Cutting the Cable TV

[twobits]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

1. I had an antenna installed on the house. It is a Winegard HD-1080 that cost me $30 at buy.com. The antenna installation cost me $107.

Over the air tv is these days a better picture in many cases then cable. For cable they take the over the air signal and decompress and reencode it which is of course not lossless. So having an antenna in many cases is a great idea even for those who don't want to 'cut the cord' just yet.


http://antennaweb.org/aw/welcome.aspx is a good place for people in the USA at least to find out just what type of antennas will work for them, what direction they will need to point it and what they can expect to pick up.

I also like the hdhomerun tuner so I can watch tv on computers anywhere in the house.

2. I called and canceled my TV service. I was paying $135 a month to Verizon for Phone/TV/Internet. I was getting no premium content and I had 20/5 internet and a phone with no long distance or other goodies. I moved to a "FiOS Double play" which includes a Freedom Essentials phone service w/ caller id, call waiting, three-way calling, voice mail, etc. and 25/25 internet. This is $84.99 a month plus fees/taxes and I went for the 2-year commitment so that price will be the same for two years. I was going to drop the landline too.. but the internet price without any bundle was only $5 less than getting the phone bundled with it. So, $5 for the phone is worth it.

Your offers seems a bit different then what my parents where getting. They got tempted to get the tv/phone/inet bundle recently. It was $119 if I remember right, instead they got the 15/5 plan for $55 a month and then netflix for another $9 a month.

3. I set up uTorrent's RSS downloader to pull down TV shows that I can't record from the antenna. I found a great web site that custom creates an RSS feed for you with the shows you want. It is called showRSS. BTW: Only the Windows version of utorrent has the RSS Downloader. But... there are Mac RSS d/l'ers you can get too.

I did not set them up with torrents. Not going to set them up for getting any of those pay up or be sued messages. So far with the antenna and hulu desktop on an htpc, and a roku box for netflix they have not seemed to want anything else.

4. I have been using pyTivo running on my Mac so I can watch the downloaded shows on my TiVo attached to my HDTV. This works pretty well but is one item I want to upgrade.

May be able to use freevo since it is in python so should run on a mac.

You might also want to add hulu desktop into your mix, running that on an htpc.

4. Blockbuster DVD by mail. We can have 3-movies out at a time... and we can turn in a mailed one to the store and get a movie from the store 5 times a month. We might move to Netflix so we can get the streaming though... however I hear that Sony just stopped allowing them to stream Sony movies in HD.

You still get the dvd's by mail with netflix and the streaming in addition to that. With the roku box and starting at $9 a month I find it a hard deal to beat.

[Seanette]

I'd cut out cable if it were feasible, but of the four shows we watch on any sort of regular basis, three are not available in any format that works for us (not on Hulu or Amazon, Netflix doesn't have one at all and only has a subset of old episodes of the other two, and the channels themselves do not offer online episodes (only excerpts), and I really don't think our hardware supports torrented stuff being transferred to the TV itself).

[thrawn_aj]

Here's a nice article that collects all the options together (including where to get content and so on). It appeared in the print issue of Wired recently and was an enjoyable read. The online version appears to be expanded and linked.

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by Seanette

I'd cut out cable if it were feasible, but of the four shows we watch on any sort of regular basis, three are not available in any format that works for us (not on Hulu or Amazon, Netflix doesn't have one at all and only has a subset of old episodes of the other two, and the channels themselves do not offer online episodes (only excerpts), and I really don't think our hardware supports torrented stuff being transferred to the TV itself).

What shows? What type of hard ware do you have? Do you have a TiVo, or XBox or Play Station?

BOb

[Seanette]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

What shows? What type of hard ware do you have? Do you have a TiVo, or XBox or Play Station?

BOb

We have a Roku box and our computers on DSL, plus a rather old CRT-based TV (purchased ca. 11 years ago). DH is hooked on "The Event", we both like "Mythbusters", I like "Dirty Jobs" and "The Smoking Gun Presents", and there's some stuff on BYU-TV I find of interest.

On further research, I've found that both Amazon and iTunes are reasonably current for new episodes of the first three, iTunes does OK with TSG, and I get along decently with streaming on my computer for stuff DH doesn't have a significant interest in (he really prefers to watch on the TV vs. computer, I'm more flexible).

