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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?"
By looking at it.
HD TiVo w/ Antenna Broadcast HD channels
ESPN via XBox Live
My TiVo, BluRay, Xbox, Receiver, and TV can all stream:
Netflix
Hulu Plus
Amazon Prime
The Roku Box fills all of my TV watching needs.
I would have recommended a Roku or AppleTV with Netflix and Hulu Plus.... but Hulu Plus just started running political ads. Arrrgghh. Amazon Prime is a nice to have, but not needed. I rarely find something there that Netflix doesn't have.... unless you want reality tv stuff or those "dirty job" type shows. Amazon Prime streaming seems to have those in spades.
Have you found anything worth watching yet? Whenever I hear about something good I check it out, but it just seems like shit to me. Game of thrones? Lord of the rings with tits. Caprica 1? Zzzzz. Walking Dead? Nothing ever happens - there's a strict 5 zombies per episode limit (apart from the last episode - perhaps it's the same 5 zombies over and over, though).
Loads of talk of 3D, google/apple/whatever tv, but if it's just the same old shit then it seems like a waste of a lot of money. Just stick the good stuff on the net so we can watch it whenever.
is not to watch tv. seriously, it sucks.
Sit in front of the box and open your eyes
I made the switch from cable to XBMC. Well we still get our internet through the cable company, but no longer do I get television through them. There's plenty of free streaming plugins in XBMC. And I have a server in another part of the house that hosts digital copies of TV shows and movies that stream over the wireless to a seamless picture and sound. I subscribe to Amazon Prime and get a lot of TV shows that way. It is very DIY, but once it is working, it is great.
I love the smell of napalm in the morning....
What have you found to be the best way to get what you want?
I just flash my titties..
I have been without cable or satelite for a year now. I have MythTV setup with dual tuner which captures OTA programs. After the shows get recorded an automated process converts the mpeg2 files into mpeg4 for lower file size and easy to stream in home network format. On the front end I have 4 apple TV connected to 4 TVs in different rooms. Each of them is running XBMC on it which streams the recorded programs from MythTV. My network is a mix of WIFI G and ethernet over power line. Works fairly well. Only problem is I can't watch live tv on the Apple TV because uncompressed mpeg2 is too much to stream. And the Apple TV are too underpowered to decode it properly. I get channel lineup information from schedulesdirect on yearly subscription. Anything I missed? My only gripe is not having sports access. This year missed NBA completely. :(
I've learned not to try to tell people what to do, especially since they rarely listen (like my brother who spent $70/month on Dish when I had advised spending 1/3 that amount). Instead I tell them what works for me and let them decide:
SETUP 1 :
- free TV via an antenna. Attached to all the rooms in the house. Both an old VCR and DVR that I use to tape stuff while I'm sleeping.
- supplemented by Hulu.com over PC or roku
- supplemented by DVD purchases of shows not on hulu (like Games of Thrones). Supplemented by uTorrent if the DVD has not been released yet.
- I also read a lot of mystery or sci-fi magazines online if nothing's on.
SETUP 2 (if I lived where antennas are not allowed)
- $25 a month Dish service for cable on two sets
- supplemented by hulu, DVD, torrent, et cetera
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
As it stands right now, an HTPC is going to do the most separate functions, but it's not necessarily the best option for all services. Here's my cord-cutter setup, and it works great for me:
Roku for Amazon, Hulu+, Netflix: Clean interface, super low-power, remote easy enough for my daughter to learn at 4. You also get the 300+ other channels for Roku, plus a bunch of awesome private channels (and the ability to create your own, if you're so inclined). It's NOT a local streaming machine, though it's possible via a variety of hacks. Overall, we use this the most.
HTPC for DVR functions and various internet stuff: I like Windows Media Center, but there are a bunch of different free flavors out there, depending on what hardware and software you're using. It's a great DVR for our OTA signal, plays every format available for downloaded stuff, and handles DVD rips by default. It's also the best way to play the stuff that content providers won't allow on Roku-style set-top boxes, like standard Hulu. Oh, and it does music, too, of course.
TV Tuner for OTA: I use my HTPC for this sometimes, but really like the speed and ease-of-use of using the built-in TV tuner. YMMV.
The main point here is that no one device is necessarily going to do everything you want it to, or not in the way you want it. A HTPC is the most versatile, but not always the prettiest or easiest for everyone in the family (if you're techie but your spouse/kids aren't, for example). I love my Rokus, and they're so cheap that it wasn't a big deal to get one for every TV. I don't miss cable at all.
You should have a home file server where everyone keeps everything. RAID 6 it. That way you never have to worry about dying hard drives.
Put RTorrent on it with a watch directory. Sign up to a private TV torrent tracker with an RSS feed. Download the torrents linked to by those feeds into your watch directory. Share the torrent directory via Samba.
Put a PC with XBMC anywhere you want to watch TV. Add your samba share as a source. You're done.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
No, seriously.
I got rid of mine a few years ago, and I have no idea (not a clue) how I ever had time to watch it.
It's incredible how much time it takes to watch your TV! In the absence of TV you will devote that time to other pursuits. And *any* other pursuit, including sleeping or picking lint out of your navel, is more valuable to you than watching TV.
The other thing that happened was that my desensitization to the crap on TV abated. Now, watching TV is torture: I cannot believe how horribly bad it is relative to anything else. I don't know whether it was always that bad and I was used to it, or whether it has *really* gone downhill in the last 5 years.
For the record, I am probably around average when it comes to productivity, engagement, and intellectual ability: this is not the pronouncement of a Harvard professor, just an ordinary IT manager who is sick of looking at screens when he gets home.
The best way to watch "TV" is to buy DVDs from past eras and watch the shows on your time, not the networks's schedules. This also gets rid of the commercials and only the better ones make it to DVD.
Well, not exactly what you want but I am working on my Raspberry Pi to make it an HTPC. I have a Network Attached Storage (NAS) - well, actually it is a Pogoplug but a real NAS would be better - connected to a Wi-Fi router. I have installed the latest Raspbmc (http://www.raspbmc.com/) in the Raspberry Pi (http://www.raspberrypi.org/), and with a wireless keyboard it works great. The Raspberry Pi have an ethernet card but I am thinking to buy a Wi-Fi dongle and use it instead of wired network.
It is easily feasible to 'cut the cord' provided you are not too demanding in your programming requirements. In any reasonably-large city you can easily pull down all the major networks in HD over the air with a small digital antenna and a pc-HDTV card or equivalent. Quality is reputed to be even better than the quality of HD cable. Many other shows are easily available through your browser at nearly the same time they are broadcast. If you *must* see the latest HBO series, well, then choices are either to bend over and pay, or break the law and fire up the rationalization engine.
One notable exception is that if you are a big sports fan you will definitely miss live programming on ESPN.
Me? I've been watching only broadcast TV using Myth for over 10 years. That's $6,000 saved so far, minimum.
XBMC on a small 1080p capable system (even a $35 Raspberry Pi will do), XBMC Remote on an Android device as the remote control, and optionally a file server for locally stored content. The library for movies and TV season DVDs. We cut the cord years ago.
Can You Say Linux? I Knew That You Could.
you could [run Netflix] with a computer as well. Biggest pain would be using a keyboard and mouse
That's what a tray table is for. You put the wireless keyboard and trackball on the tray while picking a show, and once the show starts, you put them away to make room for your microwave dinner.
I spent a long time without cable watching everything off a hard drive or Netflix, but I'm back to cable + a DVR. I really just love flipping through channels, and having everything instantly on in HD. I felt like watching TV only off Netflix and my hard drive had me making too many of the choices, and I got into a rut. I admit I have weird taste in TV and so maybe it's not for everyone, but cable + DVR is definitely my preference.
This may not be considered the best option in some views, but ive found that just downloading tv works a lot better than any of the legitimate services or cable companies. You can generally get rss feeds from most torrent sites and then set keywords so it automatically grabs the stuff you usually watch. You will need to timeshift your programming according to the whims of the encoders and release groups, as someone who hasnt paid for tv subscription in years, I can tell you that is only a very minor inconvienience.
Supplement that with services such as hulu, and you are good to go.
Dish or DirectTV both have great packages and great multi-room DVR systems, mostly without the worry of babysitting your downloads or pissing off your ISP with torrent downloads.
Similar, Ceton makes a fantastic 4-tuner cable-card that works great with Windows Media Center, albeit after a sometimes difficult setup. Media Center then integrates nicely with things like Netflix.
If your goal is to easily watch TV, then keep paying for cable or Dish/Direct and upgrade DVR systems.
If your goal is to cut the cord, deploy a good internet-enabled Blu-Ray player with DivX/x264 support in each room and get yourself some Netflix.
My only gripe is not having sports access. This year missed NBA completely. :(
You could always buy a season ticket to watch your local college or D-League team. Yes, I know that's not for everybody, such as someone with a family or someone who follows multiple sports.
If all you want to do is cut the cord and don't want to waste time with too many technical details and have lots of money, buy a new television. Most come with DLNA servers built in and all the standalone library devices you may want to add can support it. They also support most of the major streaming providers like Netflix, Amazon, and Youtube. As well, most can do wireless and some even have DVR functionality built in for recording over the air broadcasts.
I find the best way is to:
have a usenet subscription...
install sabnzbd+ to download 'news' items
install sickbeard and use it to automatically send new episodes to sabnzbd+
use xbmc running on a low power computer plugged into your tv to watch any new episodes, you can even set sickbeard up to notify xbmc of when an episode has been downloaded
-- Sex is the antonym of pringles. Once you pop it's time to stop.
