TiVo hardware is a one time cost of anywhere from $199 to $299. I got my TiVo Bolt on sale for $269.99 with a 1 TB HDD. This claims it can do 50 hours of recording so that should be decent. With the multiple tuners I can record all 4 major networks at once if needed. It also has a skip button that apparently allows you to skip commercials similar to the hopper. The monthly fee for TiVo is $14.99, which is a few dollars more than my locals from Dish but I get access to all of the sub-channels and I get CW in HD which Dish does not offer.

I setup the TiVo and used the small interior antenna I had, right away I noticed it was actually not as good as my TV which I assume is because of the multiple tuners basically splitting the signal as it comes in. Hopefully once I get the new antenna fully mounted this will resolve itself. It took a lot longer than I thought it would to setup the TiVo also. After going through the startup guide it told me there was no information for my area. I found this odd and did some searching. Apparently the shipping software is not compatible with the update info and you need to get the firmware updated. Some people posted about having to plug the unit into their network and leave it for up to 48 hours. I happened to find the guide that allowed for “kickstart” and after 4 reboots it finally let me continue and start watching TV.

The guide is nice and recording was easy. I have not gotten into using it to download from web sources but it claims it can do some of that and create a list for your shows and easily pull all of the content together. I really just need it to grab the newest episodes of the locals and go from there. It also has some other streaming apps so now I have 5 devices connected to and including my primary display that can all stream Netflix. I set up a few shows right away and noticed that within minutes of one of the shows finishing recording the skip option was showing as available. I have not had a chance to use it but look forward to seeing how well it works.

The new antenna I bought was a little lower quality than I was expecting so I hope it works out once I get it on the roof. I was able to hold it and point it out the window and get decent signal. The coax that came with it feels pretty thin but I will be using the existing Dish cable the is RG-6. Inside the house everything is also a good high quality coax since I will be splitting this connection off and connecting it to 3 other TVs. The kids will still only have their smart TVs and streaming but the book says there is a Fire TV TiVo app so I might look into buying a few more Fire TV sticks for their TVs later on but for right now they only watch Netflix or things like the Disney Now app. If the FireTV apps work then I can save money and not have to buy the TiVo Mini’s to connect to my other TVs which will be a pleasant surprise.I’ll be testing it out a little more this evening and seeing what I can all do with it but until I get the antenna mounted signal is hit or miss so I won’t be relying on it for a week or so yet once I get the antenna up and Dish is fully canceled. I’ll be doing that once I settle on my streaming service. I am also looking forward to 4K OTA but considering the area I live in that might be a while.

I am starting to really dislike “cord cutting” since you almost have to have an internet connection and generally that comes in on a cord.

New monthly TV fees are $14.99, too bad I need a streaming service otherwise that would be a huge difference from having Dish. Now to go get a trial for Hulu live and see if that can take over from Playstation Vue as my preferred streaming service.

I don’t care for the what Dish is costing me but I knew they owned Sling and thought I would give them a try. The free Fire TV Stick with voice remote when I pre-paid for service was a bad deal either. Basically I got 2 month of Sling for $5 and a new streaming stick. I also like their redemption system. You pre-pay for the service and they instantly give you a code to redeem on Amazon. No waiting 4 to 6 weeks for your Fire TV Stick. If you are in the market for a new one and want to try Sling it might be worth a shot. I actually set my subscription to cancel the same day I received the Fire TV stick so it didn’t auto renew and didn’t have to worry.

