Cut the cord!

[Thumper]

Ready to kick off the cord free season and encountered the first glitch.  I have CBS All Access which I thought included CBS Sports.  Nope.  It includes NFL Live which I don't watch.  
Next up is Oklahoma State v Tulsa this Thursday on FS1.  I get FS1 with DirectvNow so it shouldn't be an issue.
Saturday, OU v UTEP is on Fox.  DirectvNow doesn't have my local Fox station yet so I will use my antenna to watch that one.
All other games I want to watch are covered by channels included with DTVNow so I'm good.  With PlayOn I can record any game and play it back without commercials.

MDT asked about data cap.  I have a 1 TB cap also and it has never been an issue.  I work from home as does my wife so we have multiple computers going 24/7.  We stream a lot of video after work and we use 300-400 GB per month.  

Update:  DirectvNow includes FoxSportsGo so I loaded the app on my Roku and I do not need the antenna.  It also includes some regional Fox Sports so things are cool.

[Thumper]

3 weeks into the season and things are going very well.  Every game I've been interested in has been available except for PPV only and I could have used some dodgy streams for those.
DirectvNow gives me access to the FoxSportsGo and watchESPN apps which gives me many more games than what are on the TV channels.  This includes games on ABC and Fox channels.  The BTN and SEC Networks are channels on DirectvNow.  DTVNow doesn't have the local stations in my area yet but they are getting close.
I can watch games on CBS via my CBS All Access service for now.  I have not had to use my antenna for any games so far.
Here is a tip:  DirectvNow allows 5 streams so it is easy to have one game on the big screen while keeping tabs on others on a tablet and or smartphone.  

[betarhoalphadelta]

FYI, I added the "Sports Extra" package on Sling for $4.99/mo in order to get the SEC Network for the Purdue @ Mizzou game yesterday. Glad I did 

When I added it, it said it was going to be $7.18, basically (I assume) covering the remainder of September and then the month of October (ending the 28th, which I assume is the end of my monthly billing cycle). Which is fine, I figured I might keep an eye on what's on ESPNU during that time anyway.

But I figured maybe I'd try to cancel today, and get most of that $7 back. Turns out Sling doesn't allow this. If I cancel today, I still own the channels until October 28. 

So just for other people's reference, you can't add/drop on a daily/weekly basis. If you add a package on Sling, you end up paying a prorated amount for that month and then the whole next month.

So I paid about the equivalent of a pint and a half of beer at a bar for the game, which is still worth it IMHO because if I'd gone to a bar to watch the game, I would have drank WAY more than that lol.

[utee94]

OK, with football season over and Game of Thrones Season 8 a year away, now's the time for me to dip my toe into cord-cutting and see how the hardware works, while figuring out which combination of services I'll ultimately need to cover the football games and shows I want to watch.

It may have already been covered, but what options are there for DVR for programs that I'm streaming?  I know I can get DVR coverage for OTA television, but what about covering "cable" programs that I'm getting through various streaming services?

I've finally convinced my i s c & a aggie wife that this is the way to go, but she likes to DVR various shows that come on AMC and other "cable" networks, and don't have a handle on how to get that done.

Thanks in advance!

[Thumper]

DVR for streaming is a rapidly moving target.  I use DirecTV now and it gives me a cloud DVR BUT it doesn't work with my Roku players, just with my Android devices.  It also works with Apple TV but I gave that to my daughter.  Bottom line, I don't use it.
I use a separate service called Playon Desktop.  It was around $50 for a lifetime subscription.  It works for all my streaming services (DirecTV Now, Netfix, Amazon Prime Video, HBO Go, CBS All Access, etc) and records whatever program I want to a PC on my home network as a standard MP4 file and it cuts out commercials.  A couple of pluses is that the shows remain on the PC even if you cancel or switch services.  The shows can be copied to a portable drive and taken along to places you may not have internet access.

[betarhoalphadelta]

It may have already been covered, but what options are there for DVR for programs that I'm streaming?  I know I can get DVR coverage for OTA television, but what about covering "cable" programs that I'm getting through various streaming services?

First things first, look into some of the streaming services that offer a "cloud DVR" option. I know Sling has this, and I think many of the other streaming live TV services have done it as well. Not sure what all the other services charge for this (it's $5/mo on Sling), but it's usually a separate charge.

The only thing you might want to look at is whether they restrict certain programs from DVR based on their agreements with the content providers. For example I know on Sling that they have some VOD content, but usually the VOD content doesn't allow rewind/fastforward. And ESPN doesn't allow rewind/fastforward either. Yet some of their other channels do allow these functions.
Also you might want to ask your wife if she's willing to try without it at first. There are a few reasons for this:

• Some of the live TV streaming services have "video on demand" viewing options. So if she's just looking for something to watch instead of a certain very specific episode of a single program, she can probably still watch the program she wants to see even during times it's not normally broadcast. 
• Some programs are available on other services, such as Netflix, Amazon, Hulu. If they're available on these other services, you may be able to save the cloud DVR cost and watch them through a service you're already subscribing to. 
• One of the key elements of cutting the cord is breaking the old TV habits. If she tries it for some time without cloud DVR, she might realize she never missed it. But if you initially start with the cloud DVR option off the bat, it might be harder to get her to allow you to get rid of it in the future.

