Hulu Live

 

I finally had enough. Back in 2014, we attempted to cut the cord. When we bought the house though, the deal for moving and keeping Comcast was good enough that it made sense to do it. Since then our bill has continually gone up and it is now to the point that we had to make a decision on whether or not to get rid of it or try to negotiate a cheaper plan. I decided that I do not feel like fighting with them every few years, so today I just ended our relationship with them. Well okay, not so fast. There are no other viable options up here for the internet. It looks like Comcast will be staying in our house in that regard.

I looked at Hulu Live/YouTube TV/Sling TV. YouTube TV looked like it might be a great option, but it was not available in the Ebensburg area yet. Sling TV looks attractive at the lower price, but there are a bunch of channels that are missing that we would actually watch (even at the $40 package), whereas those channels are included with Hulu Live. Plus, I realized that with Sling TV, we would still have Hulu, but with Hulu Live, we would no longer be paying the normal Hulu monthly fee, so it really was not going up as much as it seemed. I think Hulu is $8/month, so with Sling, we would pay $40 and $8 for Hulu, so $48. But with Hulu Live, we just pay $40. Yay for savings!

Naturally I had to still have HBO, so that is an extra $15 per month, but that is the case with any of the services. Or if you just buy the standalone HBO Now. It does not matter, $15. That is also the price Comcast charges (which I could still have HBO added to my Comcast bill, I guess that is actually an option too). No matter how you look at it, you are paying $15.

The only downside to this new way of watching is the sports. We shall see what local CBS/NBC/Fox affiliates they give me come football season. If I can watch the Steelers and Penn State (I do have BTN), then it should not matter to much (I get to see like half the games because of work). If that does not work, then I can always buy an antenna and just watch the local stations that way. Baseball is going to be the tough one. Root Sports (AT&T Sports or whatever it is called) is not available this way. Unfortunately, since I live in Ebensburg, that puts me in the blackout zone for Pirates games on MLB.TV. So in order to watch the games that way, I would have to watch through a VPN. Not all that expensive, but something I would rather not do, since it means I would not be able to watch on the television (I do not know of a way to do it through a Roku, does anyone?).

I have a few other options, and if it really comes down to it, I could pay for a subscription to the Pirates radio broadcasts through the MLB app. Then I could just listen to them while doing something else. That seems pretty old fashioned, but also kind of cool. Anyways, I am open to other suggestions.

I played around a little bit with Hulu Live…I am not sure if I am totally down with the layout just yet. In all honesty, I liked the older version better. This new version is a little harder to navigate. It may just take some getting used to and I may need to go in and clean it up a bit (it still saves a bunch of shows that I actually stopped watching). I hope this was the right decision…

Author: Ngewo