- Mar 8, 2005
- 8,805
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My wife and I are playing with the idea of ditching cable tv. We only watch a few shows and all of them are available on the internet via legal means (itunes, hulu, fancast, amazon video on demand, etc). We realized that we pay around 80.00 a month for TV service. Our plan was to replace our tv service with something that can let us get our content from the internet.
We have two tv's (one downstairs and one in the bedroom) and both are 1080p, so having high def content is important. I've been playing with this idea for a few days and just wanted some feedback on how others may have done this. So far I've broken this idea down into a few possible configurations.
1) 2 appletv's. Jailbroken so I can stream my movie collection from upstairs (or I guess I could convert it all to itunes compatible formats) and buying season passes to shows we want to watch from itunes. Netflix possibly as a backup for 'background' content.
2) Buy another xbox360 (or 2 ps3's) and get netflix, hulu (it's coming to the 360), and streaming from my computer.
3) Roku box - It not only has hulu, amazon on demand, and netflix, but apparently can stream the UFC's live with a UFC channel. That would be nice as I sometimes don't feel like heading to the bar to watch the fights. Only downside is no streaming from my computer.
4) mac mini (or build my own variant). This let's me have full access to any content. Only problem is how to handle the second computer. I guess I could stream to a appletv or some other device. It's not really feasible to buy 2 mini's to accomplish this task. However with a dedicated mini I could host all my movies there and re-encode them to itunes compatible format. I could also throw a tuner card on there and record ova channels.
In any case, I'm looking for input from anyone who has done this or is thinking of doing it. If it helps our favorite shows are mostly on USA/Comedy central/over the air tv (nbc, cbs, etc) and the history channel.
We have two tv's (one downstairs and one in the bedroom) and both are 1080p, so having high def content is important. I've been playing with this idea for a few days and just wanted some feedback on how others may have done this. So far I've broken this idea down into a few possible configurations.
1) 2 appletv's. Jailbroken so I can stream my movie collection from upstairs (or I guess I could convert it all to itunes compatible formats) and buying season passes to shows we want to watch from itunes. Netflix possibly as a backup for 'background' content.
2) Buy another xbox360 (or 2 ps3's) and get netflix, hulu (it's coming to the 360), and streaming from my computer.
3) Roku box - It not only has hulu, amazon on demand, and netflix, but apparently can stream the UFC's live with a UFC channel. That would be nice as I sometimes don't feel like heading to the bar to watch the fights. Only downside is no streaming from my computer.
4) mac mini (or build my own variant). This let's me have full access to any content. Only problem is how to handle the second computer. I guess I could stream to a appletv or some other device. It's not really feasible to buy 2 mini's to accomplish this task. However with a dedicated mini I could host all my movies there and re-encode them to itunes compatible format. I could also throw a tuner card on there and record ova channels.
In any case, I'm looking for input from anyone who has done this or is thinking of doing it. If it helps our favorite shows are mostly on USA/Comedy central/over the air tv (nbc, cbs, etc) and the history channel.
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