Living without cable TV

[soulcougher73]

We just bought our first house. Picked up free wifi and thinking about maybe skipping cable as well. Between netflix and the internet i can usually find what i want. For sports i can head to a bar i suppose. Get me out of the house and into a social setting

 

[Sheep]

Something else fun to keep in mind: Around 25-27% of the time allocated for a show is just commercials. (2hr show = 0.5hr of commercials, 30min show = 8min of commercials).

On MTV (not that I watch it), I once timed a half-hour show to only be 18 minutes of actual program. Most hourlong shows on broadcast networks are about 40-42 minutes, which means your estimate of 25-27% is actually low. WTG networks! :wtf:

 

[AstroManLuca]

Cable is worthless. Almost every time I go to another person's house who has cable or satellite, they just have their TV on in the background playing random crap that no one is watching. If you want to actually watch a specific show, there are other ways of doing so (rent DVDs or stream). This has the added benefit of allowing you to watch as much or as little of the show as you want at any given time, with no ads and no waiting for a specific time of the week. Oh sure, you can get a DVR as well, but that just adds even more to the cost (up-front AND monthly).

Or last weekend I went to my girlfriend's parents' house. They watched a couple of movies on demand. $3.99 each. That's almost an entire month of Netflix, which has unlimited streaming (granted, the movies on streaming aren't the greatest) and unlimited DVDs in the mail.

With all the options to watch TV shows and movies over the internet these days, I can't see any reason to buy cable TV. There's so much available at any given time that it would be impossible to run out and not know what to watch. Pick a series that you think might be good and watch a few episodes. If you like it, keep watching. Once you finish, start another one.

At most, I'd pay for basic cable just for the reception since I hate setting up and adjusting antennas. That's like $10-$15/mo. Even then, it's not really worth it to me. I sometimes just start service in September for football and then cancel in February.

 

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

I can't live without basic expanded cable, but only because it's included in my rent and I get a huge discount on cable net access ($19.99/month for an actual 12Mbps).

 

[QuEeNyGuRl]

Back in my college my neighbors did something to the apartment's cable box and gave everyone in our unit free cable. I watched TV day and night for two years. Even I leave the TV on to fall asleep to. After graduating, I moved out to another place but didn't want to pay for cable. I had bad withdrawls for a month and found myself bored without TV.

I've been cable free for the past 6 years and it feels great! I hardly missed as I found other things to do with my time. I do relapse though when I go home to my parents, I veg in my bed for hours in front of the TV, just catching up on shows I can't get on DVD, Hulu or Netflix.

I'm glad I don't have cable anymore. I realize how much time I waste in front of the tube. TV is evil!

 

[Modelworks]

I had Directv and when they wanted to increase my rates to $85 for HD+DVR with no premiums I decided I had enough. I bought an antenna to go outside for $40 off ebay, tuner for $40 and set up windows 7 media center. I use netflix, hulu, boxee too.

Been that way for about 5 months now and don't miss it at all. The extra $85 a month is nice too !
I went to a friends house yesterday that had cable, damn I wouldn't pay for that. Sorry quality picture and the stations were still playing the same crap they were playing 5 months ago.

Now I use WMC in windows 7 with plugins to launch netflix, hulu, boxee all from within the app and can still record shows while using those services.

Check out www.hack7mc.com for lots of stuff for windows media center.

 

[Jeff7]

On MTV (not that I watch it), I once timed a half-hour show to only be 18 minutes of actual program. Most hourlong shows on broadcast networks are about 40-42 minutes, which means your estimate of 25-27% is actually low. WTG networks! :wtf:

Ah, very nice.
My examples were based on shows like Futurama or MST3K.

Someone brought that up with ST:TOS episodes. They used to be something like 53 minutes long, but now with less time available, they just slice out random scenes so that there's enough time for the commercials.

 

[tokie]

We don't have cable TV in my house. Though, we do get about 5 channels for free and they are the local networks.

The only thing I miss is sports, but I can get the game-of-the-week usually which is enough for me. If I really want to watch something live, I can stream it. Everything else is downloaded and viewed sans commercials.

 

[vi edit]

I love watching sports. College football, NBA playoffs, MNF, ect. It's worth the cost for ESPN & TNT. If I didn't like sports I could easily live without it. They just aren't something that you can netflix up later and get the same type of enjoyment.

 

[Locut0s]

I haven't done this but I know poeple do do this. There are dedicated hardware products out there just for streaming HULU and your other media to your TV(s). I could easily see getting rid of cable TV so long as I had a reasonably speedy cable Internet connection.

 

[GTaudiophile]

<--- No cable for 5+ years.

And between OTA TV and the internet, I still barely have time to watch all that I want to watch during the week.

Besides that, I predict I have saved at least $3,000 in that time.

 

[KaOTiK]

I haven't done this but I know poeple do do this. There are dedicated hardware products out there just for streaming HULU and your other media to your TV(s). I could easily see getting rid of cable TV so long as I had a reasonably speedy cable Internet connection.

Best way is to simply build a HTPC, you can get some nice looking cases that fit right in for a living room setting, that's what I did.

 

[Locut0s]

Best way is to simply build a HTPC, you can get some nice looking cases that fit right in for a living room setting, that's what I did.

