Blogs for cord cutters

While I am certainly happy that you've stopped by here, and I'm hoping my tips, suggestions, and comments might be helpful, I certainly know there are other places online that can help you as a cord cutter. Here are a few blogs that you might like.

Amazon Fire TV Blog

If you use Amazon Fire TV, you might find their blog useful for finding out about some of the features of that streaming platform. They don't post every day. In fact, they only post a handful of times a month. Last month, six times. The month before, 12 times. And, every post won't necessarily be something you absolutely need to know about, it's a good resource if you're in the Amazon ecosystem.

Chromecast Blog

For as much as Google does online, posting on the Chromecast Blog isn't anywhere near the top of their list. They have posted five times this year. That's it. But, I still check it every day. If there's something posted there, it's probably a big deal. Or somebody was assigned to "just post something." Kinda hard to tell. About half of one and half of the other, I suspect.

Tablo Blog

If you have an antenna and a Tablo device, you may find this useful. They post every couple of weeks, or more often when new features are introduced. And while much of it is "hey, we got a sale going on" kind of things, there are some articles that are for cord cutters, and antenna users in particular. You don't necessarily have to be a Tablo user, but the primary focus is their customers, same as the other blogs listed.

Air TV Blog

Air TV is another platform that lets you add an antenna to your local network. It's owned by Dish Network, who also owns Sling TV. And, while I'm listing this entry as the Air TV Blog, it's really the Sling TV news page. From the Air TV Website, the "blog" link takes you to the Sling TV news page, so I'm including this for that platform.

Plex Blog

Even if you don't use Plex server, the Plex Blog covers other functionality from the service. Plex has a selection of free streaming that you can use without running a Plex server. They don't post that often, but if you run a Plex server, it's worthwhile. Even if you don't run a Plex server, you can find updates about their free streaming content. It's worth a shot.

There are more blogs that you may find useful, but these are some that I check every day. If they make your Streaming Life a little easier, then I've done my job in bringing them to you.

College Football Playoffs: A better idea

They announced the four teams in the college football playoffs yesterday, and nobody was happy. Okay, four fan bases were happy. But there were some fan bases that could legitimately claim that their team was one of the four best teams. 

Notre Dame fans feel their team was one of the four best, despite the loss to Cincinnati two months ago. Big XII champ Baylor's two losses were to Oklahoma State, who they beat for the championship in a rematch, and to Texas Christian on an interception with a minute left in the game. Ohio State didn't make the Big Ten title game on a tie-breaker, but has been impressive the last half of the season. Even Mississippi, with two losses, one to SEC champ Alabama and the other to bowl-bound Auburn, can claim to be one of the better teams. This may upset Cincinnati fans, but how many of the top ten ranked teams would have gone 13-0 with the schedule the Bearcats had? I'm thinking all of them.

Regardless, this is what we have. But what we actually have isn't what we should have.

Several of us online -- me and some family and friends with an online presence -- have been proponents of a 16-team playoff for several years. I'll lay out the case for it.

Keep in mind that there is talk of the CFP expanding. Almost all of the schools want that. The sticking point is how many teams make the playoffs. Currently, there are four. One faction wants eight, and another faction wants twelve. We'll probably get twelve, but when that happens is unknown. But twelve isn't enough, at least according to me and my friends.

With 12 teams, you'll have four teams with a first round bye. But there is still that round. Two-thirds of the teams will play one more round. That means if one of those makes the championship, they'll have played one extra game. Upping to 16 levels that. Everyone who makes the second round and beyond will have played the same number of games.

If you have 12, going to 16 won't extend the season at all, because the round already exists. The 12-team plan just has four teams sitting out the first round. So, it would be more fair to have 16 teams rather than 12.

The 12-team format also will call for six conference champions -- the Power 5/Autonomy 5 champions and the highest ranked of the other five -- and the six best of the rest. The 16-team format allows all ten conference champions to make the playoffs. Win the SEC? You're in. Win the MAC? You're in. Win your conference, and you're in. That still leave six spots.

The six at-large spots would be the best teams that didn't win their conference. In the seven years of the CFP prior to this season, four teams that did not win their conference made the playoffs -- Alabama, Ohio State, and Notre Dame (twice) -- with one of those (Alabama) winning the championship.

I prefer that the ten conference champions get the top ten seeds, as a reward for winning their conference. That's how other football leagues do it, but we'll stick with the seeding of the CFP committee. It's more important to be in the field of 16 than where you are in the field of 16.

