Episode: 1448
Title: HPR1448: Intro to cable cutting
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr1448/hpr1448.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-18 03:08:03

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Let's get on the chase.
Before I begin the show, I just want to let you know I actually recorded this episode
in my vehicle and it was raining out so I cleaned it up pretty good but you still my
hair a little snap pop and I apologize for that and hopefully it'll get better and everything
like that. I just want to let everybody know this is recorded in the car for your enjoyment.
Hello everybody, this is Tracy Holtz, otherwise known as Holster to a lot of you out there.
What I'm going to be doing here is having a short little series on cord cutting and some people
call it cable cutting, cord cutting, whatever you want to call it. Basically what it is is you are
not having traditional cable TV and or satellite dish. I have been cable cutting for a long time.
Matter of fact I was doing it before there was even a term for it. It was just I didn't get it.
So I do have some experience in this but one thing you realize the more you cable cut is the more
you realize how little you know there's always different ways in this thing there's 10 different
ways to do almost everything. So by all means this isn't the be all end all whatever you do and I'm
really looking for feedback from people to what they do in addition to this. Now this first episode
won't have everything in it. This one will just be a basic primer on basically how to get ready to
cut your cable because that is important. So let's jump right in it. The first thing you have to
realize is the big misnomer for people when they want to cut the cable is they think they're going to
cut the cable and all of a sudden they're going to start you know spending absolutely nothing on
entertainment watching on your TV. That is a big misnomer. Cable cutting you will spend money. It
usually almost always is a lot less money but you can actually spend more if you're not careful. So
there's some stuff you have to do. Now the first thing you have to have if you really want a good
experience is an internet connection. Now you are going to have to have some kind of high speed
internet and it doesn't have to be super high-killer high speed just not dial up. I say that because the
first four years I was cable cutting I live on the country's lot of you guys know my internet speed
was between two and three megabits per second which is pretty slow. It's just in the last three to
five months I forgot. I forgot how long I've had it. They upgraded our internet where we're at and I
can get 15 megs down and it is a lot better. Now I will say the closer you can get to 15 plus
megabits per second the happier you're going to be. When I had two to three only one of us could stream
at once. Me and my wife only one of us could stream something online at a time. It wasn't that big of a
deal because I would just grab stuff and watch it offline. I watched a lot of YouTube videos, stuff
like that. We'll get in later some of the service I used to grab those YouTube videos just to watch
them offline and I'm not just talking you know like funny cat videos on there. There is a lot of
entertainment, good quality entertainment on YouTube. Every even history channel shows, BBC
documentaries, National Geographic documentaries, all that kind of stuff there. So you are going to
need an internet connection. Okay and the close like I said the closer you can get to 15 up the
better. Now with your internet connection you're going to have to realize you are going to be
using a lot more internet than you probably did before. Check out bandwidth caps what you have for
your line. Now with bandwidth caps there's a couple different things you have to look at. Some have
caps but have absolutely no ramifications if you go over the cap. You'll just every gig or two
you use over. You'll get an email from them saying hey you're over the cap, hey you're over the
cap. The month resets and it does that every month and you're fine. Other ones you get penalized
for every mega gig. You go over the cap where you get penalty on there and another type is if you
go over you automatically get pushed up to the next higher cost plan. So you have to figure that out.
Look at your contract. If you don't know call your internet provider and just plain ask them say
on what I have now is there an internet cap and don't say unlimited because they have unlimited
plans that are capped. This is the marketing thing. You have to ask them if you are capped and if
they say yes ask them what is the cap amount. And if you're really worried most of them will offer
some kind of online checking or something like that where you can see the data you used. There's
awful stuff you could put on your router or get a special router that will do that and so forth
just so you can see what you're using when you're using it. So please watch your caps because you
will use a lot more than you think. Secondly I would highly advise in your homes to have network
cables run instead of wireless. Yes you can run wireless and and yes your internet speed will
be less than a hundred megpits per second in your wire. It's just running that that. But everybody
knows the wire is more stable. Less to worry about. You don't have to worry about all that. So you
will be happier if you run cable. Now if there's a if you have a two story home you're trying to get
it into a room on the other side on the first floor and it's almost impossible without going
outside your house. Okay well then use wireless if you can do that but I always try to run wired
cables and run wired instead of wireless. The next thing you should look at is your router. You should
try to get a router and most people listening to the hacker public radio will know this but just
in case somebody shares this with somebody that doesn't know. Right now there's two basic
speeds for wired on routers. There's 10100 and 10100 1000. 1000 is your gigabit basically. Now
when you get a router try to get a router that's 10100 1000. That's a more just in case you need
it than anything else. If you have a 10100 and it's working fine don't say oh I got to go change
it because I need this. Odds are you won't need that much speed but it's always nice. If you're
planning on upgrading your stuff to go cable cutting make sure the besides having a wireless
end which pretty much everything will make sure the switch that's built into the router is 10100 1000.
That's kind of an important deal for down the line more than it is now or if you have more than
four or five people you know four or five or more used in it at once that will make a difference
when you're all on the wired especially if you get two through people streaming HD at one time
you got a good high speed internet coming in. You could run into some issues down the line if
somebody's downloading something and you got some people watching high death stuff like that so
on your router on the switch built in make sure if you're upgraded it it says 10100 1000.
Okay the next thing you're going to need is this isn't mandatory but it will make your life
a lot easier is if you don't have any CRT TVs. Those are those big old heavy clunky TVs.
Get yourself a nice flat screen you know or you know whether it's plasma LC that's up to you.
I don't get the super high end I don't there's when you get a new TV and most people will know
this too there's basically two channels you can go down for cable cutting apps built onto the
TV and apps not built onto the TV. I will get into it later of what apps I use but I really don't
get the TV with the apps built in. Now there is some coming up down the line that might intrigue me
that I'm starting to read about at this last CES but I usually get the ones without or if I did get
one with I probably would hardly ever use it you know because I like plug and stuff into the TV
instead of that. Now the reason I say that for the CRT is pretty much all CRTs do not have HDMI plugins
and you're going to want HDMI plugins because almost everything coming out nowadays is going to be
HDMI. If your TV only has two HDMI inputs and you need more and you got a good deal on the TV
and you're getting it that's fine don't say I have to get this other TV so I can get more HDMI inputs
you can get an HDMI switch and HDMI switch is just like it sounds it takes one of your HDMI ports
in your TV and you can get a two three four five six seven eight port switch usually they come in
even numbers though where you can turn that one port on your TV into multiple ports. Another thing
handy on your TV is a USB port okay the USB port can be used for a couple things but one really
thing it's starting to get used for more and more is actually power for little different devices you
might plug into the HDMI so that's for the TV. The next thing you probably want to get is a really
good TV HD antenna. Now the stuff I'm talking about now is stuff you probably want to do before you
even cut the cable so you are ready. Now an HD antenna does not have to be really expensive.
I am a long ways away from where the TV towers are at. I'm probably for most people in farther
away than anyone else and the further your way you are from these TV towers the bigger stronger
antenna you need. My antenna I have is only the 10 15 inches wide two feet long and about a
three quarters of a foot foot high really small and it's good up to 75 or 100 miles I forgot
away and I get crystal clear. One thing I noticed when people come over to my house that have
cable TV and or satellite and we watch a hockey game over the air or a football game over the air
one of the first things everyone says is how great quality it is. That's because the stuff you're
getting from satellite and the stuff you're getting from cable is compressed and then decompressed
so now you guys know that anytime you do that you do lose some quality. Over the air is not compressed
for the HD so there is a visible difference in the quality that you get over the air and not over
the air so you don't have to spend a lot of money on an antenna for this minus 50 bucks if you
live fairly close you can get the leaf antenna. The leaf antenna is great it's inside it's almost
completely flat you can put it up on a wall and you can even put like a picture or something over
it so you don't even see it just Google leaf antenna and you will see what I'm talking about
if you live closer you could get away with that and if you're in an apartment it's kind of hard
to put an antenna up. Now a friend of mine put the same antenna that I got up in his attic
and he's perfectly fine. We're about the same distance from the tower but I have a galvolume
metal roof which would have interfered with it. He did not he just has shingles he's perfectly
okay inside the attic. The reason I bring that up is you're an apartment building you might be able
to get the same antenna that I have just put it on a little stand and put it up in the air up by
the ceiling pointed to the towers and I bet you you'll be okay so if you're in an apartment there's
other ways you can do this too. Now if you have a satellite dish right now you can actually use
the same mounts from your satellite dish to mount your antenna so you don't even have to
add mounts to your roof to your side of your wall or everything like that just take that the old
dish down what you've done put this antenna up and you're good to go and if you in a
advantage of that is a coaxial cable is already run for you so get a good antenna for all your
local channels and you don't have to worry to get your local channels for that. The next thing
is when you cut the cable is probably the most important thing when you're cutting the cable
is if you're married getting spouse approval whether your wife wants to cut the cable get the
husband or if you're a husband and you want to cut the cable get the wife. That is probably the
biggest it took me about six months a year working on my wife to cut the cable and we actually
started off by doing everything cutting the cable but still have the cable and after three four
weeks showing her what to do how to do it she was fine she was like okay I understand it wasn't
as what I thought it was going to be we're okay we can do this. I really recommend everybody to
start cutting the cable doing the stuff you want to do before you actually cut the cable.
Barring you have to do it pretty quick for financial reasons or stuff like that there's a lot of
people doing it for financial reasons cutting the cable because they just can't afford it anymore
then cut the cable get rid of it and learn on the go but if you have time it's best to do both at
once so you both understand what to do how to do and then you can really see what you're going to
miss. For me what I missed most was at that time it was hard to get everybody knows if you know
me I really like hockey and baseball football to me is just something to watch you know but
it was hard to get hockey and football games all the almost all the local games in the Dallas
area here for the stars and the Texas Rangers were on cable so they weren't over the air there was
probably only three games a month over the air the rest of them were on the local Fox affiliate so
that's what I missed but shortly after I cut the cable they came out with a couple online ways to
watch it the MLB and then the NHL Games Center live where I pay certain amount of year and I get
all the games from all the TV you know all the games now local games are blacked out I'm not saying
that you could or not do this but if you guys understand what proxies are it's not a big deal
that's all I'm going to say on that subject so it's what my whole goal with this last part here is
you will need spouse approval to do this if you're spouse or you love the live experience
of TV where you watch the season finale of show x whatever show x is you love
getting it and chatting online at the same time it's on
you might not like cable cutting as much if you have to talk about the show the next day at work
all day and it's not over the air where you can't watch it live it might not be for you okay
but an advantage of cutting the cable and all this is generally you save a little more time
because the different ways you watch it will almost always have less commercials
whether it's watching it on the network sites and all that and in one of the next shows I will
talk about the different ways I watch stuff this first show is just setting up the cable cutting
and getting ready to cable cut because this is the part that most people overlook and have the
hardest part with but spouse approval is probably the biggest part of cable cutting people don't
look at and it usually becomes the friction point why people go back to having cable because they
really never thought about it out planned it out and decided what each other's likes and dislikes
are the next thing you should do is just jot down on a piece of paper you can do this
on your phone for notes do this and you're at line at the story you know do it as you're watching
a TV show watching a game jot down what you like to watch and it doesn't necessarily have to be
specific shows but I would put specific shows down there and what shows your spouse likes to watch
but categories for me it was you know a hockey baseball and documentaries like you know history
channel documentaries and you know stuff like that I really liked and stuff I found out that I
and this is my own ignorance that I found out that I got back to is do not forget about the
PBS documentaries you know Nova has some great ones there was one on last year on the Viking sword
I've watched that about four times because I picked stuff up every time if you guys haven't seen
that it's it's a Nova show it's called you know it's from Nova it's the Viking sword it's
unbelievable good documentary and I really forgot about how good some of the documentaries on
there are so now like I said another part a show here I'll get with you guys on different
different apps and shows and stuff like that but right down everything you like to watch
categories you like to watch and ways you can get them without
having cable and or satellite and then you can discover how can I watch this stuff if I don't have it
you know you can look at if you shows on NBC go to NBC.com see if they have it on there
a lot of times it's the next day or a couple days later and ABC is going to 20 days later
what ABC all is there doing there is they are killing their online presence they're really trying
to push you to Hulu the Hulu plus account it's 20 days later and all is there doing is they are
just pushing their torrent traffic up for their shows that's all they're doing you know and one
thing I see in this is the networks right now are doing the same thing the music industry did
in the mid 90s when MP3 started they were they're dragging their feet and they're having their
fingers in the ear trying to control it like they were they have been tv networks are doing the
same thing and they're killing themselves right now they could be making a probably more money
online monetizing it that way then they are on TV monetizing they're on TV because their
viewage would be up but okay that's another thing the other time but just look around how you can
watch the shows you like to watch and where you want to watch what it basically comes down to is
habits same thing if you're a smoker and you quit smoking if you smoke for a long time you quit
smoking the nicotine need is there but after a week or two you know the nicotine need isn't there
really that much it's habits it's what you're doing you know it's a habit something in your hand
something in your mouth you like going over there at that particular time it's habits the exact
same thing is when you watch TV is your habits I do this to watch TV I do this to be and that just
watch TV and the cable companies and the satellite companies know that and they try to ingrain you
more and more on those habits so basically it's breaking the habits to watch what you want to watch
and the last little thing is different devices and this will just be a very quick and we'll go
more detailed on the next episode there's different devices you're probably going to want to plug
into your TV the number one and the easiest way to do everything and people don't realize this
everybody jumps on Roku right away I disagree with that is get a computer that has an HDMI output
and you can get a video card with an HDMI out plug it into the TV get a wireless keyboard in
mouse you're done that can do pretty much everything you want to do and almost everybody it knows how
to work computer you're done and almost everything you want to do whether you have a Roku or a different
device you can do on the computer too so that is probably the easiest way to get going is a computer
now will cost more it uses more electricity but you can turn it down when it's not in use another
thing is like I said a second ago is the Roku the Roku is probably my favorite device that I like
I got three Roku's anytime I travel one goes with me in my hotel room I plug it in I'm good to go
I have everything I need with me it you know coming up here I'll be going to the North East Linux
Fest you guys will see a Roku in my room I've staying at it that's just what I do when I go to
hotels now and I turn the TV on it there's nothing but garbage on realistically I went to Austin
couple weeks ago to get my concealed handgun instructor certificate and they had cable at the hotel
so I turned on I turned and there was a reality show on every channel I said okay let me go turn to
the weather channel the weather channel had a reality show on it I just I couldn't I couldn't
understand I don't see the entertainment value and those some people do but I don't so I flipped
over to my Roku and I was happy so you can also if you have an Xbox you know you can use an
Xbox to do some of this stuff here Apple TVs out there you know there's a lot of different devices
and everybody asks me what's the best and that's a super hard question to tell somebody the best
is what you like using the most I can tell you what is the easiest and that's what I told you
already is the computer hands down as easiest you know what to do everything is there so again this
is just the first episode in the series there'll be some more I'll start recording some of the
next day or two and get them up and hacker public radio will publish them out and space them out
as they see fit so I hope you guys enjoyed this you have any question comments please email me at
Tracy at podnuts.com TRACY at podnuts.com so if you're doing something that I haven't talked about
we'll talk about that more again this is just basic stuff you want to think about before you even
decide to cut the cable to kind of get your ducks in a row so I hope this was enjoyable to everybody
we'll get more in detail later and the further polls like I said so everybody have a great day
great week and start thinking about cutting the cable
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