1. Write down every feature you want
2. Write down all the shows you like to watch on a regular basis
3. Determine the other means of obtaining those shows other than pay tv (Antenna, Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, etc)
4. Decide the best choice for you by what features and shows you want
We went through this couple years ago and settled on a Tivo with an Antenna. We supplement with Netflix and Amazon.
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?
No it isn't. Ignorance is the prison of the mind.
I lie how you think learning about math and science is some sort of prison.
Not every one sits around watching shows about fat couple with a nagging wife.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Am I the only person that thinks it's absurd that I can purchase a 100 megabit downstream link from my cable provider but can't watch a particular TV show without being forced to purchase a 70 dollar/month (with 2 year commitment) bundled package? (From the same company)
I have a connection to a network where I can grab data from anywhere on the planet, but TV shows come via an obsolete channel switched bitstream on a schedule designed to extract advertising dollars in exchange for my valuable time.
The media companies have spoken, and they aren't interested in selling me content. So I don't buy it. The few shows worth watching are available at the usual places and you can watch them at your leisure. Paying for content sends the wrong message. When you pay, you're buying 20 minutes of advertising. When you pay, you're telling them you're willing to sit there in front of the TV when they tell you to.
Given the exploitative nature of traditional TV packaging, they should be paying you to watch. Not the other way around.
I run MythTV, and it's pretty nice (can be combined with a storage server, and in my case, a workstation). Still feels like recording songs off the radio, but the quality is good and the TV industry are only just now starting to provide fair alternatives. (the reason i have a DVR is to watch stuff when I want. Let me know when you can give me that with streaming, without arbitrarily pulling content.) Mythtv is a bit "temperamental" in my experience, and it provides a reasonable interface that could have been better. You can use mythtv with over-the-air digital TV and supplement with other services if necessary
I haven't had a TV for 15 years or so.
Strangely, I find myself able to form my own political viewpoints and impression of what's going on.
Netflix and iTunes for movies and commercial-free old tv series. News sites for news.
Go to the pub to watch big sports events like Stanley cup and World Cup soccer (the vibe is better than the living room anyway).
Olympics etc come online now too. Not a fan of (the mostly non-foot variety of) football, so no problem at all there with weekly sports viewing.
Only thing is, Canadian Netflix and iTunes movie and tv show selection sucks sucks sucks due to separate licensing agreements for the content compared to in US. It's like spending an hour in a video rental store trying to find a movie that you haven't seen that actually wasn't straight to DVD. Most of their selection is "wasn't good enough for the big screen" crap or something from pre-1965. Almost bad enough to make you want to get a TV or a US proxy net connection and fake US zip code and US bank VISA card, but not quite.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
you can call the cable to get a new box or switch to a dish or DIRECTV.
Im so tired of this.
I leaned a new lick watching peter frampton last week. Was that a waste?
My kids and I had a discussion regarding quantum physics because of something we watched on TV. Was that a waste?
My kids no more about our solar system then most kids their age because of some of the television we watch. Is that bad?
My kids want to build things over the summer because of something they say on TV. Is that bad?
My daughter likes doing experiments because of mythbusters. Is that bad?
I have used TV tio teach my kids about advertising shenanigans. Was that bad?
I could list a 1000 ways TV is good.
Is there stuff on TV that is horrible drivel and nonsense? yes. But to dismiss all of TV because of that is no different then burning down all the library's because they have a copy of twilight.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I was in your exact position (minus the kids) in January, and I settled on a bit of a hybrid system. I have a Blu-Ray player to play my existing (past) movie collection. For Netflix and some Hulu Plus streaming I have a Roku HD; it also supports Amazon Prime and a plethora of other channels that I haven't dug into much. For everything else I have a spare 35' HDMI cable (www.monoprice.com) that I connect to my laptop, add 2.4ghz mouse and keyboard and it's a very robust solution.
The additional thing to note is that all of this is supported by a Comcast internet-only plan. If you take the raw coaxial cable coming into the house before your modem and split it to be sent to your TV, you will get all of the major networks in HD and a lot of other content as well. This fulfills any "live TV" watching we want to do, such as sports or reality-tv.
The conversion to this solution cost me about $200 in cables, the Roku, etc., but my monthly fees for internet and entertainment media have dropped from $130 to $58. So it has already payed for itself.
-MoG
I have an antenna. I get better quality than many people I know with dish or cable. I spend more than adequate time in front of the idiot box as is - why tempt myself with more.
There are a few premium shows I want to watch - Mad Men and Sopranos for example. But I've watched entire series on DVD for less than the cost of a month of cable.
Savings depends on your plan but compared to many of my friends and neighbors I am saving over a thousand dollars a year in subscription fees alone not counting the cost of the box and the power to run it (many DVRs are power vampires on standby). That pays for a week or more camping at a national park. Or a weekend at Disneyland.
~~~~~~~
"You are not remembered for doing what is expected of you." - Atul Chitnis
Cut the cord! Subscription television is ridiculously overpriced and saddled with more advertising than content. There is rarely even anything on worth watching. Set yourself up a new media box (Boxee, Roku, GoogleTV, custom HTPC, etc) and enjoy everything you want without accidentally slipping into channel surfer mode. You'll enjoy life a lot more the less television you take in. :)
What should go with? I love my Boxee Box. It's quick and easy to set up. It gives you that "set top" feel. It has great options for local and network playback. It has a lot of options for streaming as well (but with some notable exceptions, like Hulu and, I believe, Amazon). The interface is absolutely beautiful and the remote control is even kind of cool. Couple it with a basic Netflix subscription and a health dose of torrents and you'll be all set.
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
I pirate Top Gear; the BBC really ought to get with the program and offer foreigners a way to pay for series or subscriptions.
You mean, like Netflix? Most of the BBC series I watch are on it....
What you imagine: The kids pick up several productive hobbies and grow up to be sharp-witted citizens free of the fetters of mass advertising.
What would actually happen: The kids pocket your $50/month, go watch TV at their friends' houses, and learn that their parents are starry-eyed idiots who are easily taken advantage of.
In the U.S., this issue was resolved by the FCC a long time ago. You are always allowed to have an antenna no matter what an HOA might tell you.
Ditto. Cable + TiVo here. I get to watch things live, bounce things to the other TiVo in the house, and if there's not something on cable TV then it's easy enough to find something through Netflix or Amazon Instant Video.
Now if there was just a way to watch iTunes movies on a TiVo, I'd be set.
If you can't put up an external antenna, put one in the attic or even an outer upstairs closet works almost as well.
I've wondered about the best way to do this as well. I refuse to pay for a service that makes me watch commercials (cable/sat TV). IMHO advertisers should be paying cable companies to give away cable access to people who want it, or there should not be commercials if I'm paying. Why do I need to pay to be advertised to? I'm sure it's more complex, but I just don't care.
My setup has evolved over time. I have a 30 Mbps Internet connection, a 55" LED LG mounted to the wall in my living room, and a mid-line BD/surround system. The evolving part is the media source of course. I started with a small tower with Windows 7 running on it. It let me play my Windows-based games on my big screen and I could stream Netflix, Hulu, iTunes, CDs, DVDs, Blu-Ray, and my questionably acquired collection of movies and TV series.
Disclaimer: I know from reading this site frequently that most people here don't like Apple. The disclaimer part is that I just don't care. My views are based on my experience.
Eventually I decided it was taking up too much space, making too much noise, and taking up too much electricity (didn't want to shut it down because takes a while to boot). Over the last couple years I've picked up an iPhone and an iPad, so as a natural progression I decided to try the Apple TV. It has some nice features such as being 1080p, having AirPlay (lets me stream music and pictures from my iDevices, and lets me mirror the screen on my iPad, some games work with it too), and a superb Netflix interface (much better than most App-enabled media appliances). I've picked up a few TV series and a few movies and they play beautiful video and sound. Since most people seem to have iDevices nowadays, it's nice for friend and family that come over to be able to share pictures and videos and such from their phones on the TV.
The problem with Apple TV is that it's the usually Apple-walled-garden situation. You're limited to the services they provide (for now). I suspect they will open the Apple TV up for app dev soon (like they did for the iPhone when the Appe Store was announced) based on the direction the interface is heading. Once that happens it may be a solve-all solution for my needs. But until then, there is one major problem with it... there's no way to play my video collection.
To fix this, eventually I picked up a Boxee from Best Buy (made by D-Link... not my favorite brand). So far it has been a fantastic solution. It streams my video collection on my LAN flawlessly, streams Netflix (interface is not as polished as Apple's), Pandora, Vudu (decent service), Hulu, and many others. There's an app repository that you can get quite a few apps from, and the ability to add custom repos if you'd like. The remote is not a simple and beautifully made sliver of aluminum like the Apple TV remote, but it's far more functional. It has a full QWERTY keyboard on the back, it's not directional (works in any orientation, so not IR I guess), and the front is a simple interface. The Boxee also support AirPlay for audio and video. I haven't had luck with doing any screen mirroring.
I've only just recently discovered the Vudu service on it. It's owned by Walmart and it's pretty nifty. I don't want to be an advertisement for it but if you go the Boxee route you should definitely check out Vudu.
Over all the Boxee does 99% of what I want and maybe everything that you would want. You can even add an antenna attachment so you can stream local broadcast channels. The Apple TV is nicer in design (smaller, sleeker, cheaper), interface, remote (iDevices can be remotes too), and overall polish. Once they start having apps for it and stuff like Oplayer and Hulu show up on it, I don't think I'll need the Boxee anymore.
I've also considered the Roku, but I haven't had a reason to look at it since I got the Boxee.
"That'll never compile."
Whenever I hear about something good I check it out, but it just seems like shit to me. Game of thrones? Lord of the rings with tits.
