Cancelling TWC - going OTA only

[eric_n_dfw]

We're making the big jump out of cable TV. TWC's quality was fine but we just don't care enough about the few HD channels they offer to justify almost $60/month. Especially when we get every possible OTA HD channel here in DFW for free. (my house is smack-dab center of the metroplex so I get great reception with a simple, 10 year old antenna and 15 year old Radio Shack VHF/UHF amplifier!)

Just called them and they guy didn't seem to understand that HD OTA channels are NOT being turned off next year. (made me chuckle, but I wasn't going to argue) I have to drop off my 2 cable cards at a TWC office tomorrow - kind of a pain, but relatively on my way to work so I'm not too put out by it.

Hopefully a month from now we won't be missing it too badly; I'll probably look into downloading Mythbusters and a couple other shows if available.

Does anyone know if Star Wars Clone Wars is on any of the dl services (iTunes, Amazon, etc...)

[techieunite]

You may not want to return the cable cards.

I spoke with Comcast yesterday about what would happen if I just wanted the locals.

They have a "lifeline" cable package that only contains the standard def locals and the HD locals for $10 a month.

I asked him if I could get a cable card for one of my tvs or my Tivos.

He said yes, but it would be $1.50 a month.

You may be able to spare yourself the hassle of dealing with an antenna.

You need to ask for the basic, lifeline package from TWC. Just like the phone company, they do NOT tell you about such cheap packages because they want you believe that the only cable package available is $60 or more.

If I lose my job or want to cut back, I could get lifeline basic cable with the HD locals for $10 plus $1.50 for each cable card.

No weather issues to deal with, no problems with aiming an antenna, etc.

Just a thought.

[rainwater]

You may be able to spare yourself the hassle of dealing with an antenna.


Depending on where you live it is not a hassle at all. The original poster said they lived close enough to get the OTA channels easily. In that case dealing with a small antenna is much easier than dealing with cablecards that could go out at any moment.

[eric_n_dfw]

Depending on where you live it is not a hassle at all. The original poster said they lived close enough to get the OTA channels easily. In that case dealing with a small antenna is much easier than dealing with cablecards that could go out at any moment.

Bingo.

OTA works great for me and the picture quality is as good or better than TWC (as well as Dish which I tried briefly over the summer)

The cable cards are pretty stable, although we have been getting nothing but NTSC bars & tone on Fox Sports SW HD lately even though TWC says the channel should be fine. I'd have them come out and troubleshoot it, but I was planning on canceling anyway.

[JimboG]

Eric,

I dropped TWC here in San Diego about two weeks ago. They were moving more and more channels to SDV, yet they had only vague promises of a Tuning Adapter before the end of the year. I realized that I was paying about $85 per year for only a few HD channels that I couldn't get for free over the air.

I may look at TWC again once they roll out the Tuning Adapter. Then again, since DirecTV announced that they'll have a new Tivo box (or Tivo software for their existing DVRs) in 2009, I may just go with a satellite provider that has far more HD channels than TWC does locally.

Why doesn't TWC just nuke most of their analog tier and offer a competitive HD line up:confused:

[moyekj]

Why doesn't TWC just nuke most of their analog tier and offer a competitive HD line up:confused: Because that would probably lose them more customers than gain. There are still a large percentage of customers on analog only package. Come February they may even pick up some previously NTSC OTA only customers with their lifeline package. Now that SDV is there they should be able to keep all analog and deploy more digital channels with help of SDV.

[pkscout]

If TiVo would cut a deal to provide Hulu content, I would cancel my TWC cable subscription in a skinning minute. We're not sports watchers, and that's about the only thing on cable that I might watch that I can't get either OTA or via Hulu.

[Ed_Hunt]

I dropped Comcast about 2 weeks ago and I am OTA only. Anything we were getting from Comcast we still want I can download from p2p network. I went to wireless ISP also. I was paying Comcast $120 a month for Cable and Internet, now I pay Clearwire $35 a month for Internet and thats it. We are about 65 Miles from the broadcast towers so we had to use a good antenna, but the HD has been perfect. Again you can get any program you want on the Internet, just be sure to scan everything.