TV Series addiction - what services to use? And, hello!

[waziri]

Hi Everyone! Happy to find a quality active community for wmc for sure. I've recently built an htpc with wmc, and I'm extremely excited to get moving.

My htpc is connected to my primary tv. My wife and I watch primarily television series, from both standard and premium channels. We rarely if ever watch anything else. So little that it's not even a consideration.

We like the standard fare:
Breaking Bad
Walking Dead
True Blood
Dexter
Boardwalk Empire
Treme
Revolution
Hoeland
Falling Skies
etc.

You get the idea. We used to pay through the roof for access to premium shows from our cable provider. Recently though I got in my head how that is just ridiculous these days, so, we've now nearly completed the journey. Cord is cut. I pay $0 for network channels with over the air hd antenna.

I'm curious what services other series addicts like us subscribe to? Note that watching a show immediately after it airs isn't a requirement for us as we tend to watch shows in marathon mode, and prefer it that way. In other words, we are willing to wait 8 months or however long until a show becomes available in full.

Services we are currently subscribed to:
Netflix $8/month
Amazon Prime

What are the must have services for series watching? Or are we set with this? I've hunted around hulu a bit but am somewhat put off by paying for commercials. However, if they will have seasons of popular shows that I cant get on netflix/amazon, then I will likely join. Being that I have ota network though, I'm not sure it is necessary.

What do you you have?

[barnabas1969]

Try Hulu. You can download the Hulu Desktop app here:
http://download.cnet.com/Hulu-Desktop/3 ... 15872.html

Then, you can integrate the Hulu Desktop app into Media Center by downloading this:
http://huluwmc.teknowebworks.com/

This only works on the TV that is connected directly to the PC, does not work on extenders.

[adam1991]

I just took a look at this combo.

And, yuck. They killed the Hulu Desktop application for a good reason: its interface sucks for the living room. On top of that, Hulu isn't shy about telling you that only the direct browser experience will give you all content, that some content isn't available via the Desktop or the smart TV or tablet setups.

Effectively, Hulu has no ten foot interface for a standard PC. WMC users are left in the cold.

I'm still signed up for Hulu Plus, just to see if it fills in any blanks, but I dumped the WMC integration concept within about 3 minutes. It'll be browser or nothing, I guess--and it might be nothing. I'll try it for awhile, but I expect not to see a compelling reason to give them another eight bucks a month of my money. Netflix has added so much content within the last month, it's amazing. I wonder if Netflix isn't over the hurdle and into a good spot at this point.

[blueiedgod]

A word of caution:

My in-laws decided to cut the cord, and went with Roku. NEtflix, and whatever else is on Roku. Only to find out that their Cable bill went up, because they were upgraded to higher tier of internet, because of the increased bandwidth.

So, if you get unlimited internet, then cord cutting and switching to streaming will work, but if you are on metered internet, your "cheap" internet bill becomes just as expensive as it was with TV package.

It is actually very simple, Cable companies are NOT in the business to lose money.

[adam1991]

you mean, they didn't do a proper financial analysis of their decision? They were caught by surprise?

It's not as if the facts of any given situation aren't out there for everyone to see and evaluate. It's like being caught by surprise that the gas station wants to charge you for that candy bar you picked up on a whim.

As with everything, do the analysis first to see what costs what. And yes, you <gasp!> may have to CALL the cable company to run those scenarios across them, as they are loathe to put actual prices out on their web sites. And we all know why that is, don't we. They'd all love to be a utility you're forced to buy without consideration of cost. I saw a guy today on another forum, he was paying $200/month to his cable company. Ohmigod. Do you have any idea how much money that is? The cable company hopes you don't, that's for sure.

[mcewinter]

you <gasp!>may have to CALL the cable company to run those scenarios across them

Seriously, who does that?

[slowbiscuit]

We like the standard fare:
Breaking Bad
Walking Dead
True Blood
Dexter
Boardwalk Empire
Treme
Revolution
Hoeland
Falling Skies
etc.

You get the idea. We used to pay through the roof for access to premium shows from our cable provider. Recently though I got in my head how that is just ridiculous these days, so, we've now nearly completed the journey. Cord is cut. I pay $0 for network channels with over the air hd antenna.

Does anyone else find it amusing that OP cut the cord when almost all of the shows here are cable-only? I mean sure, you can catch up on *some* of the prior seasons but usually not much current, so I guess I'm missing the point. And for HBO (i.e. HBOGO) in particular, you have to have at minimum a local channel cable sub right?

If OP really wanted to cheap out he'd be better off in the netherworld getting torrents or Usenet binary feeds.

[Markwinstanley]

Amazon Prime, only for my favorite Dexter and True Blood.

[Rhody]

I get Hulu Plus for free through Bing Rewards. Just sign up for Bing Rewards and click on recommended links for a few minutes a day. If you do that on the PC and a mobile device, you will become a gold member and earn more than enough points to redeem for Hulu Plus every month. I'm paid up for the next six months and I didn't spend a penny.

[kmp14]

Hi Everyone! Happy to find a quality active community for WMC for sure. I've recently built an HTPC with WMC, and I'm extremely excited to get moving.

My HTPC is connected to my primary tv. My wife and I watch primarily television series, from both standard and premium channels. We rarely if ever watch anything else. So little that it's not even a consideration.

We like the standard fare:
Breaking Bad
Walking Dead
True Blood
Dexter
Boardwalk Empire
Treme
Revolution
Hoeland
...

I haven't heard of "Hoeland", but I am very interested (Sorry, couldn't resist )

[mcewinter]

I get Hulu Plus for free through Bing Rewards. Just sign up for Bing Rewards and click on recommended links for a few minutes a day. If you do that on the PC and a mobile device, you will become a gold member and earn more than enough points to redeem for Hulu Plus every month. I'm paid up for the next six months and I didn't spend a penny.

I always forget my password to any of my several MS sposored email accounts and they really make it a PITA if you forgot your password. They make you change the password if you forgot it and by the time I need it again, I forgot what I changed it to. Therefore, I change my password everytime I need to log onto anything Microsoft...which is what I'm going to do, again.