You're one of the fortunate ones. I never had great success with DirecTV as far as negotiating a renewal with a lower rate. If anything, they were difficult to work with as far as rates, service, pretty much everything. The ONLY things I liked about DirecTV over the 3 years I used them was the picture quality (as long as it wasn't raining hard) and the channel guide.Great thread! Thanks to you (and everyone else) for posting all this info.
I have DirecTV and I totally love my customized channel guide, remote and DVR functions (especially ability to fast-forward through all commercials). I just went through a rate negotiation with DTV. They CONTINUALLY raise the pricing, so I call and threaten to cancel at least once a year. This always nets a big rate reduction, but I am absolutely ready to just move on once I find something similar at better pricing.
I have Hulu +LiveTV which gives me my local channels. Go to Hulu's website and enter your zip code to see what channels are available in your area.
The way the commercials work with Hulu is if you don't pay the extra 5 bucks to skip advertisements, you will see BOTH network/station commercials, and Hulu ads. Sometimes I'll be watching a program and for some reason I'll see no commercials or maybe one. Check to be sure you have the skip commercials feature. Again, it's $5.00 extra and doesn't come standard with Hulu +LiveTV. It's an extra fee, and well worth it. You can't skip through a regular commercial watching a live show. Just like on DirecTV. That said, I have noticed that if I record a basketball game, say, I can rewind but can't skip over certain commercials. I'd say in a 2-hour game there might be commercial slots that I can't skip. But it's much better than commercials during a game on DirecTV. At least that's what I've found so far. I'm still learning, but learning fast. LOL.
There is NO monthly fee with Apple TV. You pay for the device and it's yours, including the apps that come with it. Minimal apps. Kind of like what you get with a smart TV. You're mostly paying for the streaming devise because Apple TV doesn't come with a lot of content. I actually haven't used any of Apple's content yet. I've only used Hulu.
I believe I just read a review last week that said YouTube TV does have good sports content. Here is a list of YouTube TV channels I found with Google.
Awesome! I have already talked to a few others outside this forum and they are probably going to cut the DirecTV cord as well.
So if it helps others consider their TV viewing options and save a lot of money doing it, GREAT!
