How to get my senior citz. parents TV without cable? 255$ month cable bill!

[Beamin]

I'm sure some of you here have this delema: your parents are older, not technically inclined and have an outrageous cable TV bill for a handful of shows news, and movies they watch.

They have a nice TV but its not a smart TV. Hooking the computer up to the TV through the HDMI port is not an option, they like their remote control and while they do own a laptop and ipad they use it for basic stuff and I cant really see them doing a remote monitor setup just past their level of tech. So what would you guys do?

I was thinking they keep just either comcast internet only or fios internet only. Right now they have TV/Internet and with two leased boxes and fees and BS they are paying 255$ for what little they watch. I was thinking go aerial for their local/news stations but they tend to watch CNN. Unlike me where I just have youtube premium and internet only they like live TV for the News and football.

So is there a solution/box they can connect to their wifi that includes a remote and to the HDMI port of the TV that essentially acts as thier cable box and they can stream? If it was me and I watched TV I would be using a raspberrypi/wireless touchpad/keyboard as the remote) as the cable box with a bunch of paid streaming services (netflix,HBO, Discovery+, hulu= 40$/mo.)but is too technical for them unless someone has come up with a specific remote and OS (great product to market BTW) but I cant find anything simple. They are willing to pay they just dont need to pay thousands per year just for TV. Whats a simple pay per month subscription/ solution that works with the HDMI port? What did you install in your parents house? 

[geggi1]

There are some TV-settop boxes that are hackable. You can probably set this up to stream Tv stations over internet.

[alpher]

Genip.tv plus a settop box or even rasp. pi 4 running libreelec (that's what I did in exact same situation).

[rsjsouza]

Having moved from cable to the zoo that is the internet TV markeplace, I find the interface of the cable set top box to be light years ahead in terms of ease of use and performance - the various applets and internet TV gizmos have a wide variability in UI and performance.

In terms of cost, we gave up on quite a few shows/channels to limit the monthly fees incurred in signing up to the various applets available (Disney this, Paramount that, something-something channel other thing,  and so on) - otherwise, the monthly difference would be close to zero.

All this to say that, in my opinion, leave the sleeping dogs lie. Otherwise there is a chance you will see yourself being their technical support or user's manual (that was my experience with my tech-unsavvy mom after my ultra tech-savvy dad passed away).

[BrokenYugo]

Roku?

[cdev]

With the caveat that I watch very little broadcast TV, when there was a network TV show that I really wanted to watch rather than pay them for access when I would probably be only using it for one show, I decided to get a TV dongle to test the waters.

That made it so I knew what channel were there. I am stll working on antennas, but what I did was this, I got a Silicon Dust IPTV tuner connect to it via my lan.  Then you can put your broadcast TV tuner in an attic with perhaps one, perhaps several TV antennas.

I got an old used one on ebay for around $25 

If your channels come from different directions, get a two tuner device and two directional antennas. Right now from the edge of the largest concentration of people in the US, I probably get around 45-50 channels. I can get the major networks. It doesnt include a VDR and that would make it much more complicated for your parents (or me) When I was a kid, getting old analog TV, much better signal strength, we probably got around the same number.., so I figure I am doing well. Before with no fancy antennas, I only got a very few channels. Its taken me much more work and knowledge and better antennas to do this, though.

You can find listings of the broadcast TV channels for any given location, see if the signals come from multiple directions, and if they are strong or weak. That info will determine what kind of setup will work the best.

[Caliaxy]

Amazon TV? Apple TV? They might miss some of the live TV news, though.

[rhodges]

Roku?

I was about to mention that. For $29, you can have streaming video over wifi. There are a lot of free offerings and a lot of free oldie TV series. They might really enjoy watching those classic TV shows again. Once you set up a Roku account (free), you can see all the free and subscription options. Some of them have a free trial period, and you can cancel before the first payment date. We did this with CBS, and watched the series of "Picard" (good show, in my opinion), then cancelled without spending a cent. We paid for a month of Disney+ and after watching everything worth watching, cancelled just as easily. I just added Peacock ("NBC"), and found that some shows are free, but some are not. Oh, well, they won't get a penny from us, but maybe they think we will watch their ads on the free shows.

[Ed.Kloonk]

The best thing you can do for your parents is to try and wean them off watching the TV altogether. I mean, really, is it healthy for them anyway?

Buy them season disks of old TV shows and a DVD player.

[Ed.Kloonk]

I know you said a PC connected to the TV ain't an option but I can report a bit of success with a PC with a Logitech wireless keyboard/mouse. I occasionally SSH in and drop a few videos onto the Linux desktop. Tell the parent to move the mouse, click, press F for full screen and walla.

YMMV.

edit: forgot to mention most important thing. PC set to reboot at 3am every night. 

[Beamin]

Where the hell do you pay $255 per month?