I've had absolutely no desire whatsoever to watch Game of Thrones. Then you had to come here and describe it as the single most awesome concept ever. Can you really think of anything better than Lord of the Rings with tits??
Now I have to check it out.
We have a Roku box on my wife's TV, and upstairs in the media room we have a DVD player that has Netflix built in and has a USB port on the front that accepts a thumb drive with, you know, a video on it. Should you have a video on a thumb drive for some reason... This combination plus a conventional antenna (remember those?) so wife can watch football (she's a fanatic), pretty much takes care of our video needs.
Advantages are, netflix video service is cheap, the occasional DVD can be played upstairs (Friday is pizza-and-movie-night) and we can still do off-air viewing if we really wanted to (almost never). I used to pay something like $120 a month for TV, with two set-top boxes, the one in the media room with DVR capabilities (which never really worked all that well) and then a PC running Windows Media Center upstairs (what a piece of carp that was), and I tell ya -- finding an appliance to do all of that without having to pay for cable TV was the greatest thing ever.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Have 2 ATV with XBMC running on them with Bluehosts plugins. Can stream Hulu and many network shows straight from the internet most at HD. There are ways to use sickbeard and usenet to get shows automatically but I hardly ever need to. When the networks change protocols to break my setup, I go back to using sickbeard, till the great devs get the codec working with the new protocol. Been using this for 18+ months and have no plans on going back,
Half of writing history is hiding the truth.
Cable TV is almost entirely repeats of OTA broadcast TV shows, and a flood of low-quality "reality" shows. And with the proliferation of cable channels over the years, the content is continually spread ever-thinner. So you have 5 "discovery" channels, and 4 "history" channels, great! ...except that all the content which was formerly on ONE channel is now spread across 4 or 5, and to fill time each channel just has the same 3 hours (of repeats) on each day, playing in a loop. Really, it's incredibly sad.
Honestly, OTA broadcast networks had the formula figured out, many decades ago, and it works just as well today as it did back then. Whatever you like to watch on cable, you can find hours of it on the broadcast networks, every week. That's where all the halfway-decent original shows are developed and air, that's where the most-watched sporting events air, that's where all the best science, history and nature shows air, that's where the best news programs are produced, etc.
Ever since OTA TV went digital (and HD) the "free" option is now the highest quality, all-around. It's also them most convenient option, by far, since you don't have to wait for the cable guy when you move, you can hook-up an unlimited number of TVs and other devices, and there are no restrictions on recording or time-shifting the content. If you're paying for cable, you're really paying $60+/month for the priviledge of lower picture quality and massive inconvenience, and only getting an extra 20% of content out of it that you wouldn't get OTA.
My recomendation... Get a good antenna, and buy or put together a DVR. DVI or HDMI to the TV, and all you need is a $50 ATSC tuner from Hauppauge (IR remote incuded) to make your Myth/Freevo/whatever -box complete. The picture quality will be perfect, and the flexibility is just amazing, as you can add as many tuner cards as your DVR box can physically accomodate, you can watch pre-recorded or live TV from one of the tuners on ANY internet-connected device (eg., my phone), as well as any DVD/Blu-rays you rip to the device, etc.
Now, OTA TV can certainly fill your viewing/entertainment needs, but this can be complimented with the also-free Hulu Desktop to get some cable TV shows, old shows, and junk movies, as well as a (cheap) subscription to Netflix for your movie viewing, and possibly their streaming video selection if you have a compatible device (Linux isn't supported).
This has been my setup for the past 5+ years, and I couldn't be happier. My only concern is moving to an area where I'm too far from the broadcast towers. For anyone in that situation, I see Dish Network's $15/month "Welcome Package" seems perfect, you just need to find a receiver that can be controlled via USB ala Directv, or similar, since depending on IR blasters sucks royally, and I suppose one of those component video capture boxes.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Not entirely true. The FCC ruled that you can't be restricted from installing an antenna (or dish) in "exclusive use" areas. For condos or apartments, often the entire exterior of the building is considered a shared usage area. I have even seen some standalone homes that the exterior was considered a "shared usage" space (mostly in senior communities where the exterior upkeep is completely taken care of by the HOA). You can still install antenna indoors, but that may not be sufficient depending on your region.
The Roku is great, I've had one since just before the version 2 came out. I love that thing. Netflix + Amazon Prime gives me most everything. Then a piece of software called Playon.tv allows me to pull streams through the old windows box in the corner, transcode, and stream to the roku. Any file that you can watch in VLC, you can stream through playon to your roku...though it does seem to have some problems with certain types of mkv files.
Sorry to break it to you like that, Flanders.
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
I haven't had cable in years. I've got an Apple TV 2 plugged in to my TV and it's fantastic. We watch a ton of stuff on Netflix. I also download full seasons of some of the shows I watch from iTunes. A bunch of other stuff I watch on the various TV stations' apps on my iPad (which I could Airplay to the TV but I don't). It's just about a perfect setup for the type and amount of TV that we watch.
They can NEVER stop you from installing an antenna or dish ON YOUR ROOF.
The only time an antenna indoors is insufficient would be if you don't have a window facing the direction of the towers, and you're in a fringe area (30+ miles away), or if you DO have a window, but you're more than 50+ miles away. Otherwise, I'd always expect a strong enough signal with a big damn antenna.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Comcast cable box for cable channels.
HDHomerun for OTA channels.
Hauppauge HD PVR for capture from Comcast box.
Firewire for Comcast box control (because HD PVR IR transmitter is broken under Linux).
MythTV for watching/recording/skipping commercials.
MythTV frontend-only setup on a laptop/in other rooms.
(optionally) HDFury to deal with HDMI outputs (though Comcast boxes have usable component output).
(optionally) Bluray player with Netflix and other things that don't work on Linux.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
The best way to watch TV is -and always has been- while being thrown out of the window.
Oh, the beautiful gloss of greality!
We pick up broadcast TV using a HDTV antenna I built myself. (google GH10 antenna plans, or try some of the cheaper/easier ones depending on how far you are from the tower). We have been TiVo fans since 2001. Although yes, it is (gasp) paying for something, we got the lifetime subscription option so no monthly bills. It hooks up to Netflix and Amazon (although not Prime Instant .... grrr).
We get series we want to watch through amazon that download to the TiVo like magic. Although we (gasp) pay for them, it's vastly cheaper than what we used to pay for cable. We also got the amazon visa card an fund some of the subscriptions through amazon points (we do pay it off every month, too)
We have also been picking up a lot of dvds (especially the kids shows) at the library, which is a double bonus because you don't have to pay for them and also they go back to the library so you don't have to watch Dora Saves the Mermaids a billion times (unless it's on Netflix)
Biggest gripe: No Game of Thrones streaming on Amazon (cue The Oatmeal).
I also do thank the FCC for requiring local broadcast of all NFL games for the local team ... even the ones on the money grubbing NFL network or ESPN.
In my experience either the WDTV or Boxee box are going to be your best bang-for-the-buck when it comes to doing both online media (Netflix, Hulu, Spotify) and playing back most types of local media (mp3, mkv, m4v, avi, etc). I've tried both and I think the WDTV is edges out the Boxee Box.
Given a WDTV and an large external harddrive, you can start by using MakeMKV and Handbrake (both free) to rip all your current DVD's and Blu-rays. If you were so inclined, you could probably also borrow and rip friends' collections as well, though this wouldn't be legal.
From there, if you were also so inclined, you could pick up a DVD or Blu-Ray subscription from Netflix to go with the streaming subscription. I've heard the same software works pretty well with their discs too.
That doesn't get into downloading movies from Usenet or torrents, which is also an option.
As others have mentioned, the real "problem" is how this is all presented to you, the user. If you cut the chord, you are now going to be picking and choosing each movie and TV show you watch. It's a choice, rather than having a bunch of stuff thrown at you for you to just leave on. It may seem minor, but in practice it's a noticeable difference in how you consume media.
Seriously. Fuck TV. It's a wasteland.
2. IF you must, find stuff online. The important point is to not watch commercials. TV shows are not "shows" in and of themselves. They are simply vehicles to keep your attention between commercials. The ones that do that well they keep, the ones that don't, get cancelled. If you watch stuff without sitting through the commercials, then you are gutting the industry, which deserves to die for being such a craptastic devastation of the modern mind. Jerry Mander" nailed it hard decades ago.
3. Make your own. It's a lot of fun and requires very little money.
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
I've got a mix of over-the-air, a Roku serving YouTube, and Netflix streaming, and the non-plus version of Hulu on my laptop. It's not bad, I'm entertained, but the selection isn't all that great and about half of the time I say "Oh, I think I'd like to watch $X" but I have to settle for $Y. I don't watch a whole lot of television to begin with, so it's not that big of a deal for me.
If you are a serious TV watcher (I'm not) and don't want to torrent (I don't), I would recommend at a minimum Hulu or Hulu Plus (I've never used the 'Plus' version), Netflix streaming and DVD service.
I leaned a new lick watching peter frampton last week. Was that a waste?
My kids and I had a discussion regarding quantum physics because of something we watched on TV. Was that a waste?
My kids no more about our solar system then most kids their age because of some of the television we watch. Is that bad?
My kids want to build things over the summer because of something they say on TV. Is that bad?
My daughter likes doing experiments because of mythbusters. Is that bad?
And in the process how many lies, propaganda, and advertisements did you expose your mind and your kids' minds to?
What more productive things could you have done with that time besides sit in front of a glowing tube?
