05-21-2013, 08:47 AM
We finally made the switch. I talked my wife into it after showing her the numbers. We had TV from DirectTV, cable internet from Comcast, and phone from Verizon. All in all we were paying $253 a month, or over $3k a year.
We changed it to both internet (bumping up to their 50Mbps service) and digital phone from Comcast. We dropped DirectTV altogether, and now get Netflix ($7.99 a month) and Hulu Plus (also $7.99) instead. Internet is 2.5X as fast, and we are saving almost $3200 over the first two years alone.
What's good and what's bad about it?
We can do everything we want via AppleTV, no switching inputs anymore. It has a nice consistent look and feel for all the apps (NetFlix, Hulu, computer streaming, and iTunes movies and TV shows). What it is missing (and I hope they get soon) is a global search feature (e.g. "find me Season Three of Lost", whether it’s Netflix, Hulu, iTunes, or whatever). The rumored Siri support will likely add this.
Almost all my wife's network shows (Grey's Anatomy, Castle, Nashville, etc) are available the day after their air on Hulu Plus (in fact you can watch the whole season there). Really nice HD as well. It does has ads, but only one or two at a time (instead of 5-10 on network TV). You can't fast forward through the ads... Another option is to use the ABC app on the iPad, and Airplay it to the AppleTV.
For the kids, Netflix has full older seasons of most of the Disney shows the older kids watch (Shake It Up, Ant Farm, Good Luck Charlie, etc). It doesn't have the current seasons, but they are not old enough to care about that (yet). On the other hand, most of the recent Disney shows for our younger kids (Octonauts, Jake and The Neverending Pirates, Little Einsteins, etc) aren't on there. We'll probably have to get the DVDs.
I don't watch a lot of stuff, but I do like Walking Dead and Game of Thrones. Netflix has older seasons of Walking Dead, but I'm going to miss watching it live. You can buy older seasons of Game of Thrones from Apple (for a hefty price), but there is no option of the current season. HBO refuses to sell HBO Go standalone, although I'd be happy to pay up for it at a good premium.
Although I hadn't done it for years, I went back to torrents to get my Game of Thrones fix. But...I've had two “Notice of Claim of Copyright Infringement†e-mails from Comcast, listing exactly what I downloaded and when. So I’ve had to stop that, or risk getting my service cut off (or worse). This is probably the biggest downside for me.
We changed it to both internet (bumping up to their 50Mbps service) and digital phone from Comcast. We dropped DirectTV altogether, and now get Netflix ($7.99 a month) and Hulu Plus (also $7.99) instead. Internet is 2.5X as fast, and we are saving almost $3200 over the first two years alone.
What's good and what's bad about it?
We can do everything we want via AppleTV, no switching inputs anymore. It has a nice consistent look and feel for all the apps (NetFlix, Hulu, computer streaming, and iTunes movies and TV shows). What it is missing (and I hope they get soon) is a global search feature (e.g. "find me Season Three of Lost", whether it’s Netflix, Hulu, iTunes, or whatever). The rumored Siri support will likely add this.
Almost all my wife's network shows (Grey's Anatomy, Castle, Nashville, etc) are available the day after their air on Hulu Plus (in fact you can watch the whole season there). Really nice HD as well. It does has ads, but only one or two at a time (instead of 5-10 on network TV). You can't fast forward through the ads... Another option is to use the ABC app on the iPad, and Airplay it to the AppleTV.
For the kids, Netflix has full older seasons of most of the Disney shows the older kids watch (Shake It Up, Ant Farm, Good Luck Charlie, etc). It doesn't have the current seasons, but they are not old enough to care about that (yet). On the other hand, most of the recent Disney shows for our younger kids (Octonauts, Jake and The Neverending Pirates, Little Einsteins, etc) aren't on there. We'll probably have to get the DVDs.
I don't watch a lot of stuff, but I do like Walking Dead and Game of Thrones. Netflix has older seasons of Walking Dead, but I'm going to miss watching it live. You can buy older seasons of Game of Thrones from Apple (for a hefty price), but there is no option of the current season. HBO refuses to sell HBO Go standalone, although I'd be happy to pay up for it at a good premium.
Although I hadn't done it for years, I went back to torrents to get my Game of Thrones fix. But...I've had two “Notice of Claim of Copyright Infringement†e-mails from Comcast, listing exactly what I downloaded and when. So I’ve had to stop that, or risk getting my service cut off (or worse). This is probably the biggest downside for me.
Ex SWG, L2, CoH, Wow, and War
Currently PvPing in the stock market
Currently PvPing in the stock market