Cord-cutting is a change of TV-watching lifestyle. While these services are all falling over themselves to offer "cloud DVR" for those users initially trying to switch from cable/satellite, the truth is also that it raises the price of the service which is one of the things we all were trying to get away from by ditching cable/satellite. I always recommend starting with the minimum baseline and then seeing what you value enough to add, rather than starting with the top-end package because it replaces most of what cable offered you. If you start with the top package, good luck dropping to a lower package later.

For me, I went without network TV for a while, but especially with the NFL, realized I need the local networks. I get them through an antenna rather than one of the streaming services which includes locals, so it was a one-time cost. But I feel like it was a better option to start without the networks and then add it back in when I realized there were programs I wanted to see but was missing. 

[Thumper]

The thing with streaming is most shows are on demand.  Let's take AMC for exmple.  If you don't watch a show when it airs, after 24 hours it is available to be streamed whenever you like.  No DVR necessary.  Usually shows are available for a couple of weeks to a couple of months after they air.  Cloud DVRs also have limits for how long they store shows.  That is one of the reasons I like Playon, there is no expiration limit.

[utee94]

Thanks guys.

As Thumper stated, some of the shows On-Demand, are only available for a short period of time, maybe 4-8 weeks.  And that's already been a problem for us.

For example, my kids love Supergirl, and we tend to watch it as a family and it's actually some really great family time for us.  We typically record it because we're seldom able to watch it live, but last Fall my DVR screwed up and missed a few episodes for reasons I don't know.  I thought, "no problem, it's available on demand."  But lo and behold, once we finally got around to trying to watch some of those older episodes, they'd already fallen off the list of available on-demand shows.  Another example is the Shannara Chronicles (yeah, I know it's a cheesy MTV production for teenagers, but I grew up reading the Terry Brooks novels and really loved them, so sue me ).  Same thing happened, the DVR missed the first few episodes and when I realized it, the entire first half of the season was already killed for on-demand availability.

As for TV habits, I'm not really worried about the surfing or browsing.  I don't do that at all myself, and I think my wife is ready (and perhaps relieved) to move on from it.

But there are still some specific "cable" shows that we DVR and time-shift our viewing, and as stated above, they don't always stick around for long on the on-demand lists.

We do have Amazon Prime so all of that content is already available to us.  Eventually I'll be ready to try the various options like Sling or DTVN or any of the others that you geniuses have already figured out!  But ultimately I still foresee a need for some kind of recording capability for cable programming, due to the lack of total widespread on-demand capability for some of those shows.

Thanks again, fun discussion!

[Thumper]

This is a good example where PlayOn Desktop works well. It will record any show that is streamed such as those from TV channel websites like AMC, the CW, etc.   You can schedule to record a whole series just like a DVR.  You don't have to subscribe to any streaming services to use it and the videos never expire or go away if you change providers or streaming services.

[betarhoalphadelta]

This is a good example where PlayOn Desktop works well. It will record any show that is streamed such as those from TV channel websites like AMC, the CW, etc.   You can schedule to record a whole series just like a DVR.  You don't have to subscribe to any streaming services to use it and the videos never expire or go away if you change providers or streaming services.

Interesting... I might have to check it out. Are you able to record streamed ESPN content through either WatchESPN or the DirecTV Now app? That would be really helpful.
Unfortunately it doesn't seem to have a Linux version. The only always-on PC I keep in my house is an Ubuntu server. I'd hate to have to pick up a dedicated PC of any sort to run one app. 

[utee94]

Interesting... I might have to check it out. Are you able to record streamed ESPN content through either WatchESPN or the DirecTV Now app? That would be really helpful.
Unfortunately it doesn't seem to have a Linux version. The only always-on PC I keep in my house is an Ubuntu server. I'd hate to have to pick up a dedicated PC of any sort to run one app.

That's the easy part for me.  Working as I do for the extremely large computer company based in the Austin area, I have an almost-embarrassing amount of PC-based hardware lying around, much of it completely unused.

I also have two 34" curved WQHD Ultrasharp monitors from work for my home office.  My recent move into Marketing for flat panels has really paid off...

[Thumper]

They have channels for ESPN but I haven't tried it.  All the games I want to rewatch are on YouTube with all the commercials, TOs and halftime removed.  
Actually, I haven't used it for a long time now as DirecTV has gotten so much better with more apps for channels.  I'm glad you mentioned no Linux version.  I was planning to change the laptop that is running Playon to Linux.  

utee, those 34" monitors are sweet.  I'm jealous!

[Thumper]

Just a quick thought, could you run Windows on a VM on the Ubuntu server?

[utee94]

Just a quick thought, could you run Windows on a VM on the Ubuntu server?

My extremely large computer company also (sort-of) owns VMWare, which I believe should be able to run a virtual machine version of Windows within Ubuntu.  I used to have an old dedicated x86 box running a very old version of linux that I used for various things (firewall, gateway, etc.) and I would dual-boot to Windoes, but never ran a VM for it.  I long since ran out of time for toying around with that stuff, which is one reason I've put up with cable for so long rather than researching and experimenting with the tech for cord-cutting.
But now that my cable (plus internet and home phone) sub has crept back up to the $230/month range, it's once again caught my attention.