Cutting the Cord Part II: Trial Evaluation

CDN – http://www.conservativedailynews.com

Last week I announced that my family had decided to give cord-cutting a shot and we did. Now I give the feedback from my wife, my kids and me after 5 days of our cord cutting adventure. Our family decided to give Sony’s Playstation Vue for our live television choice with Netflix and Amazon prime as our on-demand movie and alternative series sources of entertainment. If everything worked out, we would actually have better entertainment choices and services while reducing our costs by $100 per month. So how did our 5-day trial go? We learned a lot about cord cutting, some negative some positive. First, the negatives:

• If you use Playstation 3/4 consoles as your entertainment device, buy a blue ray remote – wives that don’t play games don’t like the gaming controllers .. AT ALL
• The current evolution of the VUE app is too power hungry for a PS3 to push stutter-free video – it is enjoyable but not as smooth as the PS4 offering
• Not all local channels are offered – Fox, NBC and CBS were all on-demand while ABC was live
• If the internet goes out, so do most of our sources of news and entertainment

Now the positives:

• Watching 2,3, or 4 channels on a single computer monitor ROCKS! I’m a news and sports junkie and had MLB network, FOX News, CNN and NBA network on one screen while writing articles on another. It fricking rocked!
• Everything is kinda on-demand. Can’t get home for that show at 7? No problem, just watch it when you get home.
• Want to catch up on an HBO, Showtime, AMC or whichever network series – PSV’s “catch-up” feature lets you do that even if you’ve never DVR’d it
• The cloud DVR is seamless, you kinda don’t even know you’re recording but it’s always there!
• HBO and Showtime with tons of useful channels for WAAAAAAY less than the competition

Lessons learned:

• Buy the $20 blue ray media remote to control the PS3/4 so that people who don’t play games don’t have to deal with the standard controller
• Get an $40 HD antenna so you can watch local channels. This also aids in the case that the internet goes out

Should You Cut the Cord? We did and we’re thrilled. We had to make the adjustments mentioned in the article, but the entertainment choices are better, the services align with our busy lifestyle and the price is MUCH better. We’ll spend this month’s extra $100 on our daughter’s birthday party. Your mileage may differ, but we’re ditching Directv for Sony’s Playstation Vue and could not be happier. CDN – http://www.conservativedailynews.com