Streaming services & cord-cutting

[Ashful]

Again, being a younger guy, I grew up with video games as a primary medium of entertainment.

So did I! First we had Pong, released by Radio Shack, and then an Atari 2600! The original Nintendo hit when I was in middle school, I burned countless hours on the 8 x 4 levels that were the original Super Mario Bros.

Funny side story, I recently pulled out and refurbished my old Atari 2600, and now my 15 year old son is absolutely hooked on Space Invaders and Pitfall! He honestly said, "these old games are way better than the newer games." I was so proud.

I just bought him Donkey Kong, so he could see from where Mario originally came, we'll probably get to play that next weekend.

To me, setting up a media server with legally obtained content and building a digital collection like we did these years ago with video game carts, VHS, DVDs, etc. is almost becoming viable again.

I have an NAS with some old VHS and DVD content copied to it, but I'm honestly not in the mode of re-watching anything I've seen in the last 20 years, other than the obligatory Christmas repeats each year. I'm always seeking "new to me" content, currently working my way into El Camino, the Jesse Pinkman spinoff from Breaking Bad. Thankfully Netflix carries that whole franchise.

My son recently discovered Friends, and since I never really paid attention to that series when it was on, now I'm watching those for the first time, with him. Before that, it was Last Man Standing, and before that was I Love Lucy and then Bewitched... the classics always deliver.

I find it funny when big streaming services make a big deal out of bringing 30 year old sitcoms to their platform when the whole collection sits on a shelf at a Goodwill for 5 bucks that you can backup and watch anytime on your smart TV.

True, but there's cost in maintaining local storage, especially if you keep it backed up to any secondary source. Segregating part of your NAS or home server off, just because you happen to have DVD backups of some of your content, also requires energy and attention to detail, beyond what most (rightfully) want to invest.

I somewhat miss rabbit ears and the rotary phone.
The simplicity of that life had it's own value.

True. But more energy went into scheduling your life around accessing the good content, and avoiding the garbage. Today, if I find myself awake at 3am, I can still access my favorite show or movie right then, versus being stuck with garbage infomercials at that time, and having to miss other activities to be in front of the TV to avoid missing a program.

I remember being in an organization called Indian Guides, sort of like Cub Scouts for young kids, but more focused on father/son cooperation, and remember well the monthly meeting being canceled so that the fathers could be home to watch the airing of the final episode of M*A*S*H. Today, they'd just stream it after the meeting!

The other thing I find when talking about "old TV", is that people have very selective memory, remembering the one good program while forgetting the 20 contemporaries of absolute crap. For every All In the Family or MASH, there were 20 - 50 other programs on that week, which were so absolutely terrible, you'd be embarrassed to even remember them. As bad as content is today, the lower margin of it is vastly more sophisticated than 50 years ago.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

The weak spot on the 2600 was the joystick, lol.

 

[bigealta]

Space invaders in the local bar/restaurant down the street from where i grew up.
Do do do do do do do do shoot shoot shoot bang. Do do do do do do. Loved that game.
Fed a lot of quaters in that machine.

2 nd favorite game was "hang on" the motorcycle driving game.

 

[Ashful]

Started a new thread for the Atari talk:

Thread 'Atari 2600 and other old gaming systems'

Jan 13, 2025

Continued from another thread...

Again, being a younger guy, I grew up with video games as a primary medium of entertainment.

So did I! First we had Pong, released by Radio Shack, and then an Atari 2600! The original Nintendo hit when I was in middle school, I burned countless hours on the 8 x 4 levels that were the original Super Mario Bros.

Funny side story, I recently pulled out and refurbished my old Atari 2600, and now my 15 year old son is absolutely hooked on Space Invaders and Pitfall! He honestly said, "these old games are way better than the newer games." I was so...

• Ashful
• Replies: 8
• Forum: The Inglenook

• 

 

[EatenByLimestone]

I was working at a house tonight and the guy was a big 2600 fan! He went inside and came out with some game he was really excited about, lol.

 

[all night moe]

So did I! First we had Pong, released by Radio Shack, and then an Atari 2600! The original Nintendo hit when I was in middle school, I burned countless hours on the 8 x 4 levels that were the original Super Mario Bros.