I had thought Roku had an iTunes channel, but now can't find it (I posted a question on their Facebook page). Amazon plays nicely with the Roku, so that's OK (I was apparently mistaken earlier about their selection on the shows I want). Another post in this thread led me to clicker.com, which looks helpful.

DH isn't opposed to cutting cable as long as he can watch the stuff he's interested in , and even buying a season's access at a time from Amazon or iTunes is cheaper than my cable bill. I may well be bidding Comcast farewell soon.

[pilotbob]

The Event you can get with an antenna... Mythbusters and Dirty Jobs are both easy to find and download. (the showrss lists them both.) That fourth one... no idea.

BOb

[daffy4u]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

Yea, like I said.... "if possible". You could always get one of those MoCA pairs if you have a coax run. Although, powerline should be good enough.

I must have missed where you said you were using powerline adapters.

BOb

I fixed my glitchy streaming problem. I updated the firmware for my powerline adapters (didn't even remember installing software when I bought them). It seems to have fixed the problem and I'm streaming like crazy now.

BTW, Tekzilla has a review of the Boxee Box this week.

[Seanette]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

The Event you can get with an antenna... Mythbusters and Dirty Jobs are both easy to find and download. (the showrss lists them both.) That fourth one... no idea.

BOb

In my building, antenna is useless, sorry to say. You just can't get watchable picture quality.

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by Seanette

In my building, antenna is useless, sorry to say. You just can't get watchable picture quality.

ah... well, you can d/l the Event too.

BOb

[daffy4u]

I've come across a new series of online videos called "Cordcutters". The hosts discuss various products to employ in cord cutting and interview people and ask them about their set-ups.

They only have 6 episodes so far but they could still be helpful.

[BenG]

[BenG]

I bought the new 2nd generation Apple TV last weekend. It's just a small box for streaming content and no hard drive unlike the previous models. I can watch content bought from the iTunes Store on my TV. Also Netfix, YouTube, and through iTunes on my computer my music, photos, podcasts, Internet radio, and any Apple compatible videos(Quicktime and MP4).

[pilotbob]

If someone can get Plex 9 client running on the Apple TV gen2... I will snap up 3 of them.

I have been very happy with d/l'ing shows from the internet. It is working well. I keep going back and forth on whether I should keep my TiVo or not. The only thing I really need it for is the foot ball game. Many times I will record it and start watching 1/2 or more after it starts so I can skip through the commercials and time-outs.

BOb

[Darqref]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

If someone can get Plex 9 client running on the Apple TV gen2... I will snap up 3 of them.

I have been very happy with d/l'ing shows from the internet. It is working well. I keep going back and forth on whether I should keep my TiVo or not. The only thing I really need it for is the foot ball game. Many times I will record it and start watching 1/2 or more after it starts so I can skip through the commercials and time-outs.

BOb

I'm considering options for a family vacation spot, not occupied all the time. We're out in the boonies, and no cable available. Satellite is a pain due to trees in the wrong spot, but, low and behold, the local phone co is saying they have DSL available. They're offering a fairly slow speed connection, which brings up the following question(s):

How do you deal with the combination of a slow(er) speed connection and streaming HD content? If all that I can get (to stream) is standard def content, then that's a minus. Is there a legal way to obtain the HD stuff that would normally be streamed?

I know that I could get any legal content that could be downloaded, but one attractive option would be to use Netflix or similar streaming content on the spur of the moment. What would you recommend?

[pilotbob]

I'm not sure if it is "legal" but my personal opinion is if it is broadcast for free over-the-air or available for free on the internet I see no problem d/l'ing it.

So, pretty much any network show (and some from the cable networks) is easily downloadable using a torrent client. I use a combination of uTorrents auto-rss downloader and a feed from showrss.karmorra.info. I have the d/l's put into an external "medialibrary" hard drive I have. That drive is shared out with pyTivo so I can watch the shows with my TiVo.

So, bottom line, I do very little streaming over the net. Even though I have a 25/25 internet connection and I could. Although, I can never stream YouTube stuff at 720p... I'm sure that's a youtube issue and not my personal bandwidth.

BOb