We don't all watch TV.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
We dumped our DirecTV after a 2 year contract last year. We use a Roku and have a Netflix and Hulu Plus account. I also had an Amazon Prime account so that automatically gives us the free streaming that was added last year. But the content is largely the same as Netflix so we only really use Amazon when we actually want to buy something. We also subscribe to Mog for music.
That's about $22 per month and we can watch or listen to as much as we like. That's about $100 less than I used to pay for a premium satellite package. When we want something random, I play music with the Pandora / Slacker / or Shoutcast channels. When I want news, I just put on Democracy Now.
But it isn't all perfect. You need to be willing to give up some of the benefits of cable / satellite and really learn how to make the most of the Roku. There will be shows that you might want to watch that (legally) will not be available for another year or so. There are a lot of streaming channels that you can't even use yet without a cable subscription (like HBO Go). Amid the myriad of crap that is on TV, there are a handful of shows that you might miss. Ultimately, they make it to Netflix or Hulu but you just have to wait it out.
That said, if you can dig through these streaming services, you will find things that you like. Many things that you might wonder why you hadn't seen them when they'd aired on TV. There is a lot of value in the current streaming offerings but there are still a lot of things that are missing. It will be a few years before streaming TV becomes the norm and people forget about cable completely.
If you can learn to live and watch TV in a different way that you have, then Roku (or similar) can be a great alternative to traditional cable or satellite. If you rely heavily on TV then you may be really disappointed. I've considered the cord-cutting experience to be somewhat life changing. We don't spend much time in front of the TV anymore. But we still generally find quality material to whatch when we do. It can take some adjustment and experiementation, but can be worthwhile and a substantial money-saver.
- I have an HDHomeRun which has two tuners which can individually receive any feed on either unencrypted cable or free OTA.
- I have a Mac Mini running XBMC. It really is the simplest and cheapest way of doing it, no messing with getting HDMI to work (works with audio out of the box).
- I have Hulu, Netflix, Amazon, YouTube, TED, Pandora plugins running on XBMC as well as Ted (The Episode Downloader) with Transmission
- HDTV passes audio through digitally to my receiver (optional)
- Attached a 2TB WD Passport to it, USB powered (optional depending on the amount of content you have)
- Get AirServer if you want your Mini to also receive your iPad/iPhone content over AirPlay (optional)
The things to look out for:
- Make sure your Mac Mini does not go to sleep. It uses minimal power but I have an actual Apple TV in the bedroom and 3-4 laptops so it has to remain on to be able to share content also, I want it to get content online. The remote control does wake it up so YMMV
- Make sure nothing interrupts your XBMC process (pop ups etc). Make your user not an admin (you won't get interrupted by software updates and the like), login automatically, start the application automatically, make the user get a minimal Finder, uninstall unnecessary software. I'm still working on some of the details but most of the popup stuff is disabled. I am going to create a script that automatically restarts XBMC because it does crash once in a while. You can use Cocktail to disable a lot of things.
- Connect your media center to your ethernet if possible if you're going to have multiple devices use content. WiFi (even 5GHz 802.11n) is still too flaky for continuous HD quality in my area
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
Do they have TV programmes that help with typing?
I kid, I kid.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
With my youngest child graduated from High School, I felt free to let my inner geek out and save $$. Out with the Dish, and in with Free. I installed an antenna, on a 30' mast with a directional motor and power booster. I ran cable to each TV. Then in the living room and bedrooms, I installed Happague TV tuner cards into Win 7-64 bit PC's. With Windows media player, and an hour or so setup, I now have DVR features on each and all the major networks along with some funny ones, like RTV, ThisTV, and CoolTV, (who knew, right?). Netflix is built into media center, and with Hulu+, I am getting much more for less. Most Stations broadcast 2 or 3 channels now, with the main one in HD. Most are 1080i, and uncompressed so you get awesome quality that Dish or Charter only dream of. Others at 720p are still better than the compressed signal you get from any provider. Weather? No problem yet, and that's though several awesome thunderstorms. As for snowstorms well, in time I will discover. So living in central Michigan, I can get up to 47 stations. To eliminate repeats (I mean how many pbs/nbs/abc/fox/cw.etc do I really need?) and some I have no use for (TCT, and other single issue religious stations) I still have 32. Media center downloads program info for free, and I schedule DVR same as dish, just better quality. I also bought some infrared remotes cheap off Amazon. So, yeah, if I get squezzed financially I can drop netflix and Hulu+, but still enjoy the rest as it is FREE! And the hardware is paid for and owned by me, so no rental fees or anything. If I knew it was this good before now, I would have done this years ago and saved a bundle. I hope this helps!
The national budget must be balanced. The public debt must be reduced; the arrogance of the authorities must be moderate
http://www.amazon.com/Channel-Master-CM-7000PAL-Digital-Recorder/product-reviews/B0033TJPJW and http://reviews.cnet.com/digital-video-recorders-dvrs/channel-master-cm-7000pal/4505-6474_7-34142156.html describe an over-the-air DVR with no ongoing fees. If you have decent digital reception, you can get your locals that way, and distribute that signal over CAT-5 or coax to the other sets in the household.
There is nothing wrong with yr Internet. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling the transmission - NSA
Don't like it use the remote buddy. Very simple.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
It is frankly embarrasing that a modern individual can say wiht a straight face that TV sucks.
Maybe you suck at organizing your time, if you invest 5 minutes a week to find good programmes there is no excuse for TV to suck in an era of hundreds of channels, constant re-runs, film directors and actors working on TV and access to foreign channels (wherever you are: wide your bloody horizons).
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I cobbled together my own solution. I bought a $200 government auction pc (nothing special and this was 3 years ago so you can probably do it better or cheaper today. The only thing it had that a regular PC doesn't is DVI, which is nice) and a 1TB drive (which isn't even half full after 3 years of ripping my paid-for DVDs). I then installed XBMC to watch those DVDs and Hulu Desktop to watch free Hulu on my TV. All of these are controlled by a USB-UART device that allows me to watch both with a remote that I was able to configure to work exactly like I wanted it. I control Hulu and XBMC via EventGhost (which is also free, in all forms of the word)
I also watch Netflix via the browser, thanks to a cheap wireless keyboard and mouse.
All told I spent maybe $400 on the hardware, and in about 5 months it paid for itself. I can't see everything but I've never had the problem where I had time to watch TV but nothing to watch. In fact, I have SEASONS of tv shows I'm behind on without time to catch up.
Pulp Audio Weekly - Geek News and Reviews
You killed the bad habit of channel surfing, there are other habits that take full advantage of the variety of programmes on TV.
Calssic films that you won't find on the cinema any time soon, concerts, documentaries, sports (in moderation), news, good serials.
New luddites should frankly stay in the little hobbit hole of ignorant snobbery that they inhabit.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
sports/ LIVE. since i watch TV for sports exclusively, i pay CTV to handle that. sports and sports alone. me and sports. squish.
Uninformed opinion of somebody that doesn't even watch the medium is utterly disposable.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Sorry about it peeps, our communist public TV doesn't have such constraints (which in turn forces commercial chains to up their game).
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I completely agree. It makes no sense, to me, to pay to watch advertisements.
"That'll never compile."
Yeah, that one formed with students.
Whay would you want to hear the Berlin Philahrmonic, the London Symphonic, the Royal Concertgebouw or any other of those lousy expensive outfits.....
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
But I can't find anywhere that streams Formula 1 races live, so that keeps me with Speedchannel on Dish Network.
Does the name Pavlov ring a bell?
Netflix is fine for watching BBC content, so long as you're find with being a couple of years behind the times.
While it's been a while since I've used Netflix, the last I've checked, Top Gear was only available up to Series 13.
However, I am then left with no obvious way to watch Series 14-18.
-free TV via an antenna. Attached to all the rooms in the house. Both an old VCR and DVR that I use to tape stuff while I'm sleeping.
- supplemented by Hulu.com over PC or roku
- supplemented by DVD purchases of shows not on hulu (like Games of Thrones). Supplemented by uTorrent if the DVD has not been released yet.
- I also read a lot of mystery or sci-fi magazines online if nothing's on.
Just out of curiosity, would you have any interest in doing something more rewarding? Either for yourself or society in general?
It's your time and you can spend it however you like. I was just wondering how happy you are with all these distractions in your life.
Have you considered taking up a hobby?
Writing can be enjoyable and possibly bring in some income if you're good at it. Having your first poem published can be an emotionally rewarding experience - more so than you would get from your typical TV show.
How about taking college courses, either online or at the local university? Learning about something can be a lot of fun and improve your mind at the same time. Enough credits can improve your paycheck, and more money can make your life a lot more pleasant.
There's a hacker revolution going on at the moment, and some of them are doing actual science. Being able to build things is interesting and useful in its own right. Being able to repair things can be quite valuable.
Lots of open source projects are in need of assistance. Some of them have quite a community built up, being a part of one can be rewarding.
I'm sure that recording TV shows while you sleep and watching them later can be pleasant, but is it really what you want to do with your life? Is there enough value in it?
I'm just curious. I never was able to understand how people choose to spend their life by being entertained.
This doesn't bother you at all?
Ask your wife and your youngest child. They are the ones you have to please with your decision. It doesn't matter how much more variety of programming you can bring in, or how much money you can save. What matters is who can use your TV in your house. I'd wager neither your wife nor your youngest child want to use a keyboard to watch TV. If they can't get all the shows they want with a regular TV remote - or at least something that looks like one - then you have a non-starter.
And no amount of monetary savings is worth screwing up your relationship with your family. If you make the system too difficult to use, they will direct their frustration back at you.
And of course, another oft-overlooked advantage of paying someone for your TV service is that when something goes wrong, you have someone you can turn to. Sure, there are plenty of forums for MythTV and the like but nobody who will answer the phone and bring you out a new box when you call.