Funny side story, I recently pulled out and refurbished my old Atari 2600, and now my 15 year old son is absolutely hooked on Space Invaders and Pitfall! He honestly said, "these old games are way better than the newer games." I was so proud.

I just bought him Donkey Kong, so he could see from where Mario originally came, we'll probably get to play that next weekend.


I have an NAS with some old VHS and DVD content copied to it, but I'm honestly not in the mode of re-watching anything I've seen in the last 20 years, other than the obligatory Christmas repeats each year. I'm always seeking "new to me" content, currently working my way into El Camino, the Jesse Pinkman spinoff from Breaking Bad. Thankfully Netflix carries that whole franchise.

My son recently discovered Friends, and since I never really paid attention to that series when it was on, now I'm watching those for the first time, with him. Before that, it was Last Man Standing, and before that was I Love Lucy and then Bewitched... the classics always deliver.


True, but there's cost in maintaining local storage, especially if you keep it backed up to any secondary source. Segregating part of your NAS or home server off, just because you happen to have DVD backups of some of your content, also requires energy and attention to detail, beyond what most (rightfully) want to invest.


True. But more energy went into scheduling your life around accessing the good content, and avoiding the garbage. Today, if I find myself awake at 3am, I can still access my favorite show or movie right then, versus being stuck with garbage infomercials at that time, and having to miss other activities to be in front of the TV to avoid missing a program.

I remember being in an organization called Indian Guides, sort of like Cub Scouts for young kids, but more focused on father/son cooperation, and remember well the monthly meeting being canceled so that the fathers could be home to watch the airing of the final episode of M*A*S*H. Today, they'd just stream it after the meeting!

The other thing I find when talking about "old TV", is that people have very selective memory, remembering the one good program while forgetting the 20 contemporaries of absolute crap. For every All In the Family or MASH, there were 20 - 50 other programs on that week, which were so absolutely terrible, you'd be embarrassed to even remember them. As bad as content is today, the lower margin of it is vastly more sophisticated than 50 years ago.

This is true. When there wasn't anything on TV, including cable with the box on the 30' cable with 30 channels of pop up buttons, we all would sit around the coffee table and play board games, cards, and the like. It had a different meaning to family values. Not that there isn't any today. It was different but, it was okay. UNO was a favorite. I remember Pong too. That was a cool game for its time. It was at my grandparents. My dad never let me have Atari or Coleco. He didn't want me playing ''mindless'' games. I think it's really cool though that you got your boy into those old classics. Good father son time.

Okay, I'm kinda feeling old remembering all that. Time flies. Especially with age.

 

[Ashful]

I think the old games we revisit today are the "best", because we only keep the good ones! Over the years, I've played a lot of Battleship, Mastermind, Boggle, and Trivial Pursuit with my kids, as they've aged through the ideal range for each of those games. They're all great... which is why we've kept them. I'm sure there were equally as many terrible games that we've forgotten, we garage-sale'd or tossed those.

The same goes for old houses. "They don't build them like they used to," should be "we tore down and replaced all those that weren't very good".

Getting back to cord cutting and streaming, I'm getting to re-watch old sitcoms with the kids now. I do wish I could get them interested in some old action, westerns, or drama, but so far only comedy interests them.

 

[Wood1Dennis]

We cut the cord / Dish network about two years back. We got sick of them raising the rate every year and having to call to beg them to reduce it. We were up to $140/year for just Dish TV. When we threatened to cut them off, by the second call they were down to $47 / month for a year!! My wife almost caved, but we held strong and haven't looked back.

We are fortunate to get good over the air TV. I have a 50' TV antenna tower and we get about 40 locals with all of the major networks present. The thing that held us back for a long time was the DVR. I could take or leave most of the Dish network offerings, my wife struggled more, but with good locals it was really the DVR that we would have missed the most.

