We've been without cable for almost a month, so I thought I'd provide an update.
What has life without cable been like? Honestly I think I watch just as much TV as I did before, and my habits are much the same. "What's on the Tivo that I'd like to watch?" The big difference is that now everything is in HD, and where I typically would put on MASH or 3rd Rock From The Sun for mindless background noise I now put on Seinfeld or That 70's Show. The important change is that I'm getting this entertainment for free instead of paying $50+ a month.
You may be asking "Wasn't everything HD before?" and the answer is no, it wasn't. The majority of what I could receive from our local cable provider was standard definition TV signals. With an inexpensive antenna on our roof, we get fifteen different channels that are all in HD. Here's what we receive in Conway, SC using our antenna:
3-1 WWAY (ABC)
3-2 WWAY Weather (24x7 weather channel)
6-1 WECT (NBC)
6-2 WECT Weather (24x7 weather channel)
13-1 WBTW (CBS)
13-2 WBTW2 (MyTV)
15-1 WPDE (ABC)
21-1 WWMB (CW)
21-2 WWMB2 (CW)
23-1 WHMC (PBS)
23-2 WHMC2 (PBS)
23-3 WHMC3 (PBS)
26-1 WSFX (Fox)
26-2 WSFX2 (ThisTV - starts 2/2/09)
32-1 WMBF (NBC)
43-1 WFXB (Fox)
So all these HD channels are nice, but the question probably is "Do I miss cable?" The answer is no. All of these channels give me most of my entertainment, and what I don't get here, I predominantly get through Netflix. Netflix has a good collection of streaming movies, and what they don't stream they'll send me in the mail.
"You still must be missing some things though." Yes, there are some things that I don't get between the antenna and Netflix, but the few things that they do not provide me are taken care of by online streaming. In fact, I can get more info, webisodes, and full episodes of "The Office" online than I can by watching it on regular TV. Here's my list of links that I've compiled of places I can watch shows online:
- ABC
- ABC Family
- Adult Swim
- A&E
- Bravo
- CBS
- The Daily Show
- Discovery Channel
- Fox
- fX
- History Channel
- Hulu (In my opinion, one of the best places for online viewing)
- Joost
- Make:
- National Geographic Channel
- NBC
- Revision3
- South Park
- Spike
- TBS
- TV.com
- TV Land (So I can still watch my 3rd Rock episodes!)
- VH1
In the end, I'd call the move away from cable to antenna and web based entertainment a big success. I do not in any way regret dumping cable, and I'm very pleased with this decision. If you're in an area where you can get a number of signals (check HERE for info for your area), and you have high speed internet available for streaming of videos, it's definitely worth considering.
2 comments:
Have you tried out the Netflix plugin on TiVo yet? It's one of my favorite things right now. I think TiVo makes it a lot easier to go without cable because it's catching your shows as they air, vs. only having a dozen channels to choose from at a particular moment each night. It lets you maximize what you can get from your television. Trying to go exclusively online and live tv, without the DVR would be more difficult for me.
Yes, we have a Tivo in the living room and an Xbox 360 in the bedroom. Both are used for viewing Netflix online. If I had to choose which I liked better, I'd go with the Tivo implementation of Netflix. Not as pretty, but seems to work better.
I agree on Tivo. It's changed how I watch TV. I watch what I want, when I want. Quite different than my parents who base their lives around being home at ___ because ___ is on then.
I think that the on-demand ability to watch your favorite shows on the web somewhat negates the need for a device like a Tivo in the long run though. If you can record, for example, "The Office" on your Tivo or you can go to hulu.com and watch the same episode over the net, why pay for a TivoHD and the monthly service?
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