Did you know that I have almost every gadget under the sun? I don't read books - I have a Sony eReader, I don't buy CDs - I have an iPhone/iPod, and I don't listen to FM - I stream Pandora or listen to Sirius satellite.
I love TV & Movies, and I have a Tivo hooked up 6.1 Stereo Surround Sound, High Definition, 51-inch Sony widescreen. But did you know that I haven't had Cable TV for almost 2 years? Could that possibly be true?
You might ask yourself how this could be possible. How could a man with as many gadgets as I do not even have basic cable? Where do you get your news? What do you do with your time?
Over the years I've found that Cable TV and Satellite TV bills often run anywhere from $50-$100 per month. That's a lot of money. $600-$1200 per year. Think about it. And what are you really getting? A bunch of channels that you'll never watch.
Personally, my dream is IPTV, or a-la-carte per-channel pricing that many people have been proposing. But those technologies are a long way off, so let's deal with the here and now.
Tivo and Over-The-Air HD Programming
Did you know that you can hook a Tivo HD up to a pair of regular old rabbit ears, and suddenly get 10-20 channels of HD programming? Did you also know that it can rec
ord TWO shows at the same time using ONE pair of rabbit ears?
That's right, and it's free, except for the $12.95 monthly subscription. So most major sporting events, news, and network television can be recorded in HD for you to watch later without having any cable or satellite hook-up. Many channels like PBS will provide 2-5 channels of programming, including children's programming, documentary channels, and the regular PBS channels. My Tivo streams internet radio stations, and I can watch YouTube as well.
Hulu.com - Internet TV done right
Did you know you can watch almost all of your favorite shows online with less than half of the advertisements? That's right, many are all online at Hulu.com, and they are available in 480p. Simply hook a HDMI cable up to your laptop or PC, and you have hundreds of movies and the full season of television shows ready to watch immediately on your big screen TV.
Daily Show? Yes. 30 Rock? Yup! Arrested Development? Yes indeed. It's Always Sunny in Philadelpia? Uh-Huh!
The best part of Hulu.com is that the advertisements last only 15-30 seconds between breaks, that's about five times shorter than your regular TV advertisements. Full lengt
h movies are available as well.
Hulu.com is truly TV re-imagined. Is it perfect? No, because it could still provide support for mobile devices like the iPhone or Windows Mobile. But perfect or not, it's very usable.
Netflix for TV and Movies and more
Basically, if you haven't heard of Netflix, you've been living in a cave. Netflix has over 100,000 titles in total, including movies, TV shows, and live performances. Why mention it? Because who needs HBO/Showtime/Etc. when you have a subscription movie service. For the same money I could spend on one month of HBO, I get unlimited movie rentals with Netflix. I always tend to turn to HBO half way through a movie, and often watch parts of a movie several times. Not anymore.
This year, Netflix will be offering streaming by the Roku Box, XBOX 360, and through your browser. Instant gratification, and more selection than ever.
So that's great, what's the downside?
Well, combining the Netflix service and the Tivo service, I'm still paying around $30 per month to get my video entertainment. I don't have access to premium sports packages, such as many NBA and NCAA games - which is a bummer. I also do miss some shows that run on the premium networks like HBO as a series.
However, I realize that I save myself almost $70 per month in the long run. That's $840 per year, and it buys a lot of tickets to major league games, or drinks at the local pub during the game. And really, that experience is much more fun than sitting at home and screaming at my TV. Luckily I live downtown, in Denver, where there are literally professional baseball, basketball, hockey, and football teams within walking distance. I'm not sure the same argument could be made when living in the suburbs.
Even with the drawbacks, I say the best benefit is getting out of the habit of sitting down everyday and watching programs that I don't want to watch just to pass the time. That's what I used to do with cable, and it was killing me one reality show at a time. No more! Now I only watch things that truly interest me, when I actually have nothing better to do.
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5 comments:
You should also check out channelsurfing.net -- It's got a few streaming cable channels (CNN, Cartoon Network, etc.) and lots of streaming sports programming from various markets. Quality is not super high, and I'm not sure how they're doing it, but I've used it to follow my sports teams with a fair amount of success.
I'm stoked about the netflix streaming to the 360... but I won't give up my satellite tv either. No HBO and Sunday Ticket makes Robby a mean boy
we have the netflix roku box, and love it to death!!!
i didnt know about the tivo, although we dont watch tv that much, it be nice to be able to record some of the pbs channels.
can the tivo work and record without a subscription, by manually setting it to record?
I'm glad to hear about the Roku box. I'm seriously considering one, or I might just get the XBOX for $199 since it will do the same thing and play games and stream from OS X. Not sure exactly what I want to do as of yet. Thanks for commenting!
You can get Hulu on the PS3 and Xbox 360 today...
Shameless link to my post on the topic
The software to make it happen
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