So think long and hard before you cut the cord. And then when you think you have a solution, think some more.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
I have tried many different methods. I have had cable TV with just a receiver, with a DVR, a USB TV Tuner from Hauppage, www.hauppauge.com/, an external HDTV Antennae for over the air channels, Wii, Xbox, and via satellite and 3 DVRs.
At one point with the USB TV Tuner from Hauppage I enjoyed recording all of my TV shows directly to the computer, scheduling ahead, and playback via Windows Media Player as well as the Xbox streaming from WMP. To this day, that was my favourite way. I do not have it hooked up now mainly because I have a cable package requiring the cable box where as when I had previously used it, it was the basic cable not requiring a decoder box.
What I have ATM is 2 HDTV cable boxes (no DVR) and my Xbox. I was told I could get a TV card from the cable company to let me decode it, but I have not yet. I have not tried a mythTV box yet. I do like the idea though.
I like having the convenience of scheduling, recording onto my HD and playing back from computer as I spend a lot of time here. If I were to get a DVR, I would like one that you can record on TV A and then pause, record, playback on any tv in the house. (Centurylink has one like this called Prisim)
I like having netflix and WMP via the Xbox. I believe it is Verizon has a TV like app called FIOS on the Xbox. If I had the TV Tuner card (with decoder) to my pc... that would be the ultimate for me. Record on PC, playback via Xbox on tv and not have to pay rent for a DVR. I beleive same decoder card would work on a mythTV box also. Same principle.
So, you would need to determine how the TV is going to be used, if you are going to want to watch it on PC and or TV.. and which is most efficient and budgeted for the household.
I like me a Windows platform, so I've settled on XBMC as a front end (you can do multi-room with a MySQL database and profiles). I use a HDHomeRun for a few ClearQAM channels available for free with my cable internet and USENET (supernews.com) for all my tv downloading needs. I don't miss my old satellite setup at all.
Best TV experience ever was watching the garbage men take it away. Now that was valuable entertainment.
Roku plus a pc running PlayOn and some good playon plugins. Pretty much everything is out there ready to be streamed. Netflix and Hulu for Roku are good as well.
Ever feel like you are driving the getaway car?
And make things. I do.
Most Respectfully Yours Mark Allyn Bellingham, Washington
It appears that OTA does not figure into your considerations. Why is that? FWIW, here's my setup, which works well for my tastes, even though we're 60 miles from the HDTV broadcasts. Two antennas, for different broadcast frequencies. SiliconDust tuner, two channels (three on new models). PC with Indel Core 2 Duo, 2 GB memory, 320GB hard disk. This supports simultaneous recording and viewing. I use home-brew Perl to manage all of this, but MythTV would do it for you, as would, I imagine, Windows Media Center. Aside from the initial capital outlay, this has zero ongoing costs. You could get a NetFlix subscription and save a bundle.
A few years ago, I set a simple rule for myself: I only turn on the TV to watch something I know I want to watch before I turn it on. I didn't impose my rule on anybody else in the house.
Less than six months later I cancelled the cable when I couldn't remember the last time anyone had watched it. No one noticed it was gone.
I do watch cartoons with my older son, mostly for the pleasure of his company. As much as I dislike everything about iTunes, it is most fun for him to sit with me on the couch and watch stuff on an iPad. I just buy season passes to the things he likes... A few series a year are much cheaper than cable.
Here in Iceland I get my TV service through something called "myndlykill"; I don't know the English word for it, but it's a box with a Cat5 on the back that plugs into your hub and downloads channels from the net and yeilds an HDMI signal. Most people here have 50Mb/s or 100Mb/s optical fiber net connections so there's enough bandwidth for a good picture.
Sounds like the Roku that I have: small box, connects to the net, streams content on demand. The only thing that may be different is Roku streams through other providers you already subscribe to such as Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, etc.
When I moved to a new job 2 years ago, my wife & I opted not to install cable at the new house - we stream everything now via our Roku. It's been great! We'll keep streaming until the price point changes. Here's the math:
At our old house, cable TV was about $80 per month. That's just for television - Internet connection is on top of that. At the new house, we watch a few shows (Castle, Modern Family, Daily Show, ...) via Hulu+ at $8/month, and a few shows (Mad Men, ...) from Amazon at $2/episode (assume $8/month per show, even though that's not year-round.) We don't watch much current TV, maybe 4 shows, so $32/month. Rather than current TV, we watch more TV on DVD (MI-5, Eureka, ...) and movies, so we stream Netflix for $8/month. Plus one show I can't get elsewhere: Star Wars: The Clone Wars on PlayStation Network, at $2/episode (or $8/month).
So our monthly cost is $8 (Hulu+) + $8 (Netflix) + $8 (SW: Clone Wars) + $32 (Amazon) = $56. Compare that to $80 just for cable TV at the old house. That Roku (less than $100) paid for itself pretty quickly.
I go into it in more depth in another comment, but I recommend Roku plus streaming.
I don't recommend a refurb Roku, since you can get a new Roku on Amazon for $60-90 anyway. It just depends what model you want. (The higher models let you watch movies saved to a USB fob drive.)
And you aren't tied to just one Roku box. We have one Roku in the living room to watch TV together, and I have another in the basement so I can watch TV while on the exercise bike. And of course, you can always stream Hulu+ or Netflix on an iPad from anywhere.
You don't get news programming with this - but as someone else pointed out, it's great! We got most of our news from bbc.co.uk and other sources, even before we got our Roku. Cable news is really bad.
Don't know about sports options, since I don't watch that.
I use a SageTV server that works BEAUTIFULLY. $100 media extenders allow me to stream to them live AND recorded shows. I can watch as many live shows and timeshift on as many TVs with media extenders as I have TV tuners installed in the server. In my case, all free, OTA HD receivers.
I would suggest you look into it, but thanks to Google buying them out, the software is no longer for sale.
While the bone they threw us of allowing those of us 1 version back to upgrade for free to the final release, I find it annoying they didnt also turn loose the media extender licenses required to connect more STBs to the server. Hell, I just wish Google would have continued to sell the product. I have two TVs I would love to bring onboard but I cant because I cant buy more licenses!
The only upside is my assumption is that GoogleTV will get better with improvements using technology SageTV developed. Then again this could simply be a power grab to essentially shut down competition by buying them out and shelving the technology like the holy grail in a government warehouse.
iTunes has them. In fact, they've been adding a lot of content in the last few months from the BBC. Dr. Who, Ab Fab, The IT Crowd, etc.
MidnightBSD: The BSD for Everyone
BBC offering content to foreigners will happen about as fast as Hulu, Netflix, Pandora, and all the other American services offer THEIR products to paying customers outside America (i.e. probably never) :( It's unfortunately due to licensing restrictions and international copyright laws rather than them "not wanting to" or being technically unable to do it.
(Australian here who is still bitter about them taking my Pandora away ... it used to be available globally, sigh. Oh well, VPNs to the rescue I guess?)
One notable exception is that if you are a big sports fan you will definitely miss live programming on ESPN.
Have to agree with this. From original question:
I would love to have ESPN, but can get my sports fix (mostly college football) through other means, I'm sure.
Unless his "other means" is to spend a lot more time at your friends house or at a bar, I would not be so sure about that.
ESPN3 is available free if you're using it from an internet connection of certain internet providers. However great ESPN3 is, it leaves much to be desired. You do get a lot of live games from the ABC and ESPN networks for free. However -- although most put a premium on live coverage of games, ESPN's feature and news programming is the best in the industry and not available (legally or even conveniently) at all online. I have found that I miss Baseball Tonight and Sports Center more than anything since I cut the cord in 2006. As a note, ESPN3 does provide access to SportsCenter and some other feature programming -- but the list of participating ISPs is limited to 4 as of today.
Additionally -- I personally find it highly dissatisfying to watch a three hour football game on the same thing that I use to build spreadsheets and answer e-mail. While it is possible to run an HDMI cable to watch the game on your LCD, the image quality is clearly not really HD and the pain of changing the channel with a mouse is annoying to say the least.
I am finding that old frugal me is learning as my income increases that some things were just worth paying for all along instead of hassling with "other means"...ESPN is on that list.
You like the DVR, right? Disassemble it, take out the hard drive, figure out what type it is (probably 2.5" IDE or something of the like), buy a new one, then do a bit-exact clone to copy the hdd right over. Put it back in, and you're right back where you were.
Don't.
iTunes only has movies and those were only added very recently, and a poor selection at that.
Oh yeah, this is the Swedish iTunes store btw. I know the situation is different in other countries but to be honest I feel like ranting about the poor legal options for streaming and downloading TV shows here in Sweden.
The most useful choice tends to be TV network websites but those don't feature nearly all the shows (a lot of times foreign shows are either unavailable due to licensing issues or they are removed within a week or so of airing (and they air long after the show aired in its country of origin)).
Of course, as far as the TV producers are concerned we're all evil if we don't go along with their plan which includes waiting a couple of months after a show originally airs before gratefully watching the ad-supported TV broadcast followed by us purchasing the DVD set that comes out a few weeks after the season ends here in .se and finally we should buy the Bluray version when they release that...
Greylisting is to SMTP as NAT is to IPv4
Probably not the most popular answer on Slashdot, and only available to those of us in Europe and Australia; but a Sony Playstation 3 coupled with the Play TV USB TV Tuner addon and PS3 Media Server (an open source DLNA server) makes for one of the best "all-in-one" media center solutions available. A quick rundown of the combined features:
Not bad for around £200 - oh and it plays games.
