My wife and I recently decided, as part of a broader austerity campaign, to get rid of cable TV. After a few days of seeing how well we got reception using just a simple antenna, we’ve decided that we should be able to pull this off.
I estimate that 90 percent of what we watch is on broadcast TV: ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC. We haven’t had pay channels in years, and almost all of what we watch on cable is more of the “I have some time to kill – let’s watch an hour of Mythbusters” variety than appointment viewing. The only exception to this is Mad Men, our absolute favorite show.
Right now the plan is to rely exclusively on broadcast TV (fed into our TiVo) and downloads. Ideally, I would like to do so legally, but since, again, this is all about austerity, I’m already going to concede that we’ll be hitting BitTorrent now and then, too.
Have any Dopers done this? I was kind of surprised to not see a recent thread on it, since it’s a concept that seems to be catching on among more tech-inclined folks. Anyway, some questions for those who have:
[ol]
[li]For stuff you downloaded, how much of it was legal?[/li]
[li]We live on the 3rd floor of an apartment building in a densely populated neighborhood. Our antenna works pretty well, but sometimes cuts out if you move near the TV when certain stations are on. It’s basically just a set of rabbit ears – any indoor antenna recommendations?[/li]
[li]We have NO interest in watching TV programs on our computers but are interested in devices that hook up to our TV and allow us to watch online programming on the big screen. I’m eyeing the Boxee Box (or hacking the new Apple TV to run Boxee) but I wanted to see if there were other options.[/li][/ol]
And beyond those questions, I would just love to hear people’s general thoughts on doing this.
First of all, once the mods see this they’ll either close it or ask posters to not reply to the piracy aspect. It’s not condoned or allowed on this board, regardless of poster’s personal positions on it.
You still have TiVo, right? If not, I suggest you get Sezmi.
Get an Apple TV for $100. You can get a season subscription to Mad Men and it streams to your TV. This would fulfill your requirement to watch everything on the TV and nothing on your computers.
Or if you’re really austere, and are willing to watch Mad Men on your TV, you can get a Roku for $60 (IIRC) and stream Netflix to your TV. Note that you’ll have to (legally or illegally) obtain Mad Men online.
So Tivo + Apple TV or Roku + Itunes Mad Men subscription = solution
or
Sezmi + Apple TV or Roku + Itunes Mad Men or something else = other solution
I have some experience, but your #3 cuts me out. I watch all my TV on my computer.
That aside, unless you’re a complete junkie and your TV habits span several channels including obscure ones, sticking to LEGAL media through the internet isn’t difficult at all these days. Hulu provides the vast majority of popular currently running shows, and many networks provide streaming episodes on their own sites.
Well, how the files for your favorite shows end up on your computer is your business, but I have a laptop and TV with a VGA in. I hook a VGA to VGA cord between the laptop and TV (as you would if you were hooking to a projector, and viola! free movies and TV programming, often without the commercials.
ETA: Note that it’s 7 pages long. The layout of the article and the pager at the bottom don’t really lend themselves to noting the length of the article.
I’ve thought about this option (my wife has a Macbook) but that would deprive her of her laptop at times when I want to watch something she doesn’t… though I suppose that leaves her free to use the family desktop. Still, she wouldn’t have access to her files/photos/music, so I see it being a pretty awkward arrangement.
What would be great is an affordable device that lets me view Hulu on the TV, but I know Hulu has been kind of dickish about this.
Oh, and Mods, I’m not seeking any comments on the how’s of TV piracy. If anything, I’m trying to really find out how to make my setup as legal as possible.
Affordable is in the eye of the beholder, but the PS3 ($299 nowadays) does blu-ray playback and netflix. I’m not sure if it does Hulu yet, but I’m sure it will eventually. Oh, and it does games if you like that sort of thing…
Oh and BTW - what kind of TV and connections do you have for it? That might help with some ideas.
99% of my watching is through Netflix instant streaming and the occasional Hulu visit. If you need to keep up with your shows, it might not be a good fit for you, but I vastly prefer watching a season of a show at my own pace, and Netflix has more than enough different choices to keep me entertained. More than cable does, in my opinion, and for $8ish a month, you can’t beat it.
