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Ask Slashdot: Best Way To Watch TV In 2012?
zaba writes "Once again, I can hear the tell-tale signs of a hard drive dying. This time, it's in the DVR for one of our TVs. In the U.S., are we at a point where, with a little technical savvy, 'cutting the cord' makes sense? If so, what are the best options? Does a refurb Roku (anywhere from 60-80 USD) make the most sense? Does building a mythbox or some such device make sense? For my family of four (ages 36, 30, 13 and 4), we are paying ~100 USD/month for two receivers (one with a DVR). What, in your opinion, is the best option to have TV service in two rooms of the house? Kid's shows could be in one room and adult shows in another. Or, all of it could be on one server (I have computers lying around) that could go to multiple rooms. We like the DVR for the instant access, but saving a hundred bucks a month would be nice as well. I can drop CAT-5 as needed, but Wi-Fi would be preferred. For programming, we currently have 'standard' cable and mostly watch the major networks. I would love to have ESPN, but can get my sports fix (mostly college football) through other means, I'm sure. How do you all watch TV? What have you found to be the best way to get what you want?"
AppleTV is nice, but you'll be paying per show (or season).
Roku is cheap, but not as reliable
Netflix (on either ATV or Roku) and Hulu (on Roku) are monthly services which have decent selection. I'm not sure if Amazon is on Roku.
If you're the adventuresome type, don't mind playing fast and loose with the rules (but don't want to get caught), and have a free weekend, you can try and set up the following on a machine you designate as a server:
sabnzbd - a program to download stuff from the usenet
sickbeard - a program to find TV shows on usenet
couch potato - a program to look for movies on usenet (optional)
jailbreak an ATV2 (they're still out there, right?) and put on either XMBC or, for a little more family friendly (but limited), Plex along with Plex Media Server on your PC.
You will also want a NZB account, like NZBmatrix ($10 for 10 years? Lifetime? who knows) and a Usenet account. Look for deals on Slickdeals.net - on rare occasions you can pick up an unlimited account for $6/mo. I rarely use more than 100GB of TV in a month, so a 1TB chuck for about $50-60 is also good.
You tell sickbeard what shows you want it to find, and what your NZB account password is. When it finds the show you want, it passes the info off to sabnzbd (you input your usenet credentials there) which downloads the blocks of the show,decodes it, names it, and puts it into the directory or your choosing. Couch Potato is similar. I'm sure I've gotten something wrong, but after an hour or two of tutorials out there on the net it's not that bad.
Okay, so that's getting you content - probably over https - is a way that does not expose you to the IP owners of the world like P2P does.
Once your content is on the computer, you can either point your Roku or AppleTV with XBMC installed to it and start watching. I prefer Plex, and my 9 yo and wife found it super easy.
We cut the cable (well, sat) back in January and don't miss it. Oh - I do have antennas for OTA reception for local weather and news.
Using usenet isn't exactly legit, but it's also very, very low risk as you are never uploading or sharing any content with others. It's a nice system if you've got a slower connection, too, as you are downloading the files - not streaming them. It means a day or so delay for shows, but you never have to worry about buffering.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Honestly I've found some of the best news and in-depth segments can be found on Al Jazeera which has free live streaming. Many of their English-speaking reporters/presenters are ex-BBC people and it's proper news (not the fluff found on most US "news" channels). There's even a plugin for integration with XBMC (and possibly others)... Definitely worth a look!