Cheap and best
Small, sleek design with HDMI out , has a Ton of reliable apps, Qwerty keypad (wish it was glow in the dark at least), and streams like a charm
If you have a high budget, rent a flat in the UK, where you can set up a satellite dish. Then use VDR and a high speed (>10 MBit) Internet connection to where you live to get to the signal.
Other than that, certainly get some video capable computer connected to your TV. If you are in the US, try to get free to air satellite. Unfortunately because of the stupidity of the US market, you are pretty much out of luck when it comes to satellite television. Maybe you can erect some tower in order to get some terrestrial channels and use MythTV.
Not everyone lives in a country blessed by Netflix...
> no different then burning down all the library's because they have a copy of twilight.
Hmmmmmmmmmm...
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...
I've been using a WMC PC for years now and I've been very happy with it. About 90% of what my family had previously watched was regular network programming so I purchased an HD Homerun and use the PC as a DVR, to stream HULU, and to watch the occasional DVD or Blu-ray from Redbox. Both of my kids have Windows 7 laptops so they use WMC to connect to the tuner and watch whatever they need. Sometimes they use the laptop screen, sometimes they connect to their televisions. I dropped to about as basic of a cable plan as I could and I'm saving a pretty significant amount every month. The HD Homerun paid for itself in a few months.
Immoral?
I agree (mostly) with your arguments, but I fail to see how stealing programming because you dislike the medium in which it's delivered is moral. If you don't like ad-driven television or services like Hulu, either buy them in a medium in which you don't have to watch ads (on DVD, iTunes, Amazon, Netflix) or don't watch.
I usually just read a book.
Anecdote from my family: "Becky" likes to put on MSNBC's Morning Joe Brewed by Starbucks while she gets ready for work each morning. She has an FM transmitter plugged into the back of the cable box so that she can beam it to a radio in the bathroom and listen in the shower. She also listens using a portable radio and headphones so that she can hear the bobbleheads talk everywhere in the house. Can you read your websites while grooming yourself?
They can NEVER stop you from installing an antenna or dish ON YOUR ROOF.
Actually they can. Besides the point I mentioned above, there are very specific exceptions for historic districts where antenna can be banned on the exterior of buildings. Also HOAs can ban masts higher then 12 feet. In 99%+ of cases you can't be restricted from installing an antenna/dish on your roof, but there are a few cases where you can.
--WDTV set-top box (http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-Streaming-Media-Player/dp/B005KOZNBW/ref=sr_1_1) ($80 or so)
--computer w/storage and TV to connect to the WDTV
--Usenet account ($10/m or so)
--SABnzbd+ (free)
--SickBeard (free)
--CouchPotato (free)
--Streaming Netflix (optional, $8/m or so)
Tada!
With the first link, the chain is forged.
You can sort through the 100's of responses and attempt to summarize, or you can just buy this e-book from GigaOm. I'm not affiliated with the author, but I do like GigaOm, and their Cord Cutter series has been really good
Cut the Cord: All You Need to Know to Drop Cable
Cut the Cord: All You Need to Know to Drop Cable (link with referral code if so inclined)
To answer the question, the best way to watch TV is AT&T's U-Verse: nice responsive UI, good channel selection, whole home DVR. But if you want the best bang for the buck, here's what I did:
- Roku with Netflix. Added Amazon for one-off purchases. Also have a Hulu Plus subscription, but haven't found it useful yet.
- Antenna for over the air -- better HD than cable and quite a few channels. Surprisingly, this little antennae worked really well for me:
Paper Thin Leaf Indoor HDTV Antenna
Paper Thin Leaf Indoor HDTV Antenna (link with referral code if so inclined)
My mother and I each visit the local library in our respective cities. They have movies, documentaries, and tv-series boxed sets.
I recently found James Burke's "Connections" at my library, and saw they had some of the old campy "Doctor Who" on DVD. My mother's been watching "Deadwood," and she's on the waiting list for more DVDs in the series.
Get a Roku. And spend the 10 extra bucks and get the Roku 2 XD.
Like you, I used to use our Wii to stream netflix. but the quality was pretty poor. SD quality scaled up to 1080P. Bleah.
I tried a Win7 box running Windows media center, and while it could do some things well, (such as stream my large amount of local server based media) the netflix quality was HORRENDOUS. And it can't do many other things, such as Crunchyroll, TWiT, and Revision 3 content.
Also tried XBMC, and it was really nice, but couldn't do Netflix natively, and the user made hacks to get Netflix working were just that. Hacks. And ugly ones too.
Eventually I broke down and snagged the Roku2XD on sale over Father's day weekend just this year. It does full 1080P Netflix and really nice scaling on older movies, plus it has TONS of other stuff like Crunchyroll, Revision 3, Twit, and on and on, and that's just the OFFICIAL channels. It also has piles of unofficial ones, and it has PLEX, which allows you to stream your local media on any box running the PLEX server module. (a little Win32 app that handles the sharing and does media conversion/streaming as well.)
I have to say I've never been happier. While not perfect, the Roku2XD is absolutely the closest I've ever seen any box come to the "perfect" home media center experience.
Oh, and the damn thing is the size of a Hockey Puck. I kid you not! You can use double-sided tape or Velcro to hang it off the back of your TV and the Bluetooth remote will still work perfectly. If you lose the remote or it dies, you can get a Roku remote app for your iPhone or Android device and use it's Bluetooth radio to control the Roku. It's AWESOME!
Trust me, go buy a Roku 2 XD. You'll love it and won't look back.
Official Heretic from the "Church of Global Warming". Proven right thanks to whistle blowers. AGW = Flat Earth Theory
I've been off cable for over 2 years. I built my own DVR using Windows 7. I recently bought HD Home Run, a network TV tuner box with 2 tuners. I plug a network cable into it, an indoor antenna and a power cord. It's about the size of a Roku box. Any computer in the house can watch TV, and I record shows on my HTPC, which is hooked up to my 56" TV and stereo rig.
If it wasn't for watching live sports, I would cut off cable right now. Unfortunately, live sports make that pretty difficult to do if you are a fan. I use a Centon cable card tuner with Windows Media Center. This is a pretty good setup for live TV, I just wish there were some other Windows Media Center Extenders besides an XBOX 360. That thing sucks so much power, I hate to leave it on all of the time.
WMC is a perfectly good DVR, but I find myself using XBMC along with Sickbeard to watch other TV shows. Sickbeard will pull the no commercial version of the show off of Usenet within 15 minutes of it being posted, and those scene guys post things pretty fast these days. I could usually watch Game of Thrones withing 30 of it airing on HBO.
Used to pay about $110 / month for satellite HD. Now we have a media server PC in the basement running Sickbeard and Sabnzbd which automatically downloads the shows we watch from a newsgroup service (astraweb) for $10/month. Then we have 2 boxee boxes, one on the living room PC and one in the bedroom that can stream media wirelessly from the media PC, or from the internet, including youtube. I love the boxee box, it's great.
And, since we are in Canada we are using unblock-us.com which is not a VPN but some sort of DNS redirect service. I only have it configured on the boxee boxes so it doesn't affect our whole network, but it allows us to watch streaming US content.
Finally, I have a cheap $10 HDTV antenna in case I ever get the desire to watch live sports...which I don't really. So in the end we've replaced a $110/month bill with a $15 / month bill and it's pretty much just as good.
-Xoltri
I cut the cord about 3 years ago now. Dropped the satellite and cable subs (except for cable internet). Our big screen now only receives OTA and we get 5 channels here (we're in western Canada) and no US broadcasts as we're to far away from the border. Just about everything we want is OTA so it's no problem. To record those OTA's I'm using a myth box with a 1TB drive, a couple of tuner cards and us the HDMI out. I do have a sub for tv listings but that's only 20 buck a year (maybe 25 I can't remember). A second myth box to stream recorded to the upstairs. For everything else we just use a wireless mount/keyboard to surf the network web sites to watch or we use the bluray player for netflix. For things we can't get any other way we get the DVD's from the library when they come out (12 bucks a year). Besides we found once we cut the cable we started reading more, going out side more, talking more. All of those things that TV zaps out of you. Do your self a favour and send the kids out side to play, and maybe go with them.
> It's unfortunately due to licensing restrictions and international copyright laws rather than them "not wanting to" or being technically unable to do it.
Actually, it mostly IS them not wanting to.
The majority of the BBC programming is either owned by the BBC or commissioned for the BBC and gives the BBC worldwide distribution rights (e.g. on BBC America or BBC Middle East). Basically, if it ever becomes available on BBC America, they have the copyright assignment or equivalent, and they could start offering it for sale from day one.
It is "not wanting", in the sense that it might sour their distribution partners and some of their content sources. But if they wanted it, they could.
[That's not true for almost any broadcasting service, but it is true for the BBC]
Alright, I've been down a couple of the roads that you're pondering, so I'll give you my experiences. But first, I'll explain my situation, so that you can evaluate whether our goals are congruent:
For years, I've had TiVo's. I've owned everything from the original, to Series-2, to TiVo-HD. I've really had no reason to switch, until my cable provider rolled out "tuning adaptors". The idea behind these things is to let the cable company avoid sending every channel over every wire. Instead, cable boxes "request" that a certain channel be sent their way, and then the cable company routes that channel there. Essentially, every channel becomes video-on-demand. For DVR's, like the TiVo, they make a little "tuning adaptor" which you plug into the TiVo's USB port. Then, when the TiVo wants a channel, it requests it through the tuning adaptor. The problem with this is that the TiVo is required to classify the nature of the tuning request, whether it's for live TV viewing, or for a pre-set recording, or "speculative" recording (TiVo calls these "suggestions", where it is recording something it thinks I might like). This last category is where we run into problems, because they're one feature of the TiVo which I really like, yet they're the first kind of recordings to get declined by the cable provider. Alas, ever since I switched to tuning adaptors a few months ago, my TiVo has recorded about 10 "suggestions". It used to record 10 every couple of days.
