Don't Hate Me Because I am a Luddite
 

We'll be on the farm a few more years and I am looking at upgrading my DirecTV to their Gemini box.

We have had sat TV for almost 30 years. We have two internet provider, not including iPhones, because of my wife's work.

Does anyone here currently have Gemini?

Just started the shopping phase.

I called their folks and it was the absolute nadir of any retail experience I have ever had over the phone, from the recordings to the, I am sure delightful people, on the phone.

Retail decisions are made in the first minute. I may need a reboot.

No advice other than we have never had cable service on our road and in recent years we just use antenna for local stations and we also use streaming for all our other tv channels.... YoutubeTV, Peacock and Netflix. Not sure what satellite or cable costs these days but our streaming tv apps probably total just under $100 per month. We can watch most sports, news channels, etc via the YoutubeTV subscription and nowadays we rarely have any buffering even when watching on multiple tvs in shop and house using a router and signal booster out to my shop.

How fast is your internet connection?

We had an issue with cable service for a few weeks. They even admitted it was their Node, and their issue. We had internet and bought a Cromecast device for 50 bucks from Amazon. Plug it in, and pick what services you want.

If your TV is really 30 years old, you will be astonished at the new 4K TVs, they are cheap and pretty much disposable. It will not likely last 5 years much less 30.

grew up without tv

with streaming options i dont see the need for sat tv service

im rural but have good dsl and there is fiber 100 yards away ill be tapped into eventually

save the $ and dont bother, even with a few streaming subscriptions you will save money

Was a Sat guy for about the same amount of decades. We had enough of the old, non-existent programming, ever increasing costs. Bought 2 firesticks from Amazon @$35/ea. Subscribed to YouTube TV, with other free apps and never looked back. The monthly bill is @1/3 of what we used to pay. The content is almost endless..........

Access to interwebs is via wireless router (that we own), service is from Cox, their lowest speed tier, works great ��.

Ditched DTV after about 22 years. Streaming all the time now. Fubo on Amazon FireTV. Almost flawless. Saving about $175 a month (we had a lot of boxes).

We got rid of the satellite after DTV hiked their prices. We already have internet so we went with streaming. The internet service is $77 a month and YouTube TV is about that. Vicki subscribes to Prime, Netflix, and Hulu also, so our total internet & entertainment is about $200 a month. We get the local stations on YouTubeTV, so no need for any other expense or hardware.
Streaming works OK even on our crappy 90 Mbps DSL line. We have 2 smart TVs and a dumb TV with a Roku that connects it to the internet. We can watch two of them at a time with reasonable definition.
Since you have an internet connection, I would try streaming to see how you like it. I think you can get a free 1 month trial from YouTubeTV. If you don't have a smart TV I have an extra Roku I'll send you. PM me if you want it.
Hope this helps.

All the replies have helped.

Thanks. Still in the wooden shoe phase:cool:

My provider is dropping cable altogether and forcing a switch to YouTubeTV. I have been using a TIVO DVR/streaming device.

I like to record auto racing, Braves games, and golf majors, and watch them later, skipping the commercials. Will I still be able to do that with YouTubeTV?

I love our TIVO and it will be interesting to hear if YouTube/TV will let you used the TIVO. Our provider is Cox Cable, so I guess they will continue to provide cable for us.

My wife watched 9 football games in one day recently. She had all 5 of the tuners in the TIVO box recording at once. She would watch and 1.5 speed and only the action, so the endless commercials and standing around is skipped. She would catch up with one game to "real time" and switch to one of the other recorded games and just watch the action.

I'm just thrilled to see someone knows and used the word, luddite. :)

He is a pretty smart feller!

However, it really should be capitalized, as in Luddite. As it pertained to a group of textile workers that did not want any mechanization as it would mean less workers needed. They were followers of Ned Ludd.

Well, I didn't know that, thank ya! :)
Still, it's not the same capitalization faux pas as, "I helped my Uncle Jack off a horse," and "I helped my uncle jack off a horse." Haha

This board is a virtual fountain of useless and arcane information and the occasional perfect insights and truths. The challenge is to decern the difference.

We're good. I honestly didn't know the origin of Luddite. (See, I capitilizated it this time :))