Agreed. I was just mentioning that there are some off the shelf solutions.

 

[iGas]

I didn't missed a thing and the result is that I got so much more time to read/studies/works OT/more time with friends & family.

<---- no cable since 1992

 

[notposting]

Pretty much the same as above, you'll be fine. Check into (if getting internet via cable) for a Limited Basic plus internet setup, we have that it gets us the broadcast networks basically INCLUDING the HD versions. So for most big sports events outside of ESPN we are good. And it costs the same as just internet alone would.

We did go OTA only for a year or two, reception was a little shaky here though so I don't mind the OTA via cable co setup. And if need be there's always Hulu/Netflix etc or just watch less.

Usually a show or two every night gets recorded on the DVR and that's plenty with our schedule. Tonight is busy with Chuck, Castle and DWTS.

 

[OverVolt]

I've been living in a hillbilly shack for 2 years and it's great, you should try it. I haven't seen TV in years.


Aw dang, a tooth.

 

[Sheep]

And between OTA TV and the internet, I still barely have time to watch all that I want to watch during the week.

Ditto that. I have OTA hooked up to my PC which serves as a DVR and I'm ridiculously behind on shows (about 2-3 episodes behind on House, FlashForward and V...the latter two because they kind of suck). I'd say I watch a good amount of TV but I don't miss having cable at all. My wallet also thanks me for the $100 I save each month over what I was paying for it when I had a roommate to split the costs.

 

[Paperdoc]

We dropped cable completely last fall. Our internet is via ADSL on our phone line because we're close enough to an exchange that can provide high-speed (8 Mb/s) service. We built a small computer dedicated to internet TV downloads / displays, based on an AMD chip, 2GB RAM, Win XP Pro OS, low-power components in a low-profile case allowing small quiet fans, and a fanless XFX video card based on the ATI 4250 chip. It has a S-Video output we convert to a simple NTSC Composite video with an adapter (plus stereo audio) for feeding into our older VCR / TV setup. My son chose and set up the software in three components. Microtorrent is the downloader (the "micro" part is written as the Greek letter mu, looks like u), TED is the download control system that you program with which TV programs and episodes (or whole series) that you want it to find for you, and Boxie is the player that lets you choose and play any program on the hard drive. We installed two 1.5 TB hard drives, and so far the first one is getting close to full with hundreds of hours of all our favorite shows. It really has become our entertainment center, not a TV, because we have total control of what we watch when. And NO commercials, which is enjoyable and saves a lot of time.

At the same time I installed a reasonably good broad-band exterior type of TV antenna, but put it in our attic. I connected to it an impedance-matching transformer to go from 300 ohm (twin lead output on an antenna) to 75 ohm standard coax TV cable, then a small booster amp of 10 dB to boost the signal before sending it down the cable and through a couple of stages of splitters we already had installed. So that antenna supplies several TV's in the house with local OTA stuff. It's kinda weird watching that, though - they keep breaking up the programs with commercials!

One thing you have to get used to - you do NOT see anything "live" this way, at least not usually. You get to see programs a couple days or more after they air. So for sports fans, this may not be the best. During the recent Winter Olympics one of the networks did live streaming on the internet of most coverage, so we watched that way just using the browser on the computer. But not many networks live-stream their major programs.

 

[Brainonska511]

Ah, very nice.
My examples were based on shows like Futurama or MST3K.

Someone brought that up with ST:TOS episodes. They used to be something like 53 minutes long, but now with less time available, they just slice out random scenes so that there's enough time for the commercials.

They would do that with new Doctor Who episodes that were rebroadcast on Sci-Fi in the US. The BBC broadcasted episodes would be about 53-55min long, but the Sci-Fi rebroadcast would be 40-45 min.

 

[Jeff7]

They would do that with new Doctor Who episodes that were rebroadcast on Sci-Fi in the US. The BBC broadcasted episodes would be about 53-55min long, but the Sci-Fi rebroadcast would be 40-45 min.

The timespan isn't too long either. I watched DS9 reruns on SpikeTV, and I noticed that there were scenes missing here and there. That's not a terribly long span of time there either from original run to rerun (and network shift).

And of course, we have commercials available to purchase on DVD. (See: Music Video)

 

[DrPizza]

Wife is continuing her education & it was a big distraction to her. Both kids are in college & there really aren't that many shows on television that capture my interest - it was mainly something to do just to kill time. So, I got rid of directv. Haven't missed it a bit. The only time any television in our house gets turned on is if one of the kids comes home for the weekend & rents a movie to watch with his girlfriend. And as the weather gets nicer, the amount of time I spend indoors decreases.

 

[Brainonska511]

The timespan isn't too long either. I watched DS9 reruns on SpikeTV, and I noticed that there were scenes missing here and there. That's not a terribly long span of time there either from original run to rerun (and network shift).

And of course, we have commercials available to purchase on DVD. (See: Music Video)

I swear that Spike tries to squeeze a half hour of commercials in every hour. I'm glad I didn't pay for cable this year (split it with roommates last year), but I'm disappointed that I didn't pay for faster DSL service. I guess I only need to deal with it all for another month or so.