So, I'm starting to actively seek ways to "cut the cord". I first had to identify what I was seeking in my "ideal" TV arrangement:
1 - Some sort of "Suggestions", where it finds me other content based upon what I've already watched and/or rated.
2 - Live sports (primarily NFL, but some baseball, hockey, and hoops would be nice, now and then).
3 - ESPN (I love SportsCenter, Pardon the Interruption, Dan LeBatard, etc... so... gotta have that).
4 - Ability to back up and re-watch something (like TiVo's 8-second rewind) and slo-mo or freeze it.
5 - Ability to watch anywhere (TV, iPad, iPhone?)
I've tried home-brewed HTPC solutions, like MythBuntu and LinuxMCE, but they lack the slick polish that I've grown accustomed to with the TiVo and my iOS devices. Granted, I'm a geek; I spend a lot of my work day at the Linux command-line and I program in a half-dozen languages, but I want my content "consumption" experience to be effortless and polished. Also, I can't get hardly any HD stuff over the air, so... stuff like MythBuntu is a non-starter.
A friend has AppleTV, and I have an iPhone and iPad, so I looked into the idea of going that route. Initially, I was turned off by the notion of paying for individual shows, but then I did the math. I'm paying about $70/mo for my digital cable, two tuner cards (for two TiVo's), and the HD tier. Add to that the $15/mo for each TiVo and I'm up to $100 per month. Now, shows in the iTunes store are about $2 each. So, if I watch fewer than 50 shows per month, I should come out ahead. Plus, you get the "Genius" recommendations (which I haven't tried, but it works well enough for music and app recommendations for my tastes). However, the live-sports stuff is slow in coming. There's no NFL, yet. However, if you're a Time/Warner cable customer (or if you know one who will give you their password), you can use the ESPN app to watch anything on ESPN, so you can get the Sunday-night game.... and I've heard that the NFL (or the network who carries it) makes the Thursday-night game available over the web, somehow. But the Sunday-day and MNF games... I guess I'd have to go down to the local sports-grill. The last thing that the AppleTV has going for it is just my own moral one. I like seeing my money go to a company which is rabidly trying to make really slick products than to Charter, who seems hell-bent on making my use tuning-adaptors, paying for channels I never watch, "renting" cable cards just so that I can watch the channels that I'm already paying for, etc. So, even if I end
I download a couple of shows and watch on my computer (game of thrones and walking dead). Wake me up when I can access any content from anywhere without having to buy 1,000 other channels I'll never watch.
Interesting idea. (And, thanks to everyone else for their input, as well. I am enjoying all the different replies.)
Of course, the idea is to save money, so I would probably only offer them 20 bucks each. (or maybe $30... a dollar/day for no T.V.) Of course, as bright as my four year old is, I am not sure that handing her a $20 bill would really latch on...
Since you mention crafts, I want to clarify something that seems to have been lost by many of the people who have commented. Television is only one small subset of our daily lives. Hearing the hard drive start to die in our DVR got me to thinking about the money we are spending on television in relation to the utility it brings us. $100/mo seems excessive when the kids get as much joy helping in our garden, playing in the back yard, going fishing, helping cook dinner, etc.
Oh, and crafts. My 4 yo made me a 2' x 1' father's day card. Every day she colors, draws, etc. and she loves books way more than T.V. She can already sound some words out and is very close to being able to read. She loves dancing and will start dance school in two months. My wife and I have both been actively involved in theatre for the past 7 years. I have done light design for dozens of shows, as well as being tech/crew for several dozen more (including some IATSE gigs). My wife has had roles in plays as has our son.
So, I do appreciate everyone's comments and I do understand why some people have made the assumption that television is a priority. In fact, the reason I wrote the Ask Slashdot question is the the opposite. It seems like we are paying an exorbitant amount of money for the convenience of having T.V. when we want it and I was looking for ways to kill that bill, since T.V. is not necessary, but can be nice...
hey, Rosanne was a great show!
nobody's perfect
Here's an ask /. question that doesn't suck!
I can tell you the NOT answer: Netflix or Hulu on PS3.
PS3 might be OK for games.
But Netflix sucks on PS3, and the PlayStation Network requires signing in to use it, which means you have to get the MANDATORY PS3 updates when Sony decides to release a few minor features, which nobody really wants (move multiple data files at a time? did I need to do that?).
Then you're stuck waiting for Sony to give you the entire OS, re-install, reboot, sign in again, etc. By this time your date is bored, dissatisfied, and not interested in making out, because you've chosen the wrong system for watching movies or doing anything but gaming. Unless she's into gaming, in which case you've got a winner.
I'd like to try a Roku BTW. Or just an HTPC with dual boot and some good graphics hardware.
Flamebait - Comments whose sole purpose is to insult and enrage.
I'd suggest read the moderation guidelines, specifically this part:
Concentrate more on promoting than on demoting. Try to be impartial about this; simply disagreeing with a comment is not a valid reason to mark it down. The goal here is to share ideas, to sift through the haystack and find needles, and to keep spammers and griefers in check.
I normally don't nitpick like this, but but parent brings up a good point:
The thing is, each seems to be watched by people who only want reinforcement of their own worldviews. That's no way to develop an intelligent, informed opinion.
George Carlin was right, the US is screwed because the public is wilfully ignorant.
- "Nobody came out that night, not one was ever seen. But Old Man Stauf is waiting there, crazy sick and mean!"
HTPC with MediaPortal (only runs on Windows - win 7 works pretty well for this), OTA reception with decent roof-mounted antenna (find your reception report) and ForTheRecord for PVR functionality.
Corporate Gadfly
Jonathan Archer: the most beaten up Enterprise captain in Star Trek history
Run Windows Media center (Win7) on a Fit2PC (it has an HDMI output and a bay for a 2.5 inch drive) pair it with a Silicon Dust HDHomeRun network cable tuner.
Or
Run a EyeTV on a Mac Mini with a Silicon Dust HDHomeRun network cable tuner and pair that combo with an AppleTV
The first option using WMC is much easier and costs less, EyeTV requires a Channel listing subscription.
Personally I'm still experimenting, but WMC makes a lot of sense and its well established, plus the channel listing subscription is free.
Rumor has it Microsoft will be coming out with a split personality XBox offering, with a high end Xbox for media and gaming, and a low end Xbox offering called xTV to compete with AppleTV - but that's strictly rumor.
What are your goals? Watch TV,
I guess I wasn't clear? Our family has had T.V. since we have become a family. The hard drive is dying in the DVR. If I replace the DVR, I am locked in to another two year contract. T.V. is not essential, but it is nice. I enjoy having a/c in our house, as well, but it is also not essential. Same with running water. These are all things I could live without, but prefer to have. I watch T.V. rarely. The rest of my family watches it a little bit more than I do. We could just shut it off completely, but it would be nice to have SOME television every now and again.
get your sports fix,
In the summary, I mentioned that I could watch sports elsewhere. I only brought up sports as that seems to be the biggest reason people continue to pay a premium for cable or satellite.
live an interesting life
YES! THANK YOU! THIS! +1!!! LIKE! I would love to live an interesting life. Although, not in the Chinese curse kind of way.
I really don't understand how having a television in my house means I do not lead an interesting life. I could bore you to tears if I told you how "interesting" my life was. Suffice it to say, I am not the guy that sits on his butt all day and then grabs fast food on the way home and puts the T.V. on as a way to dope his children.
raise your kids for fun and profit?
While I appreciate the history of A.C. on Slashdot, it seems like you are being A.C. just to be pious and/or snarky. I actually do raise my kids for fun. They fill my heart like nothing else can.
>Kid's shows could be in one room and adult shows in another.
Yegads! You left out the family pet shows!
Yes, you *do* need to cut the cord. Play monopoly (or whatever) with your kids.
We have. We do. Monopoly with a 4 year old is... interesting. But, she enjoys it. We play Old Maid and Go Fish with her, too. We also take her to "go fish" (literally). Oh, I also take her on "adventures" like taking a boat to see all the dolphins in our bay. Yes, really. We live in an area where we can jump on a boat and look at dolphins. Then, when we are done with that, we can go to the seafood market two blocks down and get fish that is literally just off the boat. And we watch T.V. sometimes.
Read books together.
At least every single night, before she goes to bed. We just finished the adult version of Alice in Wonderland (i.e. not a Disney version, but the original) just a few nights ago.
Go on a camping trip. Sports fix: little league, bicycle, competitive juggling. Good god, if you truly love your kids, turn off the idiot box for good.
OK, that's harsh. Try turning it off for three days. Or for 24 hours one day a week.
Um, unless there's a new Eureka/Doctor Who/Torchwood episode.
Okay, I like your humor at the end, which acknowledges that there is some good reason for having T.V.. Please keep in mind that T.V. is just one thing we do, and it is something we do little of, which is why I want to get rid of the bill, As a family, we are incredibly active, and the "heaviest" of us has a BMI of 24.3, so I am pretty sure we are getting our sports fix in outside as well as on the television.
Did it occur to anyone else that if the two adults (ages 36 and 30) are the natural parents of the two minors (ages 13 and 4) in the family, there may have been statutory rape involved in the conception of the older child (depending, of course, on whether the law in the family's place of residence provides for an age of consent > 16 years old)?