Personally I’m fine with watching on my computer, but if I want to stream to my TV, I use my PS3. If I didn’t have one, there are many other choices.
We already have a Wii and a Blu-Ray player (paying for our own wedding is 95 percent of the reason why we need to cut costs, but purchases like that didn’t help things, even if we use them plenty), so I’m not going to get a PS3 at this point. Our TiVo has Netflix streaming built in, thankfully. I expect we’ll be using that quite a bit.
My TV is from 2006. It has one HDMI input (Blu-Ray), one DVI input (old Apple TV) and two component inputs (TiVo and Wii, respectively). All sound is wired through an A/V receiver. The only thing there that’s really replaceable is the Apple TV, which I would replace with a similar streaming-type device. I know I could get a home theater PC for that, but I think those are a bit out of my price range, and I don’t know how well they’d play with our all-Mac household.
Roku is the simplest, especially if Netflix and Amazon video on demand will satisfy your needs.
I would think when Hulu starts offering paid content they would be wise to partner with a hardware provider, whether it be Roku, AppleTV, or something else.
My laptop has an S-Video output. I just hook that up to the TV, and a cable from the headphone output to the RCA audio jacks on the TV, and play the video in full screen mode on the laptop. Works fine, and doesn’t need anything beyond a couple of cables.
ok dumb question here:
I don’t have cable, thus no cable internet. DSL is not in my area. What internet options do I have for getting streaming video in order to hook it up to my TV? BTW - that Wired article is very good - thanks for linking!
ETA: my internet for my computer is currently a wireless Verizon modem, with the appropriate software.
I do #3, but my AppleTV utilizes XBMC and Nito. I have Boxee but didn’t like the hack.
Also the new AppleTV has not connectors (I was thinking of upgrading) and I like to have my AppleTV connected to TerraStations for my vast collection of movies.
I have had a lot less crashes with XBMC than I did when I was using Nito entirely. I never could get Boxee to work at all (it kept crashing).
I LOVE my AppleTV and I haven’t had Cable in three years…
Pretty much no options. If you have Verizon Mobile Broadband, I think you are confined to a HARD 5GB per month limit. An hour of good video will be 1GB.
If you’ve got a Wii, spring for PlayOn (PlayOn: Brimming with Features to Make Streaming Better). You’ll be able to stream shows from Hulu and a bunch of other sites for $30 a year. Super cheap for that kind of service and no messing with the computer.
find out what your real channel numbers are. in the USA the high power stations are all digital, they may identify with their old analog channel number but might be on a new channel. many stations moved from VHF (2 through 13) to UHF (14 to 51). you want to know the real channel number, you can find this from newspaper or from your tv tuner setting.
rabbit ears (rods) are for 2 to 13. loop or bow tie are for 14 to 51. a strong signal for the other channel group can be received by either antenna type. there are single unit combination antennas of both types as well as a small passive combiner (UVSJ) to combine single antennas. you do not need any special digital antenna, you need an antenna type for your channel segment.
indoor antennas will be affected by reflections from walls or people and also blockages. position antenna for best results, maybe not right next to set, maybe near ceiling.
I don’t recommend this for various reasons that I’ll skip right now, but there are a lot of media players that are designed to store media files and play them back on your TV. If you want to see what’s out there - here’s what they have on newegg. Computer parts, laptops, electronics, and more - Newegg United States - just note that many require that you either install (internally) a hard drive or hook one up externally. Also, some may be fussy about the types of files they can play.
another thing to note is that even for something like Hulu, there are ways of downloading the video so you don’t have to view it on your computer. I don’t think it’s illegal since I think all you’re doing is capturing the video stream rather than breaking any DRM, but obviously it’s something Hulu and others don’t appreciate.
Wait wait, can’t you get one of those wireless broadband cards that plug into your laptop? Guys, help me out here, it’s like $100 and then $40 a month or something? There are definitely options out there; nobody should have to survive on a modem.
ETA: one of them is the Virgin Mobile MiFi. $150 and $40/month, but there are also other options
If you have Verizon Mobile Broadband, I think you are confined to a HARD 5GB per month limit. An hour of good video will be 1GB.