I made two leaps of faith this year. One was to escape the New York cold by renting a condo in Florida for three months. Two was to live without my 200+ channels, along with Showtime, Starz and the DVR that I have at home. In making this decision, I became part of a hot new TV trend known as cutting the cable cord. In case you have no idea what this means, cord cutting is a way to save on those huge monthly cable bills. You cut your expensive cable service and instead rely on the Internet for your TV content. Netflix, Amazon, iTunes and Hulu are some of the popular services that have convinced millions of cable and satellite subscribers to cut their cords and change to video downloads or streaming. How to Cut the Cable Cord Smart cord cutters keep Wi-Fi and use it to get Internet TV. With wireless, you basically have the world. I mentioned streaming services: To cut the cord, you have to own an intermediary hardware device such as Chromecast, an Amazon Fire stick, or a Roku box or stick. I have a and know how it works, so I decided to pay 50 bucks for a Roku stick in Florida; also, the Roku has a separate remote. But you do pay a price: no more live TV. No daily news and talk shows, no CNN, sports matches and awards shows. I happen to be addicted to live TV. Luckily, there are some solutions in the works. New Developments for Cord Cutters New solutions for cord cutters will arrive in 2015. Channels streamed by will include ESPN, ESPN2, CNN, TBS, TNT, Cartoon Network, Adult Swim, Travel Channel, Food Network, ABC Family, HGTV, Disney Channel and Maker. You could do the same if live TV is important to you. However, in the world of cord cutting it can take some ingenuity and research to get the current season or a new episode of a particular favorite show. Hulu carries most shows but not all. So I will bite the bullet and pay for it. I suspect that once premium cable channels like HBO and live TV services like Sling are added, the bill may start climbing. Its curious that you omit one of the best streaming services because its completely FREE. Generally, with a public library card, each registered Kanopy user receives access to 10 free movies or shows online each month for no charge. Once you start watching a movie on Kanopy, you have three days to watch each movie. Kanopy videos are accessible with captions, transcripts and compatibility with assistive technologies. To use the Kanopy service, you will need to create a sign-in only if your public library offers the service , and then enter your library card number and choose a 4-digit PIN. I asked my librarian for access, and I was asked to complete a short form including my library card number, and they then gave me a temporary PIN, which I had to personalize when I logged into the service on my own at home. The libraries tell us that you can also get access by yourself online. You must select your own PIN, at and you must also provide them with a valid email address the service can email you a password reset in case you forget yours as well as your library card number. Note that not every public library system offers access to Kanopy yet. Because I never watched live TV, not even live sports, due to the overwhelming number of commercials. Cable offers none of that, unless you shell out extra dough for premium channels that play the same stuff over and over. Thing is you will need to either press the input or buy a dvr such as the tablo to play it on a streaming device such as a roku or others. I am currently qlso reading Cnet reviews on all devices for this new technology. I do want to hang on to my land line. It is surely a really big decision. Am currently using my old tube TV to watch my old movies. Besides there is or actually there WAS a hassle to turn the darn box on. Anyway, said cable box is the history now along with its fee. Wish I could do something similar to my Internet connection. Am currently looking for the deals for us folks who are on a fixed income. I drove down and will drive back. See my column about taking road trips. Wherever you move, will you still be writing for Sr. Are you familiar with Pompano Beach? How do you spend a day in that paradise? Do you like to walk on the beach? Will you have a room mate or large dog? Right now, I like snow and with a good stock of food and a workout area, I tunnel inside. No to roommate, yes to small dog, yes to renting, I spend my days swimming at the local public pool pool at condo sucks and then hanging out at the beach. All you need to do to see the streaming show on your tv is to buy a cord, plug it into your PC and your tv go to HDMI and Voila! Also you do not have to pay Hulu anything. Or some of you anyway. Check out his review. Sorry I left out antennas, I live in an area with mountains where they are pretty worthless. I suspect that all this cord cutting fervor plus standalone services like HBO and Sling will eventually bring down cable and satellite bills to be competitive. Look out for my telephone cord cutting article in the future. Downton Abbey is free, because with Amazon Prime and Roku , you can get PBS. We also got rid of our land line. Plus free deliveries from Amazon. We use Ting for cellphone service. Downton Abbey is free, because with Amazon Prime and Roku , you can get PBS. We also got rid of our land line. We use Ting for cellphone service. In my house, it works like a charm. I emailed this story to a colleague because we were just talking about this. They are absolutely great. We were able to cut the cord and still get all of our network shows, live TV, local news, and NFL games. In addition to the antenna we have a DVR+ from Channel Master. This is a subscription-free DVR that is very similar to using your cable or satellite DVR. So we can still pause live TV and set timers for all of our favorite network shows. We also cut our land-line telephone service and just use our cell phones. Lots of money saved! If you do not see our email in your inbox, please check your spam folder. If you do not see our email in your inbox, please check your spam folder. See our Leave this field empty if you're human:.
