Cord Cutters Unite - Let's Talk Modern Television

I was always a huge fan of DirecTV. For the last 15 years, I've strongly advocated their service to be the gold standard for digital entertainment. The service was good, their support was solid, they were the exclusive provider of the NFL Sunday Ticket, what wasn't there to love?

Over the years, the "cord cutting" trend has picked up great steam, and yet I still resisted. Still paid my $2k a year to the man, and felt smug superiority over the poors streaming their Hulus and whatnot.

But, with this climate of broadcast litigation and carriage disputes, I finally hit my breaking point. 10 minutes before Game 1 of the NBA finals, off went my ABC. Then CBS followed shortly thereafter. The straw the broke the camel's back.

Use an antenna? Are you kidding me, this isn't 1976 where I turn the dial to point some skeletal contraption on my roof toward Canada in order to watch Bachelor in Paradise.

So, my friends, the time has come to embrace the new state-of-the-art, and with all of the myriad streaming options available, the landscape is cluttered and confusing. But, I'm certain there must be a new gold standard, and perhaps this thread can be used to share our experiences in crafting the best digital entertainment packages and set-ups available.

I'll start with my own needs/wants, and hopefully this can illuminate some best practices with what others are doing.

What I like about DirecTV/current traditional service:

1. They have the NFL Sunday Ticket
This is why I will retain service through the end of this season, but I hope beyond hope that after this year it'll be available on one of the other streaming platforms. Probably going to be stuck next year though, as I believe it'll probably be AT&T exclusive through the 2020-2021 season. Arrgh. Probably outside of my control here.

2. DVR Content with No Commercials
No, I will not watch commercials. I must be able to fast forward. Obviously.

3. My DVR Curates Content For Me
This is perhaps what I love best. Subscribe to "season passes" and it automatically records the stuff I want. This is a universal feature and I'm sure is replicated with the streaming providers. BUT, what I truly appreciate is when I pop into my play list and see that it has helpfully recorded the first episode of the new season of Top Chef. While I'm sure that with any of these providers I could go to Bravo and set this to record when the episodes start to air, I can't be bothered to actually know when this stuff is starting and go after it myself.

4. Other Live Sports
Aside from the Sunday Ticket, I do need access to live sporting events on the major broadcast networks, the ESPN family of networks, stuff like Fox Sports/NBC Sports Net, and need the ability to add other regional sports networks as appropriate.

5. Local Channels
The ability to receive my local channels would certainly be a plus.

6. Wide Channel Selection
The more the merrier, ldo.

7. Ability to Interface with Other Streaming Packages
Have subscriptions to Amazon Prime Video, Showtime's streaming package, HBO Now, etc. Probably will be other a la carte stuff that pops up as well, so it'd be a plus to be able to integrate some of that stuff. Not sure if that is a thing.

So where are we at? Looking at some kind of cloud-based DVR type thing that'll interface with some kind of streaming aggregation subscription service. Is there something that exists today that'll tick the boxes?

What are we doing out there, friends?