary across the board Netflix standard streaming as of May 2016 is $9.99 a month if you want UltraHD you need the Platinum plan that is $12.99 a month.
Hulu- $7.99 monthly
Amazon if you have a prime membership which is $99 a year you get unlimited streaming of pretty much all their library.
Amazon now offers a monthly fee that is less than Netflix coming at you for $8.99 monthly. This allows you to watch the majority of Amazon’s selections excluding the absolute latest movies and TV these will probably not be available.
I have used every service listed so far. While Amazon does pull some amazing exclusive Movies or short series out of their sleeves like Mad Dogs. Not sure it competes with Netflix or Hulu’s excellent interfaces. Is it just about what they have to watch? Yes and no a nice user interface makes the difference of finding what you want a whole lot easier and faster.
Netflix and Hulu have this down Amazon needs to follow the standard these 2 have set.
Live streaming Television
This is where it gets costly and pretty much works against you and the reason you cut the cord.
There is not 1 service available that offers you to only pay for the channels you want.
Doesn’t matter if you go with Verizon, Bright house, Time Warner, USTVnow or Sling they all shove packages down your throat.
The first company or persons who start a Live Streaming TV service or standard service for that matter where you can either pay for the 1 channel you want or the 10 you want is going to be the winner.
Bottom line packages are bullshit! No one wants em we only get stuck selecting packages because we are forced to. If you don’t get their bundles they punish you by charging more!
These companies love to shove services down your throat you don’t need or will ever use like the hard telephone line that is forced on you to get a cheaper cable ,internet package they know that the hardline will never get used but they love getting paid for it.
Lets start with USTVnow this is used in Kodi quite often and they do offer a free package that will give you a few local channels most you get with the antenna you just installed but most of the time the locals they give you are from different time zones so the programming can sometimes be different.
The free package offers you a whopping 7 channels ABC,CBS, The CW, FOX,NBC, PBS & My 9. This is fine if you don’t have cable or an antenna some channels are better than none.
As of now on my Antenna eastern time zone in Florida on The CW Ceasar Millan and MYTV or My9 Whacked out Sports.
On USTVnow The CW showing Same as local antenna but MYTV or my9 is showing What went down.
Is the free USTVnow useful? Not really if you have an antenna up so that means you have to pay for a package to get the channels you don’t get on the antenna.
The thing that USTV now does offer is when you buy a certain package you get DVR capabilities and don’t need to buy the hardware if you are using a HTPC or media box that has hard drive space already.
The 1st package is the All channels package this starts at $19 a month for 1st 4 months then goes to $29 a month. You get Limited DVR with referral credits, HD channels included, 28 channels total.
The 28 you get for $29 a month-ABC, CBS, CW, FOX, NBC, PBS, My9, A&E, Animal Planet, Bravo, Cartoon Network, CNBC, CNN, Comedy Central, Discovery Channel, ESPN, FX, Fox News, History, Lifetime, National Geographic, Nickelodeon, Spike, Syfy, TBS, TNT, USA, AMC.
Next package All Channels + DVR This starts at $29 a month for 1st 4 months then goes to a whopping $39 a month!
What you get: Unlimited DVR, HD included and 28 channels total same as listed in prior package.
Then there is the Premium service this is 200 channels includes HBO & Showtime and starts at $99 per month!!!
Lets go over this why did we cut the cable company off? Bottom line this is not a sound option. I should mention that you can watch USTVnow package on any device.
Want more info? http://www.ustvnow.com/
Sling TV offers a 7 day trial.
They push packages on you as well. And offer 3 different packages the 1st base package to be compared to USTVnow is $9 a month cheaper and offers 25+ channels. This is Slings 1st package the $20 a month package.
Channels you get ESPN, AMC, CNN, HGTV, Comedy channel, Cartoon Network, History, Disney, ESPN2, TNT, FOOD, TBS, BBC AM, Free Form, Adult Swim, A&E, IFC, Elrey, Viceland, Lifetime, Travel, Newsy, Bloomberg, Local Now, Polaris, Maker, FLAMA & Galavision
.
25$ month package 40+ channels
40$ month package all channels.
To get a better picture of what you get for your money go to: https://www.sling.com/
My opinion this actually is not that bad $20 month package would compliment the antenna perfectly.
Down side you will not be able to DVR any of the channels you get through this service.
Also if you use Kodi as your media center this does not have any plugin to smoothly integrate into it.
As with Netflix, Amazon & Hulu I have also tried USTVnow & SlingTV. So my input is not just read off of a webpage I have used these services. Some I still pay for monthly others I only did a trial run. Out of the 5 I have listed I only pay for 2 of them monthly.
SlingTV is heavily on my watch list.
Word on the webs is SlingTV will be releasing an app to some smart Televisions so far Samsung & LG have been named. I have a 2015 LG and still no Sling TV App I have seen. Supposedly was to be released on LG smartTV’s st quarter of 2015. Either it came and failed or they failed to make the slated release time frame? Or have been stuck in the never ending Roku, Android updates and releases to cover any other platforms.
Sports this is something I do not bother with. Plain and simple I don’t like sports. I love watching my kids play on a league or at school other than that I could careless about sports or the channels they are on. Or the events that are being held.
I’m a tiny portion so I have did some looking into this.
I have followed some web pages regarding sports.
With some investigation and lots of reading I was able to not only get NFL network but also NBA, MLB, Boxing, Racing, UK Sports and many, many more including Euro Football and Ireland games.
Was also are able to get Expanded channels TNT,TBS, ID channel, AMC and many others.
On top of that I am getting channels from all around the world.
I went from paying $230 a month for 380 channels to only paying $96 a month for Internet and now get so many channels I could never watch all of them.
I have absolutely became a fan of U.K TV these people have an outlook much different than US. IN US our TV is littered with consumerism commercial every 10 minutes buy, buy, buy!!! Over in U.K sure they have commercials but nothing like here in the states they are not as materialistic as we are and the commercials are about what’s going on or what’s coming up next and when shows are airing they do not have a commercial even once during a show.
I will not show you how to get access to all these channels that will be for you to figure out. But it’s out there!
CBS Action UK
UK TV Guide
BBC 2
SKY 1
Sky Movies
NFL Network
Local Antenna
Kodi Front Dash
OTA Radio
Terrible Video I did of being in Kodi dash running channels and other things.
Keep looking on the nets do your homework all the services are free and anyone can do this as long as you can read it can be done.
Salvatore's Place 