Listen to me. Television is not the truth. Television is a Goddamned amusement park! Television is a circus, a carnival, a traveling troupe of acrobats, story-tellers, dancers, singers, jugglers, side-show freaks, lion tamers and football players. We're in the boredom killing business! So, if you want truth go to God. Go to your gurus. Go to yourselves because that's the only place you're ever going to find any real truth. But, man, you're never gonna get any truth from us. We'll tell you anything you want to hear. We lie like hell. We'll tell you that, uh, Kojak always gets the killer and that nobody ever gets cancer at Archie Bunker's house. And no matter how much trouble the hero is in, don't worry. Just look at your watch. At the end of the hour he's going to win. We'll tell you any shit you want to hear. We deal in illusions, man! None of it is true! But you people sit there day after day, night after night, all ages, colors, creeds...We're all you know. You're beginning to believe the illusions we're spinning here. You're beginning to think that the Tube is reality and that your own lives are unreal. You do whatever the Tube tells you. You dress like the Tube; You eat like the Tube; You raise your children like the Tube; You even think like the Tube. This is mass madness! You maniacs! In God's name, you people are the real thing. We are the illusion! So turn off your television sets. Turn them off now. Turn them off right now. Turn them off and leave them off. Turn them off right in the middle of this sentence I'm speaking to you now. Turn them off!
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Dude! Just use an IP cloak!
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Amazon Prime has Top Gear UK up to Season 17.
The problem I have with Netflix is that nearly every show I want to watch doesn't have all the seasons. I like to watch serial programs, so I get about half or two-thirds through the program and find that the last one or two seasons is missing, so I'm stuck with pirating the last episodes if I want to see the rest of the show.
I am either using something like Netflix, or watching media I have in-house. I keep my in-house media on a NetStora server which is basically a hard drive in a standalone box which can be controlled via web or through a share. I have a wireless google tv sony blue ray player that runs an app that can read windows shares (and other types) and play the media. it can also play the subtitle file I can download (since I'm deaf). Except for this one subtitle feature, I don't necessarily recommend Google TV. Very stagnant and boring, not a fast changing environment that I thought it would be. One thing I do like is I can control the Google TV box with my android phone using a Sony app. I get my in-house content through bittorrent and use a VPN to keep out of trouble. It's not perfect but minimizes risk. Surprisingly I find myself watching netflix most of the time anyways.. :)
--
Have you fscked your local propeller head today?
Have you fscked your local propeller head today?
I'm surprised no one mentioned one of those TV sticks that have been selling on all the Chinese electronics sites lately. Just google "android tv stick". I'm not recommending for or against them, just thought someone should bring them up in case you haven't heard of them as they tend to be cheaper than apple tv or roku.
We've cut the cord with a jailbroken AppleTV with XBMC on it. We use the HomeSharing in iTunes on the various computers for our party music, Hulu (free) plugin for XBMC, and pay for streaming-only Netflix. Anything that isn't on Netflix or Hulu (free) we will borrow or torrent. We have one computer in the house that is basically just a shell for a few giant hard drives, and XBMC on the AppleTV to stream from it. This has been working out pretty well, but we will be adding an HD antenna to the TV when football time rolls around again.
It seems incredibly interesting that those who have been the most helpful are the ones that accept that T.V. will be a part of our lives. Those that understand that have offered great advice. It is also interesting that those who are just completely anti-TV often bring up things (such as commercials) which are obviously answered by my question. One of the "requirements" is having a DVR. By definition, I would assume that would mean I can fast forward through commercials. And, yes, I can turn it off. Yes, I can read a book. These are things I do all the time. The T.V. has been off for over 24 hours (even with the kids and wife in the house) and I cannot remember the last time I personally turned it on. Wait... I can. It was four days ago, after I worked a 14 hour day (all of which I was on my feet) and just wanted some mindless noise to end the day. That is when I heard the hard drive start to die. I am not picking on you, A.C., but it sure is funny that: a. the best advice has come from those who understand that there will be TV in the house (thus, actually answering my question) b. those that have mentioned "read a book" or some such are so mighty and pious that, by their replies, they have made it explicit that their way of life is the only "good, true" way. (Reminds me of some people who are a little too enthused about their religion. I am not talking about one with a big I.... or a little i... or a big C. I am just generalizing.) c. Those that HAVE offered advice have never assumed anything beyond the question (i.e., lifestyle, weight, etc.) whereas so many that have said "keep the TV off" have made several incorrect assumptions. d. While I accept that "entertainment" could be better coming from a computer monitor (more interactive) than a TV, it makes me giggle like a little school girl every time I read someone saying that I AM DOING IT ALL WRONG by watching any TV at all, especially since e. THE WHOLE DAMN POINT OF THE QUESTION WAS TO REDUCE THE COST OF TV. Maybe, some day, I will be the perfect dad and husband and just get rid of it completely. In the mean time, doesn't it make sense to lower the cost and make it easier to get rid of the whole thing?
... along with some PVR device so you can fast-forward through the bits you're not interested in : averts, the non-sex scenes of movies, trailers.
If there is something that you want which isn't available FTA, then you'll need to invest in some surfing time, or a pay-to-air solution of some sort, whichever is most amenable.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
my parents were spending about 100 bucks a month but i fixed that for them. now they use my system. i use xbmc on the old xbox. softmod those things and they work well for streaming content up to the quality bluray rips (less than full bluray quality but better than dvd rips by a bit). anything above that and it cant handle it. the old xbox only supports up to 1080i but i dont know what most of my files are. That is just my front end. im waiting for my raspberry pi to come in august and then im planning on using that for xbmc as it is so small and it has hdmi output. you could use the western digital tv live or anything else that will do local network media streaming over samba or similar file sharing protocol. boxee is another option that works. i use a server as my central point for all my front ends to stream from. at the moment im using xp as my server os because thats how i know how to do it right now. it just sits under my tv without a keyboard, mouse, or monitor so it is unobtrusive and the fan is so quiet you wouldnt even know it was there. ive got all my content split into movies tv and music so its organized and i can rdp into that box from anywhere because i have the ports opened up on my router. i have my content on one 2tb drive and i have an exact copy in my desktop should the server copy go bad. it is effective and i dont have any bills other than internet access.
"Also HOAs can ban masts higher then 12 feet."
Not true! First off, it's 12ft OVER THE TOP OF YOUR ROOF LINE (if mounted on the ground, a 30+ft mast would still be okay). And second, that's just the cutoff where local authorities (like HOAs) can require some form pre-approval that would delay installation. If you NEED an antenna more tham 12ft above the top of your roof to receive local channels, then they still have to approve your request after a minimal delay UNLESS there's some serious safety issue (eg. low-hanging overhead power lines, or similar).
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Not to be offensive or anything, but does anyone know of similar "cut the cord" options for Europeans? Because everything i've read so far applies to the US and I live in Scandinavia. I've got a home server Gbit to my media centre with a jailbroken ATV2 running XBMC Eden, an Xbox360 for streaming 1080p movies, so streaming movie rentals are completely covered, and a satellite subscription, but I honestly cannot think of a user friendly way to cut the cord that would be acceptable for tech-un-savvy family members!
I could do without most of the crap on TV, but the national channels in HD are not available unless you have some kind of satellite/cable subscription. Plus, I love NatGeo and Discovery and the BBC channels. If I could get those channels through XBMC then I would be able to get rid of my satellite subscription. Note that free TV via antenna is not an option, because although you can get some of the free channels, they are not HD, and you only get channels 1,2 & 4 for free, whilst the other 2 big "national" channels (which aren't really free) are channels 3 & 5, and I would lose them if I just stuck an antenna on my house.
Things seem to be very different for you people in the US... It seems like "national basic channels" is not really an issue for those cutting the cord?
I suspect that part of the problem may be that because we don't have Netflix or Hulu over here, and whilst there may be some add-ons to xbmc that let you watch certain programmes from the national channels, it may involve a big change in interface we use to watch tv that neither my family nor myself or accustomed to: pressing channel 1 on the remote versus starting ATV-->starting xbmc-->choosing add-on from Videos-->choosing a program manually. Channel flicking and putting on the TV for background watching, are too ingrained.
"Everyone knows that vi vi vi is the number of the beast" -- Richard Stallman
Run your own server. XBMC runs on quite a few platforms. Apple TV 2 comes in at 99, and can now do surround sound and HD video. Also, you can create multiple profiles on each device and password protect them. Have the setup default to the kids menu with only tv shows and movies. Then, if the password is entered, it loads all of your collection available. Profiles can be synced between all of your devices over an easy to setup mysql server. This also supports pause and resume from different playback devices. You can source your own collection, or use software such as Sickbeard and Couchpotato to build up your collection to stop you from having to rip all of your dvds. These programs will also update your library and show as new items in XBMC. Bottom line is that XBMC is here to stay and has a huge developer backing. Install it or run it as a live distro and see what you think. It has served me well since its first release for the original Xbox.
Vizio VIA TV with a cheapo freebie Dell opteron added on to pick up some things like ESPN and HBO (had it and dropped it because we only watched one show and when it was over....) but HULU plus covers a lot, overlays with netflix which often gives two choices. Then I also use the Dell for "Eclipse.tv" which has sometimes better connectivity than the Vizio VIA apps. I just like having the browser available and plan to enable xbmc to hook up my music and movies through nfs4, bingo.
Stay away from wifi, lan is just faster and less laggy.
Subversion of spatial scale luxury decoration ideas.
Here's what works for me. I get over 40 channels:
SETUP 1 :
- Antenna attached to the TV + DVR/VCR
+ Hulu.com
+ DVD or uTorrent
+ supplemented by youtube, podcasts, etc
SETUP 2 (if antennas not allowed or desired)
- $25/mo Dish
+ hulu, DVD, etc
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"