As mentioned previously BBCA and kids programming are important to me. Sling has Nick Jr. and Cartoon Network. Between Blaze, Paw Patrol and Umi Zoomi my kids would be happy, sort of. My youngest loves Mickey Mouse and there are no Disney channels on Sling and there are also limited major networks or quick access to them like other services I’ll get into later. Sling does offer on demand for channels similar to their Dish offerings or having a channels individual app in some instances. One of the new series this year that has caught my attention is The Gifted on Fox. Sling has all previously aired episodes available up to at the time of the writing episode 12/13 which is a double episode but billed as a single on Sling. Today is the 17th and the episodes aired on the 15th. I didn’t check religiously to see what the lag time is but as I write this the Fox Now Android App has the same episode but only goes back to episode 9 “outfoX”  which aired December 4th, 2017 that is available free. I wrote this post over the course of a few days so I am trying to keep reference dates in the post. I am actually saving the draft right now and will explore another show that airs on Fox live tonight or tomorrow and thanks to magic of the internet you get to read about that in the next sentence. On 2018-01-17 a new episode of 9-1-1 aired on FOX. The Episode Next of Kin was available on Sling when I checked at 8 AM the next morning. It was also available on the FOXNOW app. I did not check in the evening as I had some some other things going on but I may check over the schedule for the major networks one night and see the comparison with their apps. In my area FOX on demand is only Major network on Sling.

So Sling is a decent option but misses a few channels I want and I don’t care for their Blue/Orange plan breakdowns. It just doesn’t seem to fit my needs for providing easy access for the entire family. Next up I looked into Playstation Vue. I have 2 PS4s and I know they make an app for Android, iOS and Roku.

Playstation Vue has some attractive packages and pricing plus they support one of my local stations which could come in handy if I wanted to stream everything. The $39.99 Access package has BBCA, Disney Jr for the kids and direct access to FOX, ABC and NBC on demand. CBS seems to not want to bundle with any provider and I think this has a lot to do with them trying to sell their own all access and Hulu seems to be their focus. The Access package also has ESPN which covers my Monday Night Football needs. To get some more sports the addition $5 for the Core package. I fired up the trial on my PS4 which lead me to an issue. It auto located me and unfortunately the area lost me access to the local and it wouldn’t let me specify on the PS4. I called the support number and they were awesome. The rep explained this is an issue with the PS4 and he cannot change it during a trial. He canceled the auto-renew on my account and said to either call in if we decided to keep it or to sign up using my PC instead which should let me specify my exact address and not have the issues. Unfortunately my trial was already expired by the time I am writing this and cannot check on how fast the shows come on. I assume it is the same though since it lists Fox On Demand as the provider. I really liked the interface and cloud DVR feature while my trial was active. I had a winner on my hands but still was not happy with how slow some shows were to get into the on demand section of ABC or CBS, even a few on FOX seemed to have a lag. This made me realize I wanted OTA and DVR.

You can get OTA with DVR fairly cheap. A few tuners I found were as low as $39.99 and then you add an external hard drive. Not bad but I lose my existing whole home DVR feature and the wife didn’t want to have to pick and choose. We had been both spoiled by the Dish ability to start in one room and finish in the other. That Brought me to TiVo which is decided to go with and will go over in my next post since this one again got longer than I wanted.

Time for another TL:DR. I want whole home DVR of the 4 major networks. I want cloud DVR. I decided I had to go with a TiVo which I will go over more in my next post and right now Playstation Vue seemed pretty good for a filler of all the premium channels. Then I found Hulu Live and needed to add that to evaluation for streaming. As of today my new OTA Antenna was delivered along with my TiVo Bolt. I’ll be setting those up tonight and writing my next post about why I went with TiVo and which antenna I purchased.

I knew my contract from Dish was coming up and with my Hopper 3 not really living up to the hype I decided to start looking at streaming options and local OTA TV. I don’t really watch a lot of TV and being a father of 2 young boys I almost never get to watch live TV. The Hopper 3 with Auto-Hop was a nice idea but seems like every few month since release the time between a show airing and the feature being active was getting longer and longer. Some shows don’t enable Auto-Hop until the next episode airs making it nice for catching up but not a killer feature like it was when it released. Also DISH just raised prices for my February bill and it doesn’t sound like much but the $9 increase was the final straw. They didn’t add any channels and with other features lacking it was time to stop paying for the increases.

