Paul’s Tech Makeover: Preparing to Cut the Cord (Premium)

We're still about a month away from our move to Pennsylvania, but I've started planning for our cord-cutting future. And a big part of that is choosing which online service---or, more likely, services---we'll use to replace cable TV.

This isn't something that will be decided today. But with two weeks of downtime before our home swap, and then an incredibly busy week of logistical nightmares after that, now's as good a time as any to start thinking about this stuff. And testing a few of the solutions that might work for us.

Note: Brad recently wrote about this topic as well. Be sure to check out The Essentials: Cutting the Cord, One Year Later.

As you probably know, or could at least imagine, there are a number of so-called cord-cutting services, and we'll probably see many more in the months ahead. Each has its pros and cons on paper, and just using the services will reveal issues that aren't otherwise obvious. But part of the issue here is particular to your own needs. That is, how much TV do you watch? And "what" TV do you watch? On what channels?

Too, moving to online services will almost necessitate behavioral changes. This is a topic I write and, on podcasts, talk about a lot: That we too often confuse tradition and familiarity with the "right" way to do things. And when you think about it, this sudden move to Pennsylvania has really put the reality to the theory by forcing me, and my family, to not just consider major change but to make it happen in a short period of time. In a way, I feel like I've been training myself for this moment.

Anyway, with TV-type services, in particular, the first step, as I see it, is to identify the "what" and "where," and then be flexible about the "how." So I've thought about the TV shows we really do watch ("what"), and then identified where they can be found ("where"). Then, I can look at the various available services---YouTube TV, Hulu with Live TV, PlayStation Vue, and so on---and see how they measure up.

That measuring up takes two forms: The availability of the content we want, of course, but also device compatibility. One of the benefits of cord cutting is that access to this content can be more universally accessible than is (easily) possible with just cable, both on TV-attached devices (Apple TV and the like, but also the smart TV itself) and on mobile devices. There are limits, on most services, to the number of live streams you can use at once, the number of devices you can use at once, the number of sub-accounts (for kids) you can have, and so on.

In preparation for our coming move, I recently wiped out all of the non-current scheduled recordings on our cable box-based DVR. (We have FIOS, which is fiber, but let's just call it cable for simplicity's sake.) We'll need to give this box back to FIOS in August, so I'll wipe out the rest when the time comes. (Until then, we can continue recording and watching shows that are on now.) This means I need to work off my memory ...

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