<p>My cable company now requires a digital converter box for each TV–for an additional monthly charge, of course. This morning the new box in the kitchen failed after about 45 days of service. My fault, said customer service, because I switch the box off along with the TV so as not waste the “vampire power.” </p>
<p>For whatever reason, perhaps having to make a call while my coffee was still brewing, this was the final straw for me. Although my TV is frequently babbling for “company,” since I live alone when S is at school, there are very few current shoes I actually watch. And cable, even the almost-basic package I have is unreasonably expensive. So, I am thinking I could possibly get by with Hulu, Netflix, and the various network’s websites.</p>
<p>Is any one already doing this? How hard is it to hook the laptop up to the TV? (I actually already have the appropriate cable.) Have I finally lost my dwindling mind?</p>
<p>You haven’t lost your mind, but you might start by weaning down to a single converter box – and one t.v. That way you aren’t paying for the extra boxes, and you can get a sense of what life would be without cable while you are in the kitchen or any room other than the set with the converter box.</p>
<p>We did this in May (discontinued the cable TV). Be prepared for calls from the cable company asking why, and do you want a new deal, and are you sure you can survive without TV (well, not quite, but close). D was gone most of the summer and is now at college. Neither H nor I have been big TV watchers. The few current shows we do want to watch, we mostly have been able to watch for free on the internet. We have bought a couple of episodes of a show from itunes. Both H and I like the house to be quiet. I think our dog might miss the noise, though.</p>
<p>We have comcast here, we pay 14.95 for our cable service, the only thing we are getting from the Cable is what’s free over the air. And it is still analog so we do not need a converter to see digital cable over analog tv.</p>
<p>I recently dropped my Comcast service to the economy level. For $30 (in our area, cheaper other places) we get all of the local channels in HD plus a few of the cable channels in digital. Much better than the $80/month we were paying for hundreds of channels we rarely watched. This is just our first step down… if we can get used to this I may cut it down even further. The biggest thing we miss is the live sports. Interestingly, I’d heard stories of how their customer service would offer you deals to not downgrade, but the guy I got on the phone just said “ok” and didn’t offer me a thing. I don’t know if it was me, or him, or just that Comcast has stopped doing that.</p>
<p>Anyway, I’ve played a bit with PlayOn. It let’s you watch tv that’s available on the internet through a game system attached to a TV. We use it through the Wii. I’m not sure how much I’ll use it, since we still have around 15 channels through Comcast, but I’m gong to see it I can get used to it before I cut the cable cord completely. I’m in a 14-day free trial with it now.</p>
<p>Today at Woot.com, the new, faster, Roku HD is available for $70 (refurbished). DS uses this to watch netflix and amazon video-on-demand, and loves it. The picture is much better than I get through the internet using PlayOn, and the sound better than getting it though my laptop.</p>
<p>1996: BB’s cable bill = $19
2010: $73 (same channels, just “HD”) - yikes!!! I’m ready to pull the plug on the wretched cable, but DH* needs *his MSNBC talking heads with his morning coffee (for which, according to the &^$@ MSNBC, we will be paying 40% more in the coming weeks :eek:)</p>
<p>We lost virtually all our broadcast when TV went digital (despite converter boxes) We have relied on Netflix and hulu plus our own stash of DVDs ever since and we are doing just fine.</p>
<p>I pay 125/month for my Cable and Internet. Not quite sure how that’s broken down… but that includes something like 300 channels, most of which are in HD… The only ones I ever watch are like, ESPN HD, CSN HD, Fox HD, etc… which ever ones are playing the Phillies and Eagles games. There are one or two TV shows that i actually like however I never remember to watch them on TV so i just watch them online. I too have a Roku box and I LOVE IT.</p>
<p>We’ve only had cable for one of those trial periods ten years ago. 21 years ago, I bought a mobile home antenna, put it in the attic and we watched broadcast off of that. When digital came around, the signals were too poor to get more than two stations so I bought an 8-foot antenna ($60) and installed it in the attic. Gets about 15 stations even though we’re fifty miles outside of Boston. My wife watches it from time to time. The kids watch one show on broadcast.</p>
<p>I watch science fiction shows on Hulu. I’m watching the US Open this week at the US Open website where they stream up to five matches live and I can go from match to match. I like the CSI series on ABC too. No need for cable tv for this household.</p>
<p>If you’re not too far from a major metro, a good antenna might get you a decent number of broadcast stations. Some friends of mine love Netflix. If I do want to pay for content, I can just buy it on my iPad for viewing. There are lots of entertainment options out there.</p>
<p>Be aware that these networks might eventually charge for internet content. Hulu is already doing this for iPad users with its Hulu+ service.</p>
<p>We pay $33/month for Internet + Phone + Broadcast TV.</p>
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<p>I think that ESPN will allow you to watch some games live for free if your ISP has a contract with them. I believe that I can watch ESPN content on the internet at my son’s apartment because it has Verizon broadband but not at my home because our ISP is under bankruptcy protection and probably isn’t looking to increase cash costs.</p>
<p>We haven’t had cable for over a decade, but we still have it hanging off our house- since we are painting I finally called the phone company to disconnect their wires ( we used to have two lines, now we have only cell phones), and I am trying to figure out who owns the cable since the company doesn’t exist anymore.</p>
<p>I don’t watch tv- but we did get a converter box for the digital.
Also just signed up for Netflix.</p>
<p>The ads don’t bother me as I’m frequently doing something else, often work-related, while listening to Hulu. Hulu runs in the browser so you can just switch to a different tab to read your email or look something up while the ad runs and switch back when your program is back.</p>
<p>I had cable back in the 80s with no ads and music videos one after the other. It was less than fifteen dollars a month.</p>
<p>Now I have a smaller TV and a wonderful converter box (GE from Abt) no cable, no cable bill. Since the HD conversion, there are more channels and continuous weather coverage. More than I have time to watch.</p>
<p>The whole digital conversion thing irks me. We live 50 miles from the tv stations. Since that change, we can’t get one channel, with or without a converter box. This really helped us, didn’t it? I think the gov’t was in cahoots with DirecTV. </p>
<p>I love living in the country, but the utilities stink. I salivate reading all the posts about combo packages. We pay $60/mo for <em>wireless</em> (not DSL, and much slower) internet, our phone exchange has 500 people and they will never lay fiber optic for such a small exchange, and I can’t even get one TV channel for free. /sigh/</p>
<p>Wow! I’ve been immersed in work yesterday and today–your comments are inspiring. I think I am ready to take the plunge with no half-way transition period. I am paying about $160 a month for Comcast’s TV-phone-super high speed internet bundle. It looks like I can spend well under $50 for DSL and vonage and not miss a thing! I am just going to try hooking the computer up to the TV, etc., this weekend before calling comcast.</p>
<p>Oh yes, I’ve never been able to get any of the supposed “great deals” by bargaining with Comcast. Are we sure that’s not an urban myth?</p>