To get around that I purchased TABLO. It is essentially an over the air DVR. With a 2TB hard drive plugged into it and it has capacity to DVR 100s of hours of TV. TABLO also streams some of its own content. I works just like the DVR, program it to record a show, or a series, pause live TV, etc. It runs on our wireless network so I get it through my ROKU streamers on any TV on the property. The best thing about the DVR is skipping over the adds, unlike most of the streaming stations now that lock up the adds so you can't skip them. The TABLO can be really frustrating at times, it can be glitchy, locks up sometimes and has to be re-booted. A couple of months back they were having problems with the channel guide. It would just not download the guide and did not work. It can be frustrating, but with no monthly charges it is a good option. We also stream Prime (we have Prime for Amazon anyway), Netflix, Discovery, Peacock, a sports network, and that works pretty well for us at a fraction of what we were paying for Dish.

I agree with the ever increasing frustration of adds that can't be skipped and more and more fracturing of the services. I was able to stream local NBA and MLB teams on Bally sports this past year, but Bally went bankrupt. Now MLB is moving to Prime but with an added cost. So if I want to get both I will have to pay for the Prime up-charge and Fandual. They do find ways to get you.....

 

[bigealta]

My fios just went up $20. I'm so sick of them. They raise the price multiple times a year.

 

[djlew]

My fios just went up $20. I'm so sick of them. They raise the price multiple times a year.

They do that to me every year or so. I always have to call them and say I have a price/bill/plan complaint and 9 times out of 10 I will either get "more speed" for maybe $5 more a month (better than $20) or I say I will pay for the tier below and it's either cheaper or they offer to just keep the price the same. It's all about the "promotions they have going on right now" they tell me.

 

[JohnCrawford]

Now I have to admit I am a younger guy compared to a lot of folks on the forum, but I feel like I have a good amount of experience in this realm. I remember convincing my parents to switch from Comcast to a less "centralized" type of service which ended up being "services". As far as value, I do think that picking and choosing streaming platforms is a cheaper way to go, but not always the best these days in terms of value.

For example: I want to watch X show, but it is only available on Y service. Y service is bundled with Z internet provider, but I need a two year contract with Z to get the quote unquote "best deal" to watch X. Don't worry though, Z internet provider will definitely raise your rate after that contract. All of that guesswork goes away by getting the, in my opinion, antiquated triple play type of services minus these increases in fees and what not. Services with less monthly costs do seem more manageable, but you are limiting your availability as far as what you are able to watch. Ask most people though, and in terms of value you are getting hundreds of channels from a Comcast type provider and only watching 3.

Again, being a younger guy, I grew up with video games as a primary medium of entertainment. A lot of video game companies today are either refusing to release their legacy content in an accessible way so we are stuck having to pay a pretty penny for the hardcopy because everybody thinks a copy of mario bros. is worth an arm and a leg, or you end up pirating the content and then multi billion dollar corporations are surprised when there is an uptick of such and crack down on family sharing (cough cough Netflix).

Not advocating for anything, but I do feel like we are getting to a point where these "triple play" type of services are becoming viable again. Companies like Apple, Netflix, etc. know we will pay for a few months of their service to watch ONE SHOW when the new season comes out. As a kid, I spent a lot of time playing video games, and it was a real adventure for me to find rare cartridges for old consoles. It was not that easy, because it was not always possible to find exactly the game you were interested in. Sometimes you had to go to exchange markets or hope for luck to buy something worthwhile. But on the other hand, now you have to pay a lot of money for everything. Sometimes you just don’t want to buy anything anymore and I just read about the news in the world of games. Recently I read on https://gamblizard.ca/blog/a-simple-guide-to-craps-rules/ about a guide to the rules of the game of craps. This is how I calm my nervous system. I just started to get annoyed by these endless subscriptions and duplicate content. Everything creates a feeling that I have no control over anything. You can cancel after the fact, but it's a messy solution in my opinion, and takes the convenience out of it like it was promised all these years ago.

To me, setting up a media server with legally obtained content and building a digital collection like we did these years ago with video game carts, VHS, DVDs, etc. is almost becoming viable again. I find it funny when big streaming services make a big deal out of bringing 30 year old sitcoms to their platform when the whole collection sits on a shelf at a Goodwill for 5 bucks that you can backup and watch anytime on your smart TV.

End of my soapbox, sorry for the rant!

I've had similar issues, especially when I started going back to older games and movies. It's sad.