It appears many cord cutters are not really cutting the cord they are just changing from a rg6 tether to a cat5 tether. It would be useful, or at least entertaining, to know how many cord cutters really go cordless (Ota)
… And with its heavy dependance upon cloud /edge servers tivo Ota is, it could be argued, an exercise in switching to cat 5 cord cause it appears tivo won’t work well unless it can constantly phone home… Or am I wrong about that
I do believe that “heavy” might not be the appropriate term. Tivo, like most (all?) other OTA recorders need access to a guide (or otherwise it’s usefulness is significantly reduced). Tivo relies on some human interaction to eliminate ads in some series - I don’ think that’s essential, it’s a nice-to-have. Finally, some Tivo models not provide integration with the Major streaming services, similar to Roku. while this is “heavy” dependence, it’s not strictly integrated in the main provision of recording OTA broadcasts. I do believe that in that aspect, Tivo is as much (or even less dependent) than Tablo on an Internet connection.
I’ll check later today with my buddy who has a Tivo Roamio on what he gets without a guide subscription - I don’t know if Tivo collects the OTA broadcast guide data to provide a 24-hour guide (Tablo does, I think).
It is very true that cordcutting isn’t really cordcutting. It’s more of a channel right-sizing. Usually answering the question, “Why am I paying so much for stuff I never use?”
With that said, the small expense of going OTA is certainly one of the most cost efficient ways of getting channel content. And then, people can buy or subscribe to just those other services they actually want… and still save a ton of money.
Big cable and satellite (all in) providers always promised that they would reduce prices as volume increased, and boy, did volume increase, however, those companies only increased prices. To be honest, if there was more competition in the ISP space, we’d all tell those big companies to take a hike, just for never dealing honestly with their customer base.
And while we’re on the subject of “honesty”, these big companies like Spectrum/Charter, ATT, Verizon, Comcast, etc., they are declaring war on their customer base. And they believe they can win and force their customers to pay more and more because they will have no choice. Begging the question, “Is it right to go to war with your own customer base?”
Obviously, the wolf in sheep’s clothing are entities like SlingTV, DirectTVNow, Hulu (TV) and Youtube (TV). Many of which are just the same model, different name, and so while there might be a price reduction, it’s the same folks, the same attitude and unfortunately, the same declaration of war against the consumer. If the USA transitions, this will become the next place to “cut”.
Many things have changed over the years. It used to be that people had the option in a “sports town” of either going to the game (a relatively minor cost) or watching it on TV. But now, going to a sports event with a family costs more than a Disney World vacation… sigh… meaning that certain sports are now for the rich only. And there is a monopolization of sport content going on (even though there are several players) and the price of just watching sports continues to rise meaning, just watching sports is for the rich only.
Thank goodness we still have OTA for some local sports. But let’s be honest, they’d take that all away if they could.
Attitudes are starting to migrate to the extremes. And unfortunately, because of the cost of the medium, the rich voices are winning out. I was “slammed” in a public forum for stating that a 60 channel package from a major cable/satellite provider wasn’t really in the spirit of serving the consumer. And that was in a cordcutting forum.
We’ll see what the future holds, but IMHO, it’s all very volatile, and it’s very possible that the worst possible scenario “wins” just because of the (unfortunately) support.
Ask him to pull the ethernet cord, change the wifi password, or otherwise keep tivo from phoning home for a few hours. I’d really be interested in that experiment, as I’ve read some stuff over on the roamio forum that weird stuff happens.
Tivo uses hardware based licensing. That and their cord heritage, litigious behavior and mountain of patents makes me nervous.
Exactly right on the commodity costs. Shifting from a high overhead sat based delivery system to an ott model might save some money now but yea when I saw the cost model for Directv now I had to wonder why substituting cat5 for rg6 did anything useful, beyond even greater dependance on some remote service and loss of dvr functions, of course.
Saw someone the other day asking how he could transfer his lifetime tivo lic to a new device. Of course, the answer was “no”.
One of the primary reasons I got off the TiVo train.
I believe that the idea of cordcutting is now being incorrectly used. If someone dumps cable/satellite for OTA broadcasts exclusively then they are truly cutting the cord. But when those traditional subscriptions are dumped in favor of a live TV streaming service then it is simply someone finding a better deal. This is what I did.
There were a couple of things that kept me from dumping my cable provider for years. First, I am a sports fan junky. Not having access to ESPN, Fox Sports & other cable network sports was something I was unable to give up. Second, the whole home DVR was something I quickly became addicted to & again was unwilling to part with. Then a year & a half ago I discovered that PSVue would provide me with the sports coverage I craved with whole home DVR functionality. So I began looking into OTA DVR’s. I quickly discovered Tablo & Tivo Roamio. Ultimately I choose Tablo because of it’s wireless capabilities among other reasons.
