When most people think about Amazon’s Prime subscription service, I imagine most think about the free two day shipping.  And that’s cool, because that’s a huge benefit and one that we use almost daily.

With Prime you also get Prime Music which is getting better every month.  For anyone using a paid music subscription service like Pandora or Spotify, you might want to take a look at what you can get with Prime Music.  I decided the Prime service was good enough for most of my needs, so I saved $10/month by cancelling Spotify and that $10 a month now pays for my Prime subscription for the whole year.

With Prime, you get free books, photo storage, and exclusive access to sales events too.  But the real beauty of the service in my opinion as a cord cutter is the Amazon Prime Video service.

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This is a super fancy setup

Watching a movie outside on a nice summer night is an amazing experience whether you’re a ten year old kid, or a 40-year old adult.

I’ve seen a lot of different set ups over the years.  Just last week I visited a friend’s house who had a fifty foot HDMI cable running across the floor in his basement to an outdoor projector. Granted, the picture quality was good, and he had a lot of options for programming, but he was likely paying up the nose for the service, which is something streaming fanatics like me, refuse to do. Creating a streaming set up is not hard, and not super expensive either.  Here’s how I did it:

The Screen

This is the one place I’m going to recommend not spending a lot of money. I went to Home Depot and bought a large plain white Martha Stewart curtain for $12. I put two nails in the bottom level of our deck and hung the curtain between them. Done, and it looks and works great. If you want to darken the screen even more, buy two curtains and hang one in front of the other.

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[This is a guest post from a friend who shares a similar sentiment toward Comcast as I do.  He wanted to stick it to them by not paying a monthly fee to lease hardware from them.  These monthly lease fees are another huge revenue stream for Comcast that he wanted to put a stop to.  Here’s how to do it.]

I’ve chosen to maintain cable service largely due to the speed of the internet. Internet, in my case, is a necessity because that is how I connect with work, handle my holiday shopping, search for jobs and connect with my social network…..Facebook is a necessity, right? Satellite doesn’t have an option for internet service and the land line phone networks are nearly obsolete (in my opinion because I use VoIP and my cell phone).

Since I am “committed” to Comcast, I decided I would do everything possible to limit the amount of money I was paying to them.  I decided to challenge the status quo and re-think what I was using cable for. We all know that the cable TV business is extremely flawed. I prefer to pay for things that I actually consume. How on earth can we consume 900 channels of content that are forced upon us? We can’t. What about the time that I’m away from the house? I’m not getting any benefit of the cable when I am away. I personally want my cable programming to be based off my consumption, just like all the other bills that come to my house. I don’t pay for my water or electricity on a subscription basis. I pay for what I use. There are a growing number of people who would be perfectly happy paying for entertainment options à la carte because we are becoming used to doing just that. On-demand programming gives us that flexibility. Why can’t I order a single live football game the way that I order Big Hero 6?

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It’s that time of the year when we look at the top holiday gifts and gadgets for the cord cutting enthusiast.  This year, I’m going to assemble a list of products we recommend and use ourselves as happy cord cutters, along with the best selling products that were sold through this site on Amazon for the year, which I believe offers a reflection of what most of you find to be the most useful in your cord cutting journey.

We are going to start with the ARRIS SURFboard SB6141 DOCSIS 3.0 Cable Modem, which is one of the most important things I think a cord cutter can buy. Too many of us are still using old, inefficient modems, or even worse, still paying to rent them monthly from a service provider.  This is only $70, will increase your download speed, and avoids having to pay for renting a modem.

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UPDATE: Smart move today by Comcast.  Comcast announced they were bumping the previous 300GB monthly data caps to 1000GB/month.  The change takes effect June 1.

OK, they won me back by making this move.  1000GB is clearly enough to do everything but the heaviest streaming and 24/7 gaming.  In my household 1000GB is plenty.

According to Comcast, “the new limit would allow a household to download 60,000 high-resolution photos, stream 700 hours of high-definition video, and play 12,000 hours of online games in one month.”

I have to say I’m delightfully surprised by this news.  Comcast, you just retained me as an Internet customer.