With that in mind, here's how the playoffs would look this year if they followed this plan:

1. Alabama (SEC)
2. Michigan (Big Ten)
3. Georgia (At-large)
4. Cincinnati (American)
5. Notre Dame (At-large)
6. Ohio State (At-large)
7. Baylor (Big XII)
8. Mississippi (At-large)
9. Oklahoma State (At-large)
10. Michigan State (At-large)
11. Utah (Pac 12)
12. Pittsburgh (ACC)
13. Louisiana (Sun Belt)
14. Texas-San Antonio (Conference USA)
15. Utah State (Mountain West)
16. Northern Illinois (Mid American)

If they put the ten conference champs as the top ten seeds, it would look like this:

1. Alabama (SEC)
2. Michigan (Big Ten)
3. Cincinnati (American)
4. Baylor (Big XII)
5. Utah (Pac 12)
6. Pittsburgh (ACC)
7. Louisiana (Sun Belt)
8. Texas-San Antonio (Conference USA)
9. Utah State (Mountain West)
10. Northern Illinois (Mid American)
11. Georgia (At-large)
12. Notre Dame (At-large)
13. Ohio State (At-large)
14. Mississippi (At-large)
15. Oklahoma State (At-large)
16. Michigan State (At-large)

Whichever seedings you choose, number 1 hosts number 16. Number 2 hosts number 15. Number 3 hosts number 14. And so on. Some of the matchups are really good. Some are not, but that's always the case. In the seven years of the CFP (14 semifinal games) 12 games have been double-digit wins. Only two were one score games.

On the other hand, some of those mismatches may not really be. You never know what a team may do once given the opportunity. Upsets do happen, so you might end up with a surprise or two by the time the title game rolls around.

The plan also calls for eight consolation bowls. First round in mid-December, and the losers would still get a bowl. At least two of those bowls would get conference champions. The four teams that lost in the second round could get a bowl, but I don't really care.

For second round pairings, you could either have a set bracket at the start, or you could have the highest remaining seed hosting the lowest remaining seed, similar to how the NFL does it. Doesn't really matter to me. The most important thing is that teams are rewarded for a great season, with the opportunity to win it all.

What does all this have to do with streaming? Well, other than that's how I watch all my games, nothing specific to streaming. But as a streamer, I appreciate the fact that I can watch any post-season game I want. My Streaming Life is good.

Xumo or Pluto TV

I've not written a lot about Xumo. In fact, I've written very little about it. But I need to.

Xumo might be described as a poor man's Pluto TV. But that would be wrong. Pluto TV is Xumo on steroids. But it just may be that Xumo is a better option than Pluto TV. Here's why.

Content. Now, content is king at Pluto TV. That service has so many different streams available, it's hard to keep up with. In the early days, Pluto TV was a mess. Content was awesome, but it was so hard to find anything. Many of the features didn't work, or didn't work correctly. But they got all that fixed.

Today, Pluto TV is fantastic. But so is Xumo.

It's true that Xumo doesn't have as much as Pluto TV, but that's not really a bad thing. Look at it this way. Remember when you had cable TV, and you were paying for so many channels you didn't watch? It's kinda like that.

Of course, it's not exactly like that, because you paid for cable TV, and both Xumo and Pluto TV are free. But the idea of having more than you need still applies. I mean, it's free, so it's not really a problem. Unless you have to scroll through nearly 100 extra channels in order to find what you want.

Pluto TV has around 250 different streams (channels). Xumo has around 180. But, looking over the streams, there are a lot of the same content. Some of the content is exactly the same. Both carry stream of The Asylum, for instance.

They'll carry some of the same streams. Some is different, but similar type of content. Both will carry streams of action films, or Black cinema, or some other type of movies. The same, but not exactly the same.

Xumo has about 70%-75% of the content that Pluto TV has, with a lot of overlap of same or similar content. Both have quality programming, since Pluto TV is owned by Paramount and Xumo is owned by Comcast.

Which do I prefer? Pluto, but not by much. Xumo is great. Pluto TV is great. You can't really go wrong with either one. Both are a part of my Streaming Life, and should be a part of yours, too.

Christmas movies

Yeah, I know people are always posting about Christmas movies every time the calendar starts showing December up at the top. So do you really need another online post about Christmas movies.