Lets take a look at my bill and programming with an explanation why the package I have is what I need for certain channels that carry the shows I do watch on a regular basis. First we have the locals which just increased from free to paid about a year ago. They did lower package prices but not the amount they increased the locals. They also somewhere along the way removed the auto-pay discount from what I can tell on the bill. At the time of this post my locals are $12 a month, that is for 7 channels. I get the major affiliates CBS, ABC, NBC and Fox. I also get PBS, ion and CW but the CW is NOT in HD. I also do not get all of the sub channels that are available if I got them OTA. In my area that adds up to about 12 more channels with at least two of them being 24/7 weather which can be nice but not a huge add-on in my opinion. That totals $1.71 per channel for my locals. I don’t watch them during the day since I work and don’t care for Soap Operas and the other talk shows and things that are on. I pretty much only need them for the major network prime time shows.

Moving on to their Core package next is America’s Top 200 for $77.99. The reason for staying at this package level for me comes down to really only needing a few channels. I am a fan of Doctor who and a few other series on BBC America and you guessed it, it’s only offered in the top 200. I also have 2 toddlers and Disney Jr. or Nick Jr. are on more than other channel in the evenings while the kids play in the living room after dinner. Both of these are again only offered in the Top 200 package. I did start looking at the Flex Pack which is $34.99 a month. I would lose BBCA and from what I saw there was no Add-On packages that contain it. I also lose ESPN and would have to re-add it. The Flax Pack plus the required add-ons puts me back up to $70.99 since I would want the Kids pack $10, the National Action pack $10 and the Regional Action pack $10 and the wife wants her Lifetime Movie Network in the Variety pack for $6. Even doing that I have a few other channels that are completely gone. So that lays out a list of must have channels for us. There are some compromises like LMN and BBCA I figured I could switch and use the annual savings to invest in just buying the series on Google Play or Apple iTunes. All in all because of mostly sports and some other events I can only save about $7 to $17 a month. It was a good start but I wouldn’t mind paying $70 or so a month for programming no matter what the service. I am also going to not really talk about HBO since that is the same price across all services but will mention it since it adds to the overall cost. I generally cancel it until Game of Thrones and Westworld are running new episodes.

Here is the real reason I am cutting the cord. Hardware fees. Paying $36 a month for 4 TVs and the whole home DVR is a joke. $15 for the main Hooper DVR service and then $7 per Joey. That isn’t even all of the TVs in the house I have 2 TVs without service that only stream or have a gaming console on them. I can’t even sit down in my office and fire something up for background noise without paying more to Dish. One of my biggest hang ups is that these fees get me nothing. I can see the DVR service fee possibly since TiVo is about the same monthly price for the features offered. That still leaves $21 a month that I can re-invest into permanent hardware such as Roku or Fire TV devices to accommodate my streaming needs. Having $252 a year buys a lot hardware. I have 7 TVs in my house of which all but 2 are Smart TVs. I also have a FireTV, a Chromecast, 2 FireTV Sticks and some game consoles. When I looked at streaming services I am pretty well covered and might not have to purchase anything new when I make the switch.

That got a lot longer than thought it was going to be so here is the TL;DR. My Dish bill is $141.02 a month or $1692.24 a year. That is just Dish and doesn’t cover any of the other services I have already such as Netflix or Amazon Prime that will cover in another post. My main goal at the start of this was to reduce that by at least $45 a month which cuts out all hardware fees and gets them back into my pocket to buy new gadgets to accommodate cord cutting, such as buying a new antenna for the OTA reception. Plus who wouldn’t like an Extra $540 a year. That is a lot of date nights with the wife.

Those are the questions I asked myself as I finally got sick of paying $135+ a month to watch about 8 channels in total. Read on as I explain what I looked at as I decided to cut the cord and tell Dish Network that it was finally over.