Comcast in MD USA for two boxes movie channels and sports channels.

So a roku box then add services? I remember seeing an add "Live TV for half the price of cable for live sports news local" this sounds perfect but cant remember what it was, it was a TV commercial I saw while in hospital. Think it came with a box and remote that connected to your wifi and hdmi.

[retiredcaps]

Right now they have TV/Internet and with two leased boxes and fees and BS they are paying 255$ for what little they watch.

Holy.  I live in Canada and we supposedly pay the most out of the "developed" nations for our services, but $255 sounds ridiculous.

Another option instead of changing up their entire setup and having to be technical support for them because they are used to a simple remote control, I suggest

1) take a look at their bill and maybe share what they have here (minus all the personal info of course).  They may be buying packages that they don't need or watch.  They may be paying for equipment rental on a monthly basis where buying their own would be cheaper.  For example, if they are paying $15 for wifi modem rental/month, it's cheaper to buy one and get rid of the rental.

2) look at different providers in the area.  Even if they aren't willing to switch, a phone call to Comcast saying the bill is too high and that competitor ABC offers the same or better at $150 USD might get Comcast to drop their price a bit.  That's what I do with success.

3) see if Comcast will lower price if they sign up for a 2 or 3 year plan.  In my area, services can be cheaper if you sign up for 2 to 3 years vs month to month.

[Bud]

See if Amazon Fire Stick will do it. Out of the box it comes with a lot of films and shows, then you can buy sports packages from your ISP or other providers to add to the stick. Comes with a remote but does need a HDMI input on the TV.

[coppercone2]

you can take a little filter off the pole, it is a notch filter with a color band in it, i think crackheads stole it to make a pipe or something

[james_s]

There are dozens of different streaming devices out there, almost any blu-ray player these days will have it built in, and almost all TVs do now too although I highly recommend not using the "smart" part built into a TV. The question is, can you get the content they want to watch from one or more streaming services? That's going to depend on the content. Personally I have not had cable in ~20 years and wouldn't want it if it was free. I'm 100% streaming and have my own server I've transferred my collection of discs to.

[cdev]

They give a slight ($5) discount if you include your firstborn child in your offer. (joke)

Right now they have TV/Internet and with two leased boxes and fees and BS they are paying 255$ for what little they watch.

Holy.  I live in Canada and we supposedly pay the most out of the "developed" nations for our services, but $255 sounds ridiculous.

Another option instead of changing up their entire setup and having to be technical support for them because they are used to a simple remote control, I suggest

1) take a look at their bill and maybe share what they have here (minus all the personal info of course).  They may be buying packages that they don't need or watch.  They may be paying for equipment rental on a monthly basis where buying their own would be cheaper.  For example, if they are paying $15 for wifi modem rental/month, it's cheaper to buy one and get rid of the rental.

2) look at different providers in the area.  Even if they aren't willing to switch, a phone call to Comcast saying the bill is too high and that competitor ABC offers the same or better at $150 USD might get Comcast to drop their price a bit.  That's what I do with success.

3) see if Comcast will lower price if they sign up for a 2 or 3 year plan.  In my area, services can be cheaper if you sign up for 2 to 3 years vs month to month.

[cdev]

TV broadcasting is still free. Networks like CBS, NBC, ABC, etc, are broadcast over the air waves. (remember them) 100% free.

Now I am starting to go grey so I am kind of old school, but I remember, when I was younger, television was completely free. No this is not a conspiracy theory.

Roku?

I was about to mention that. For $29, you can have streaming video over wifi. There are a lot of free offerings and a lot of free oldie TV series. They might really enjoy watching those classic TV shows again. Once you set up a Roku account (free), you can see all the free and subscription options. Some of them have a free trial period, and you can cancel before the first payment date. We did this with CBS, and watched the series of "Picard" (good show, in my opinion), then cancelled without spending a cent. We paid for a month of Disney+ and after watching everything worth watching, cancelled just as easily. I just added Peacock ("NBC"), and found that some shows are free, but some are not. Oh, well, they won't get a penny from us, but maybe they think we will watch their ads on the free shows.

Here in the US the switch to digital TV was such a scam and it must have cost us all trillions upon trillions of dollars.

[james_s]

Here in the US the switch to digital TV was such a scam and it must have cost us all trillions upon trillions of dollars.

IMO they should have switched cable to digital and left the analog broadcasts in place, I suppose they couldn't have predicted the streaming revolution though. I think very few people today are even aware that it's possible to receive HD over the air, and it is of very little value. At least it isn't as scammy as "HD Radio", what a joke that is, proprietary and closed, almost nobody uses it, the only place it ever gained any traction at all is car radios. Analog radio is superior in almost every way.