No, not really. But if you are interested in what some say are the best Christmas movies, and how you can watch them streaming, keep reading.

Rotten Tomatoes has a list of the 65 best Christmas movies. Some are movies I didn't even know existed. Some are may favorite movies. And some are movies that some say aren't really Christmas movies. Spoilers: the Rotten Tomatoes list considers Die Hard a Christmas movie.

I'm going to focus on the top of the list, however. On the list are five movies that have a 100% rating. So, if the list is to be believed, these are the five best, and most perfect, Christmas movies. The good news is that all of these are available for Amazon Prime members. If you aren't a Prime member, they are available for rent or purchase from Amazon. But the top two are available on Tubi for free.

1. It's a Wonderful Life (1946)
   • Tubi Watch free
   • Amazon Prime Included with Prime, rent, or buy
2. Miracle on 34th Street (1947)
   • Tubi Watch free
   • Amazon Prime Included with Prime, rent, or buy
3. Holiday Inn (1942)
   • Amazon Prime Included with Prime, rent, or buy
4. The Shop Around the Corner (1940)
   • Amazon Prime Included with Prime, rent, or buy
5. How the Grinch Stole Christmas (1967)
   • Amazon Prime Included with Prime, rent, or buy

Note that the Grinch is actually the classic TV special, where the Grinch is voiced by Boris Karloff and his singing is by Thurl Ravenscroft.

If you're wondering where Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer is, it came it at number 14, three spots behind Die Hard.

If you haven't seen these movies, do give them a watch. They may become a regular part of your Christmastime Streaming Life.

ACC Network to Comcast

Over the last several years, since the College Football Playoff started, the Atlantic Coast Conference has gained a lot more exposure. Every year, the ACC champion has made the playoffs, although at this writing, that's not expected to happen. The only two conferences to have made the playoffs every year have been the ACC and the SEC. The ACC won the last BCS game and made it to the CFP championship four times, winning two.

In the last eight seasons prior to this one, the ACC has been represented very well in the college football post season. Even this year, a down year for the ACC, the conference champion will get a good bowl game. And this success by the ACC in recent years has increased the conference fan base. That means more are watching ACC games on TV. Except for Comcast TV viewers. Well, until now.

Comcast has not carried the ACC Network. For those wanting to watch an ACC game that's not featured on one of the major networks, this has been a problem, since Comcast is one of the largest TV services. Streaming was the only way that Comcast customers could watch ACC Network games. Which I was actually fine with. I stream. But not everybody does.

This week, it was announced that Comcast would carry ACC Network.

...Comcast will distribute ACC Network (ACCN) to its Xfinity customers, allowing fans and followers of the Atlantic Coast Conference to access the multiplatform network in the coming weeks. The availability of ACCN is part of Comcast and The Walt Disney Company’s content carriage agreement renewal that will continue to make Disney’s programming available to Xfinity TV customers.

With the addition of Comcast, ACCN is now fully distributed with every major satellite, telco and digital provider across the country, and available to nearly 90 million households. Further launch details in Comcast’s Xfinity markets will be available in the coming weeks.

While I am an advocate for streaming, the news that Comcast will carry the ACC Network might seem to be good news for "the other side" (non streamers). And it is. But there's an upside for streamers.

You see, being a streamer doesn't mean you can't have cable TV. Streaming is simply another way to watch TV. It doesn't preclude all other means. I stream, but I have an antenna. That's two different ways to watch TV. Cable is simply another way.

Now, to be sure, I dropped cable, and suspect most people could drop cable and stream instead, but keeping cable doesn't mean it was a bad decision. It's just not my decision.

Comcast customers will be able to watch ACC Network when they are away from home. Whether that means on a phone or table, or a stick kept in the suitcase for travel, it's a streaming method that wasn't available before.

Maybe Comcast realized that more and more ACC fans could find out about streaming services when they wanted to watch their team on ACCN. If those ACC fans tried a streaming service and liked it, they might end up dropping cable. Comcast didn't get to be so big by doing stupid stuff. Or at least not for too long.

Of course, this might let ACC fans discover that with ACCN on Comcast, they can now watch streaming when away from home. And that might let them discover what you and I know about streaming. Perhaps this will lead them to including streaming as a part of their everyday activity.

Comcast may have opened the door for many customers to begin a new Streaming Life. I know I enjoy mine.