So here I am, no cable/satellite subscription but not a cordcutter either. Simply someone who now, after some initial upfront investment, saves approximately $100/month on my television entertainment bill.
Today given Netflix, Hulu & Amazon Prime and now all the live cable channel streaming services, the business model is simply changing. Unfortunately, we the consumers are not going to win in the end. The greedy corporate giants will simply shift how they operate & eventually we will all be paying the exorbitant prices once again. Only the true cordcutters can escape the cycle.
I was a sports junkie too. It was sports that brought me to OTA to get HD broadcasts OTA before cable started carrying HD.
But sports also turned me against sports. I got tired of the pro and college athletes that were simply thugs in colorful uniforms. An elementary reading skill level guy playing for a university. Disrespectful thugs playing on Sundays. The hell with this spending time and money on thugs.
I have gone a year without watching any NFL action. I prefer taking out my grand kids on a Sunday afternoon. Looks like I’m not alone - every Sunday empty stadiums.
Even friends are dumping ESPN which has become nothing more than a political talking mouth.
I am strongly opposed to people bringing politics and other contentious subjects into discussions not related to those subjects. It’s one thing to say you’re not watching sports, it’s another entirely to bring personal and derogatory comments into the discussion.
Political feelings are one of the reasons people are dumping cable and are cordcutting. Many friends hung onto cable in order to get ESPN. When they tired of pro sports and ESPN, they dumped cable. This is a valid post. The issue of ESPN and CNN and FOX, etc. has been at the heart of cordcutting for several years now. Drastically falling NFL ratings on cable channels is an issue that reflects on cordcutting.
I am against you characterizing a class of people based on the behavior of some of the people in the class.
Well then complain to the Tablo admin at this forum and get the post removed or censored…
I believe the word “disrespectful” has been used by POTUS and the word “thugs” by plenty of other people. Not uncommon these days given the amount of court cases… I believe your team has led the way in this regard 
Guys - I’m calling a flag on this play
Let’s keep it civil please.
It’s really kind of funny that you tie the NFL to cable. If the NFL was the only sport I was worried about then I would have cut the cord a long time ago. The NFL is the one sport you can catch the biggest majority of on OTA broadcasts.
Its fine if you want to give up sports for political reasons or any other reason for that matter, but nothing has changed about athletes. We simply are more informed about them then ever before just as we are about everything else as well because of the information age.
I don’t not care for many of the athletes & their political or other antics, but that is not what I watch sports for & I simply choose to ignore all that noise. DVR’s make it easy to ignore, for I can fast forward through it all just as I do the commercials.
There are many articles out there in journals, newspapers and blogs showing that the falling interest in sports is one of the causes of cordcutting. The topic of this thread is “Cordcutting gaining” and political\legal issues are influencing who retains or abandons cable. There is a crisis at ESPN with many layoffs during the past two years tied to drastically falling ratings. One of the reasons for this abandonment is the feeling that ESPN has politicized sports and people are tired of this.
Cost isn’t the only reason for cordcutting.
BTW the Forbes article referenced in the lead post by Beastman uses ESPN as the prime example of the cordcutting phenomenon (second paragraph of that article) so everything I have written is on-topic and in-context.
First, If I have offended you in some way I apologize, that was not my intention. I simply commented on the NFL thing because it is the one sport were the majority of the broadcasts are OTA - thus available to cordcutters. I then elaborated on the idea that athletes haven’t changed, we are simply more informed about them. But I suppose they are more attuned to using their platform to express themselves & their views which is going to cause controversy - as political debate always will.
Second, I was not debating why people are cordcutting but instead I was commenting on what constitutes what cordcutting truly is - to me anyway.
I am a Cord Cutter. When we dumped cable over 4 years ago we tried Netflix and Hulu for a while quickly dumping Hulu. After weeks then months of rarely using Netflix we dumped it. So now we only watch OTA and free YouTube. Have several Roku’s but have yet to find any free and useful channels other than Tablo and YouTube. Now If only we could reduce the high ripoff cost of Spectrum Internet.
We are not sports fans or really fans of any cable channels so cutting the cord caused us no pains. But rather many gain$$$. We will NEVER go back.
PlutoTV has weather, CBSN, Newsy, Skynews, byutv app, just depends on what you want.
I installed PlutoTV on one of my nexus players a few weeks ago but have not studied it much yet. Looks like a possible keeper.