[nctnico]

I'm sure some of you here have this delema: your parents are older, not technically inclined and have an outrageous cable TV bill for a handful of shows news, and movies they watch.

They have a nice TV but its not a smart TV. Hooking the computer up to the TV through the HDMI port is not an option, they like their remote control and while they do own a laptop and ipad they use it for basic stuff and I cant really see them doing a remote monitor setup just past their level of tech. So what would you guys do?

Before jumping to any conclusions and throw in lots of different hardware I'd first sort out what kind of subscription they have and bring that back to normal proportions. Likely they are subscribed to many channels they don't need. Maybe they are even paying multiple subscriptions.

Also remember that in the end it is their decission to pay so much of their hard earned money to watch TV.

[pardo-bsso]

Buy the premium package and share it with the neighbours to split the bill?

[SilverSolder]

Do they really need two boxes?  (doesn't that pretty much double the bill?)

Use one box, and find a way to control it from any room.

[cdev]

if they caught somebody doing that here in the US they would probably go nuts. Make an example out of them!

If they still had a Devil's Island they would get sent there.

Stealing cable service is on the books here as a serious crime. (which is kind of ridiculous given the nature of much of what's on.)

I actually watch almost no TV. Sometimes its useful for local news. They used to have public access cable TV which was fun.

Buy the premium package and share it with the neighbours to split the bill?

Right now the only TV I have thats officially a TV is broken and needs repair. Its likely the capacitor problem, its been like that for a year. Need to pick a supplier and buy a bunch of caps and recap the thing.

[cdev]

The whole point of doing all it was to get the bandwidth to use for more cellular services, which they hope, involves embedding communications in many everyday objects, so they can monetize every aspect of them with value added services. You'll likely have no choice. Its not that they are running out of space, they want more on principle, because they can. Its a one way spectrum grab that cant be reversed. They don't really need more spectrum in fact they need less. One digital TV channel can be five or more TV channels. Nor is the porgramming that much better or more worthy of your business. And on the new system they are putting in there is a two way data path. Your telescreen will communicate to the server upstream ( for what?? So they arguably should be paying you for all that info they plan to collect and sell. ) also, there will be a hypertext web like aspect to the new ATSC, Ive read. . Now, empowered with ownership of all sorts of new data, you can bet that they will scarf up as much digital property,  as they can get away with. They want all your data so they can sell it. Its officially their property now. They are collecting so much data and storing it but they still don't have the capacity to work with that big data the way they want. They dont even know what it is they will capture, all they know is that bthey want it, not the other guy. Info on the comments people make, info on who is watching the stuff they serve and when.  They need the massive computers that can handle it all. Which don't exist in the quantity they need yet. They want your health data to protect you from pandemics if you are coughing, for example. (or seem to be coughing) Who wouldn't want safety from pandemic illnesses that "ARE KILLING SO MANY PEOPLE?"

T will be like Home Shopping Network where they endlessly advertise alarm/surveillance systems.. that spay on people and everybody whyo visits them, uploading the data to Amazon and Google..and soon, I am sure also Facebok and Apple, hey wont be left out.. Of course THEY want you  to buy more stuff. We'll be like that parrot who learned how to order stuff from Alexa..

Here in the US the switch to digital TV was such a scam and it must have cost us all trillions upon trillions of dollars.

IMO they should have switched cable to digital and left the analog broadcasts in place, I suppose they couldn't have predicted the streaming revolution though. I think very few people today are even aware that it's possible to receive HD over the air, and it is of very little value. At least it isn't as scammy as "HD Radio", what a joke that is, proprietary and closed, almost nobody uses it, the only place it ever gained any traction at all is car radios. Analog radio is superior in almost every way.

It's signal travels too far and so less market for cable. Same thing with analog TV. it doesn't allow them to segment the markets by income as easily;. Also, its too easy to understand for normal people.

[cdev]

Here in the US the switch to digital TV was such a scam and it must have cost us all trillions upon trillions of dollars.

IMO they should have switched cable to digital and left the analog broadcasts in place, I suppose they couldn't have predicted the streaming revolution though. I think very few people today are even aware that it's possible to receive HD over the air, and it is of very little value. At least it isn't as scammy as "HD Radio", what a joke that is, proprietary and closed, almost nobody uses it, the only place it ever gained any traction at all is car radios. Analog radio is superior in almost every way.

Here in the US its all about the upsell.. They want digital copy protection too. No "analog hole"

Europe has DVB-T and better digital radio which is mostly free and popular. They are talking about getting rid of analog-FM too.

[tooki]

The best option is probably to call Comcast and threaten to cancel and switch to something else. And be ready to follow through in case they’re dumb and not willing to come down a lot. But they likely will. You never get a good deal by being a loyal customer to a telecom company. You do the best by switching and availing yourself of new customer promos and the special deals the retention departments can offer when you threaten to leave.