Bedtime TV

Some people, including one in particular I see in the mirror, like to watch TV when they go to bed. Having the TV on is just something that some people do. I understand it. I used to think it odd, until it became my way of doing things. I understand. I don't like that I need the TV on the go to sleep, but I'm not going to fight it. It works for me. Maybe it works for you, too.

With me, if there isn't a TV going, small sounds wake me up. A constant stream (get it?) of sound keeps little household sounds from waking me. Anyway, I go to sleep with the TV on.

But what about leaving the TV on all night? Some people don't care -- that guy in the mirror, for instance -- but some people do. How do turn the TV off if you're asleep?

Well, some TVs, including Roku TVs, have a sleep timer. It's actually pretty easy to do with a Roku TV. Roku has instructions on doing this:

1. Press Home home button on Roku remote on your Roku remote
2. Scroll and select Settings
3. Select System
4. Select Time
5. Select Sleep timer
6. Choose a time interval (30 minutes, 1 hour, 1.5 hours, 2 hours, 3 hours)

Pretty easy, huh? Yeah. But, what if you don't have a Roku TV? Well, your TV might have that capability, too. But if you're using a Roku attached to a TV, what happens if your TV goes off while Roku is streaming? Well, your Roku continues to stream. While the TV is off. Maybe. Or probably. It depends.

A lot of people don't realize that a separate Roku device won't always stop streaming if you turn the TV off. A Roku TV will stop, of course, but a Roku attached to a TV won't. Not always.

There are settings that allow the Roku to control the TV. This works both ways. Well, best case scenario is that it works both ways. But, that doesn't always happen. Whether it's a bug in the TV, or just a lack of full compatibility, turning off a TV doesn't always stop the Roku from streaming.

Originally, it never did. But, as TVs began supporting CEC better, turning off the TV began to turn off some Roku devices. I would not depend on it happening, if it's really important.

For instance, if you have a data cap, streaming with the TV off (that's what could be happening) will just eat up data and perhaps add up to going over your cap. That's money wasted. Don't waste money.

So, what do you do? Well, what I do is I use the Bandwidth Saver feature. That's on by default, and you have to change the settings to turn it off. But before depending on it, check to make sure it is still enabled. Just to be sure. Here are Roku's instructions on turning off Bandwidth Saver.

1. Press the Home button home button on Roku remote on your Roku remote.
2. Select Settings.
3. Select Network.
4. Select Bandwidth saver.
5. Choose Off.

Of course, choose "On" if you want to turn it on.

That way, if you go to sleep, the Roku will stop streaming after four hours, unless you respond to the notice as it counts down the last several seconds before stopping the stream.

Perhaps you'll find this helpful if your sleep habits aren't working well with your Streaming Life.

Another reason to cut the cord

I cut the cord in 2011. I wanted to save money on cable, and found that dropping cable and streaming TV (along with an antenna) allowed me to do just that. Back then, there weren't services such as Sling TV or other live streaming services. I could buy TV shows from Amazon, iTunes, or some service and watch them (and own them). I could subscribe to Hulu Plus (as it was known back then) and watch them. Or I could watch via an antenna (I had a TiVo, so I would actually record and watch when I wanted).

Anyway, I cut the cord to save money. And I'm sure you're wanting to save money too. But do you really want to learn a new way of watching TV? It's really easy with cable to just watch TV the way you always watched TV. But I was able to make the transition, and so can you. And, you can save money.

How much money can you save? Well, there's no single answer for that. But, if you're a Comcast/Xfinity TV customer, you can save even more money by cutting the cord.

No, there's not some special going on for Comcast/Xfinity customers to get special pricing on streaming content. Rather, Comcast is raising rates at the first of the year. So, that 20% price increase in certain fees you're about to get actually means you'll be saving 20% more, according to a report from The Streamable:

Comcast’s “Broadcast TV Fee” for local channels, that are available for free over-the-air, will now add $19.75 to your bill. While the exact amount differs by market, the Chicago market will see a 20% increase from $16.20 to $19.75 — after increasing from $11.70 in 2019. In fact, that’s a nearly 70% increase in just 2 years from channels that are free over-the-air.

That's a lot of money. I'm not saying that cable TV, or Comcast TV, isn't worth it. I'm saying that you have options, and by streaming, you may just save you some money.

I've been saving money for nearly 11 years by streaming. Perhaps you will find that a Streaming Life is a relief to your wallet.