How To Cut The Cable Cords

Date:  Sep 9, 2014

[Disclaimer:  I don’t really watch a lot of TV.  But I like to test and research how to do things.  So, this blog entry is for research purpose and educational purpose.  That’s it!]

Cut The Cable Cords

OK.  Here is the scenario.

If you do not wish to do the followings:

    1.  Don’t care about watching local TV channels, i.e. Channel 5, Channel 8, etc.

    2.  Don’t want to pay so much money to subscribe Starhub TV or MIO TV.

So, here is what you can do to “cut the cable cords”.  “Cut the cable cords” is a term widely use for the Americans who ditched the traditional cable TV or Satellite TV and subscribed to Netflix, Hulu or Amazon Instant Video.  But that method is not exactly what you looking for.  What you are looking for is an replacement of Live TV.  So, you still need to watch Discovery Channels or HBO channels.  So, what can you do?

 

What I Found

So, after you walk around Sim Lim for a few times.  You will notice that almost all the Sim Lim shops who sell IPTV Set Top Box set is recommending Cloud TV.

So, what is Cloud TV?

Can it really help me to cut the cable cords?

CloudTV URL:  http://cloudtv.bz

CloudTV Download Links:  http://cloudtv.bz/articles/detail/23/

 

What So Good About CloudTV?

Here is what I found out.

1.  It is fast on ViewQwest network.

2.  The streaming is fast and seldom has buffering issues.

3.  Load up is considerably fast.

4.  It has more than 160+ channels.   It has National Geographic, HBO and TVB and many more.

5.  It is NOT FREE.  You need to pay.  In Sim Lim, they sell SGD$80 for 12 months.

6.  You can pay via PayPal within the App itself.

6.  You can pay via PayPal within the App itself.  US$60 ~= SGD$75.

 

How Many Channels Cloud TV Has?

Look at the following video to find out. 

It has about 161 channels.

And most of them are HD quality.

I happened to download the Cloud TV and install on my Minix Neo X7 Android Box.  Let’s scroll thru the channels to see what shows they have.

Wow!  They even have Channels News Asia...

 

Does It Work On My ISP Network?

Sorry, I don’t have so many ISP link at home to test out.  So, pleas refer to the popular Hardware Zone forum for answers.

What I can tell you is how it performed on my 200Mbps ViewQwest network.  Actually the real throughput is about 80Mbps to 90Mbps like that due to my “stupid” network design at home and I actually lost 50%-60% of my bandwidth speed because of using HomePlug Power Ethernet technology to bring Internet from my kitchen washing area to my network cabinet which connected to my structured Cat6 network.

So, what I feel...

1.  It is reasonably fast.  I run the test around 10:30pm which is consider a peak hour.  

2.  Most of the TV streaming are streaming at 500KB-1000KB speed.

3.  Not much buffering.  The App is excellent.

4.  The HD quality is good too.  

5.  Changing channel can be slightly slower than Starhub Cable TV.  But hey, it seems comparable to MIO TV.  hahaha

The following video is running on my ViewQwest ISP network.

I will not know how it performed on Starhub, SingTel, M1 or My Republic.  It is up to you to find out from the HWZ forums.

 

What About Others?

Well, you have Android powered TV set top box.

That means, you have unlimited “power”.  Simply download Apps and test it out.

So, I was testing another App, but this App does not have English shows.

It is called HDP Live TV.  It is quite decent too!

 

Is It Legal?

This is the most important question of all.

At the moment it is hard to say.

I think you read about the news where the government trying to get a bill approved on allowing the TV programs operator to request ISPs to block or remove the capability of viewing Internet content such as copyrighted programs, i.e. HBO and so on.

Until then, Internet is a very open network.  You can get almost everything from the App stores, etc.  

I would say it is grey.

 

Some of my friends ask me about it.  So that is why, I bother to go do a bit of research and trying to find the answers.