Anyone here given up cable or dish for Roku, or any similar device?

Our local news ran a story about cutting your TV bill to $8 a month by replacing cable/dish with Roku and a Hulu Plus subscription. It appears you also need an HD antenna for local HD broadcast.

If you've made the switch, are you getting all the programming you want? I'd be glum without the Golf Channel, Big10 network, Fox Sports Midwest and HGTV.

Please no jokes about Roku sounding like something you'd have with wasabi and rice, because this is a serious thread.

HappyGilmoreTV? Sweet

I got a Roku over a year ago to stream Netflix, big fan of them, it was as reliable as my internet connection, for minimal up-front cost, and just the NF expense we were already incurring anyway.

But, I don't have cable, didn't before this either.

I think it depends on what your TV habits are, if you'll actually be satisfied with this arrangement. You can stream a lot of shows and movies, but will always lag behind. I don't care about that, some do. Hulu+ I've not used but have heard mixed reviews about how much better it is than the free version.

The four you listed, you might be stuck paying for.

We have the Roku as an addition to cable, for streaming movies.

I never had cable TV, but the Roku (which, by the way, is excellent with wasabi and rice) has been great for streaming Netflix. I have rabbit ears that really don't work well. But overall, I'm very happy with Roku. Keep in mind you'll need to have internet cable to feed the stream. Some where, I think there's a thread about which is the better value: Hulu Plus or Netflix.

In addition to Hulu Plus and Netflix, I hear good things about Amazon Prime. I used to have a good HD antenna, but may have sold it at a yard sale when I though I didn't need it anymore. I have to have live sports programming, or I'll be spending my weekends in a sports bar. Any other programming we watch recorded anyway, so I can live with that.

We have DirecTV right now. We have three TVs with HD-DVR, and two with non-HD receivers. I'm paying about $120 a month, in part because I needed an upgraded package to get Golf Channel.

Oh, by the way, there are two of us. Five TVs. I could explain why, but you'd still think I'm an idiot.

^^^^That's your main problem. For most sports, you have to buy a season pass from the league (MLB, NFL, etc.) to see anything online. You also have to watch the fine print about blackouts. 'Watch ESPN' streams a lot of college sports, soccer, tennis, etc., but you have to have a cable subscription with a participating cable company to access it. I'll probably never be able to cut the cord b/c almost everything I watch is not online (legally, anyway).

Do you have a TV in your bathroom too? Thankfully I'm not the only one!

I had Netflix with Roku and loved it. However, when my internet went from unlimited to 5g (grrrrrrrrrrr), I cannot afford to instantly stream movies anymore - so the Roku is disconnected.

On another note, I have a Roku for sale cheap if anyone is interested!

We cut the Cable last summer and have been pretty pleased. We have Netflix ($8/mo), Hulu+ ($8/mo), and a good digital antenna (I think a $50 one time cost) for local channels. We also pay $50/mo for internet access, but we'd have that regardless.

It has caused our viewing habits to change a bit, but we've discovered so many older shows (Doctor Who!) that we truly don't miss the newer stuff that comes and goes.

Now, there are things on Hulu+ that aren't viewable through the Roku, they are only available online. So, I just plug the HDMI cable to my laptop and do it that way. Easy peasy.

Sports viewing is limited to what is on the major networks, so that may be a big sticking point for you. But, consider this -- we hosted a Superbowl party, and a friend asked if we could pause and rewind a play. My husband said no, this is live TV from our antenna. The friend said "this picture is better than my satellite... why the heck am I paying over a $100/mo for it?!"

Exactly.

We got a Blue Ray player that has NF streamable through it, however we've had enough issues with it connecting and such that we still have the Roku hooked up. So we have two ways to stream on the same TV...

This is probably stupid question, how does it work if you have wireless internet?
Would like it for the Netflix streaming

The basic Roku is wireless only, so if you don't have wireless internet, you have to upgrade to a more expensive version of the device ($10-15 more if I remember right). This might seem contrary to what logic would dictate, so it's not a stupid question to ask at all!

My DirecTV hooks up to wireless internet and I have all the apps like Netflix etc. there plus my blu-ray is wireless and has everything too. Never used it to watch any movies or anything though. I have a hard enough time just watching the few network shows I like let alone try to watch back episodes or other movies.

I have antenna, Netflix and Amazon Prime. Amazon prime is more expensive, but you get newer shows that aren't available on Netflix. That's how we watch the current Doctor Who episodes when they're new. We can either watch on my laptop or stream it thru our Wii. It's all good. That's enough entertainment for us.