[My original story on this, published 12/30/15, is below]

You gotta hand it to Comcast.  About every six months to a year they come up with some hair brained idea to buck a few more dollars out of customers, particularly those like me who are only paying for streaming services.  What they miss is this – you’re lucky that I’m even paying you for the streaming services.  The time is coming when we will have better, faster, cheaper options.  You should try to retain me right now, not alienate me in this changing world.

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If you follow this site, chances are you’ve cut the cord on cable TV and now you face one of your biggest challenges so far – how to stream the Superbowl.  Well, I’ve got good news for you, because this year it’s easier than ever thanks to the CBS Sports app.

You can install the app on your streaming device which will be the easiest and cleanest way to do it.  So you can put the app on your Roku, Apple TV, XBOX or Amazon Fire TV.  This is convenient since you probably already have this plugged into your TV.  If not, you can use Chromecast.  And if you still have issues, just download the app to your tablet or iPhone and pipe it back to your TV via HDMI.

It seems as though CBSSports.com is also going to stream the game if you need to go browser based.

Keep in mind that in years past the stream has been a little bumpy at times as it is pulled down by a zillion devices, so let’s hope they have enough bandwidth dedicated to giving everyone a good stream. Enjoy, and thanks for supporting this site.

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It’s been another fun year working on this site, and updating it with more tricks and products to make your cord cutting life even better.  This whole site was started on a whim as a rant against Comcast, and it’s been fun to see how fast people have adopted the cord cutting lifestyle as this site has grown.  So thank you for visiting and supporting it.

I use affiliate links throughout to help offset the costs of operating the site and to keep it free for everyone.  I thought it would be fun to check my affiliate account to see what products were purchased by the most people over the last 12 months.  Here they are, in order, starting with the most purchased item….

TERK Amplified Indoor HDTV Antenna

I guess it’s no surprise the TERK antenna would be at the top of the list.  The Amazon Basics antenna below is slightly less expensive, and I think either would work just fine.  When you cut the cord, trying an HD antenna is an important first step to gathering a ton of free content.  And it seems many of you agreed.

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10. WD 2TB My Cloud Personal Network Attached Storage – More and more content is being created in digital formats everyday. From videos you shoot and/or edit on your phone to content being shared by friends and family, I believe networked cloud storage is a must for any home streaming set up.  Put everything on here, and access it from various points throughout your house, or on the go through the mobile apps.  Until everything moves to the same shared cloud, you might as well have your own to enjoy.  And prices have come down so much.

9. ARRIS SURFboard SB6121 DOCSIS 3.0 Cable Modem – It’s time to get your own modem and stop leasing from the Internet providers.  Leasing equipment is a big business for them, and they don’t want you to buy your own, which is exactly why you should.  I used this one for my Comcast service, and it instantly increased my speeds, as well as reduced monthly cost.  If you haven’t upgraded in a while, you may not be taking advantage of all the speed that you are paying for every month.

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I’ve never been a huge fan of Apple TV, just because my other streaming boxes can do so much more, specifically in regards to streaming music, photos and video from my dedicated 3TB media server all over the house (all the devices can talk to one another without proprietary systems).

But recent news may put Apple TV on my radar.  I’ve been dying for HBO to offer a stand alone monthly service that does not require a cable subscription.  And that day has finally come, albeit only for Apple products, which includes devices I do love such as the iPhone 6 and iPad 2 Air.

Announced in conjunction with the Apple Watch (I’m still on the fence with that one), the big news was HBO Now, available for $15/month, with no cable subscription needed.  I can’t wait to see what the cable companies have to say about this one now that their value has almost dropped completely to zero.  You can get sports on the ESPN app and other services now too, further damaging their already questionable value equation.

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It’s hard to believe it’s taken this long for someone to figure this game out, but it appears that satellite TV provider Dish Network may have taken the first big step in the right direction for Internet television programming.

They took a page from the tried and true Netflix and Hulu model, realizing that people are more than willing to pay for the content they want for a monthly subscription rate that is reasonable. The offering is called Sling TV, and it is accessible via an app for your Roku, Amazon Fire Stick or other streaming box.

The over-the-Internet service is $20 a month, billed monthly, and offers access to 12 critical, previously-cable-only, programming that includes ESPN and ESPN 2 (big ones for most people), along with CNN, Food Network, Travel Channel, HGTV, TNT, TBS, Disney Channel, ABC Family, Maker and Cartoon Network.

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