Get a 1-year SelectTV subscription for $14.99
A Cheapskate exclusive! This cord-cutter's friend -- normally $36 -- aggregates a wealth of streaming TV, movies and more. Plus: a $29 all-in-one!
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It's been a little over a year since I last wrote about SelectTV, so I'd say it's high time for another deal.
And here it is: For a limited time, Cheapskate readers can get a one-year SelectTV subscription for $14.99. Regular price: $36.
What the heck is SelectTV? It's not a content provider; it's a content aggregator. That means it collects the internet's wealth of streaming stuff -- TV shows and movies, live and on-demand, free and not free -- and organizes it under one simplified roof.
This solves a big challenge for any TV cord-cutter: figuring out where and how to watch various shows and movies. It also restores (after a fashion) the fun of channel-surfing, something you lose when you ditch cable in favor of fully on-demand viewing -- Hulu , Netflix and so on.
Suppose, for example, you no longer have cable, but want to watch the current season of "The Good Place." You could do some searching to remind yourself which network it's on, then get that network's app, sift through the various shows to find that one... and so on. You get the idea.
With SelectTV, you search for "The Good Place," then click the episode you want to watch. Done. Definitely a little easier. Meanwhile, the service can stream news, including local stations, plus sports, kids' shows and more.
This is a particularly good source for free movies. I found the likes of "Mission Impossible III," "True Grit" and "War of the Worlds" -- but remember this is just aggregating them from various sources. For any given movie, you may need to sign into your account on the likes of TubiTV or Vudu.
Ultimately, there's lots and lots of content, all of it searchable, much of it free. (There's a handy toggle switch that lets you view all available content or only the free stuff.) If you have subscriptions to the likes of, say, CBS All Access or Hulu, you can sign in to make that content accessible here as well. And SelectTV offers something akin to JustWatch, meaning if you search for something not immediately available through the service, you'll see where it is available.
There are some caveats, however. The Android and iOS apps need to be side-loaded -- most likely to work around content restrictions -- which is kind of a hassle. But the big one is there's no easy way to access SelectTV on your TV. It really works best on a PC, in a browser. You can run an HDMI cable from PC to TV, or "cast" content via an Apple TV or Google Chromecast .
Consequently, I'm not convinced this is an ideal solution for everyone. But it does simplify things for cord-cutters, and it definitely connects you with a lot of streaming content you might not have found otherwise.
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Your thoughts?
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