Ditching Cable

[chrisgeleven]

Right now, I am close to pulling it off and going cable TV free. Here is what I can get as replacements for live sports.

Boston Red Sox: MLB.TV ($79 per year low quality, $99.95 per year HD). Big issue though: Blackouts. No dice.
Boston Celtics: NBA League Pass (apparently there is a broadband version, no idea on cost or how it works...doesn't appear possible to get live feed of the playoffs right now, which isn't promising)
New England Patriots: Local channels.

As long as the Red Sox are blacked out on MLB.TV and NESN is cable-only, I definitely can't ditch cable. NBA League Pass is also important since CSNNE (Comcast SportsNet New England) is cable-only as well.

Sad state, but until the major sports figure out that it is in their best interests to offer online subscriptions to ALL games without blackout restrictions, then no one is going to bother except in the off chance that you really live cross country and are a Red Sox fan.

 

[pagansoul]

I'm not a great watcher of TV. I have been going on and off cable for years. My problem is I would miss the H&G and SciFi then buy cable for a year and after the contract was up, disconnect for about a year then go back for a year and so on. I have always just kept the Internet access. Right now I'm in my 'Internet Only' mode, highest speed for about $60 monthly.

I have TV but watch TV on my computer, Hulu. I have a huge DVD library and a good amount is ripped to my computer so I have over 400 movies and several TV shows streamed to my TV. I also have a blu-ray on one TV and HD on another. Do I miss cable, not right now but it's only been 2 months and I have all of SG-1, Babylon 5, Lexx, Star Wars, a lot of Star Trek, Buffy, Angel, Dead Zone, Alien Nation on DVD.

The only time I use iTunes is their weekly $1 movie (if I don't already have it in my collection) or never saw it. Just rented TOMMY last week. I just hope 'Color Splash' will come to DVD soon.

 

[eddyg]

I ditched Cable TV for ATV and EyeTV (for OTA HD Broadcasting - since 90% of what I was watching was available in HD OTA, and I never watched it live).

Since then I've been very happy - I've got the shows appearing in iTunes and the ATVs automatically soonish after the show finishes.

It was a little effort to get it all set up just right though, especially the EyeTV -> iTunes part since I didn't like the EyeTV export quality and so do it myself with HandBrake and lots of string

Now I spend that money saved on the Cable company on buying movies from iTunes or renting them from the DVD store (I don't tend to rent from iTunes since I pay per Gb for bandwidth, which makes the rental, especially a HD rental, quite expensive).

Cheers, Ed.

 

[duncanapple]

I'm surprised no one mentioned TiVo.

You can get OTA HD channels (which are actually the best quality 1080i you can get, since its uncompressed. Blue Ray is the only thing that beats it right now) for free, and record them on an HD TiVo box. TiVo service is $13 a month (or less if you pay more months at once), plus the upfront $250 for the box. Seems like it would be much cheaper to go this route (and get full 1080i HD) than purchase seasons on iTunes

I have a OTA HD, TiVo HD, and a blue ray player. I have contemplated doing ATV for movies vs blue ray or DVDs, but right now the apple store rentals are a little pricey compared to red box, which is $1. Granted redbox doesnt have widespread blue ray (yet) but its coming - and it still beats the 720p (or less?) junk they are pushing through itunes (and charging a premium to boot).

I wish *someone* would come up with an online rental service with full HD (1080p), a complete movie selection, and prices around $2-3 for a one day rental. Do that, plus make sure the ISPs don't put bandwidth caps on service, and optical media will officially be dead.

 

[eddyg]

I'm surprised no one mentioned TiVo.

You can get OTA HD channels (which are actually the best quality 1080i you can get, since its uncompressed. Blue Ray is the only thing that beats it right now) for free

OTA HD *is* compressed. Either as MPEG2 or MPEG4-part10 (H.264) Depending on where you live. