When talking to people about cutting the cord, the two biggest reasons I hear cited as to why one won’t give it a shot are:
- Its too big an adjustment for my family
- Cable is just easy.
Fair enough dear readers, fair enough. In the spirit of helping put more of your hard earned dollars back in your pocket, we respectfully present to you a surefire guide to testing out cord cutting without the risk.
Step 1 – Determine hardware requirements
This is an essential step that will ultimately determine the cost for you to truly cut the cord. At its core, you need three things: 1) a Mac or PC, 2) storage space and 3) if you want live TV, an over-the-air HD Antenna. For this guide, we are going to leave out #3, simply because a) all this gets you is live TV and b) other than weekend sports, fewer and fewer people actually watch live TV, opting instead for time shifting content through their DVRs.
For the ‘best’ experience, you need a Mac or PC with at least a Core 2 Duo 2.4ghz CPU, with ideally 2 Megs of RAM. You can identify this on your PC by clicking on your Start menu button, the right clicking on “Computer”, and selecting Properties. For a Mac, simply click on the Apple logo on the top left corner of your screen, and select About This Mac. Assuming your Mac or PC is no more than 3 years old, you already have the horsepower in your home to enable a fully automated home media experience…pat yourself on the back. If not, consider purchasing a cheap Dell or HP computer with the proper specs, or a base Mac Mini. But in all likelihood, most of you out their won’t have to purchase anything.
In addition, to have on demand all the glorious movies and TV shows you want at your fingertips, you’re going to need some sort of storage. Again, most of you out there have some sort of USB external hard drive, hopefully being used to back up your family pictures or movies, or for other backup purchases. Ideally, I’d recommend at least 3 TBs of storage. This is more than enough for movies, TV shows, your music, pictures, etc. Such an external hard drive will cost you $150 or less from Amazon or NewEgg. But for this guide, assuming you either a) already have an external hard drive with some space or b) your Mac/PC’s internal hard drive has unused space, and given you are just trying this out, in all likelihood most of you out there shouldn’t have to purchase more storage space at this time.
Step 2 – Setup
So now you’ve got the hardware, and the storage all ready to go (you likely have all along), now setup. First you need to chose an application to server up all this glory. Here at HTPC we’ve written extensively on both XBMC and Plex, for this guide, we’re going to use Plex for reasons that will become apparent later.
1. Create a folder on your designated storage location (this is either the Mac/PC hard drive or the external hard drive) and create a folder called “TV Shows”. This is where you will store all those TV shows – both network and cable – that you are currently paying so much for.
2. Head on over to Plex and download the Plex Media Server, either for Windows or your Mac. Follow the installation instructions, skipping all sections except for when Plex asks you to setup your TV Shows library, when it does, point the library (following the instructions), to the folder created in 1. above.
This is what you will be welcomed with after installing your Plex Media Server for the first time. Add a TV Shows section.
3. Sign up for myPlex. This is part of the Plex Media Server setup, and it enables you to watch your media on the go, on Android, iOS and a number of other mobile devices. The mobile apps that connect to myPlex typically cost around $5. Once you are done signing up for myPlex, you will be asked to sign your Plex Media Server into your myPlex account.
4. Set up your free, easy to use internet-based DVR in under 10 minutes. Fortunately we’ve already written than guide, you can find it here. It’s a pretty good read (although I’m biased). You can also follow our guide on using Usenet groups, although that will cost some cabbage, around $10/month. You can find that guide here, but give our focus on ‘risk free’ that’s for another time.
Step 3 – Playback
So here’s the tricky part, because admittedly, this may eliminate the ‘risk free’ part of this guide. If you already own:
- A Roku box
- A Samsung TV on this list
- An LG TV with Media Link functionality
- A piece of hardware that supports DNLA (like a blu-ray player, TV, XBOX, Playstation)
- An Apple TV (and an iOS device of any kind)
- A Google TV Device
you’ll have to spend $5 to purchase either the iOS or Andoid app to view your content. With the AppleTV setup, simply use Airplay to sling your media from your iOS Plex app to your AppleTV.
Step 4 – Enjoy
Once you have this setup, give it a try, and if you are so bold, unplug your cable box for a couple days. The setup can be enhanced with a Netflix streaming-only account ($8/mo). Want live TV, follow our guide by adding an OTA HD antenna. My house is going on three years without cable, and my family doesn’t miss it at all. Plus its pretty sweet saving the roughly $1,200 per year, especially around this time of the year.
So give it a try, and let us know how it goes. Happy cutting…
The ‘risk free’ part of this guide is subjective. I don’t consider downloading content illegally from Usenet groups ‘risk free’. I don’t judge anyone for downloading content as I have don’t plenty of that too, but ‘risk free’ is certainly not how I would describe it.
Mark,
Thanks for the read. Just wanted to point out that the guide specifically is NOT suggesting using usenet groups. As for the term ‘risk free’, you have a point, although as I was writing it, ‘risk free’ referring to not interrupting the current service one is already using as well as not having to spend any money to ‘test out’ cord cutting. Your point however is duly noted.
Charles,
I appreciate your understanding what I was trying to say. I’m not blasting anyone who uses Usenet for those purposes (in fact this article has me considering it!). It just struck me that reading this article as something I may show someone that has never heard of cord cutting, the ‘risk’ should be presented. Not as something to be avoided, but something to be aware of.
Marc,
Absolutely (and we changed the title of the article to reflect the potential misunderstanding of our intention of the meaning of ‘risk free’). Thanks for the feedback.
Great read, Charles! May I also suggest another option? An HD antenna is more than viable option, too. I use an Antennas Direct ClearStream 2V.
Do you use an antenna? -Cory
Cory,
Thanks for the read. The purpose of the article was to provide a guide for users to try out the cord cutting experience without the need to buy any additional hardware, or go through the hassle of installing an OTA antenna…plus an OTA antenna will not give you access to anything other than a handful of channels – no basic cable or HBO, Showtime, etc…the above process, assuming one has a computer, a TV, an iOS or Android device, while the internet PVR gives you access to EVERYTHING other than live tv….
That said, part of any cord cutting experience will be an OTA antenna which I wrote about in my 3 part cord cutting series. I do in fact have an OTA HD (which is now redundant since everything is digitally broadcast and in HD by law 🙂 ). I use a Winegard HD7698P HDTV High Band VHF-UHF Antenna given my distance from the nearest major metro area….
Finally, depending on one’s distance to a major metro area, inside or attic installation of an OTA antenna will yield varying results…mine for example is installed on my roof, which I had to hire someone to do….
Thanks again for the read and suggestions/comments…keep ’em coming!
Charles –
Warning this might be a bit long…
I’ve been using WMC since 2007, but with a recent switch to cable (Spectrum/Time-Warner) has cause me to consider my options since the cable card tuner has been unreliable recording content I watch daily.
My WMC PC is old enough now that it’s fairly costly to update. I need new memory modules and a larger SSD, that’s about a $93 anyway. I also priced in Windows 8.1 which adds $120 but it’s not absolutely needed.
I also have a Sony Playstation 3, so I could try it somewhat risk free.
My question(s) –
Sure I run a VPN or would it be enough to set Utorrent not to share? This would cut down on the cost of trying this out before going live.
Where’s step 3.5 where you actually get the content to watch? I don’t need a PC, Plex, external HD, etc just to watch Netflix. No info on how to watch the stuff your missing by ditching cable, no tips on how to control the htpc from the couch. Did I miss something? Step 2.1 even mentions the folder for shows but no way to get the shows in the first place.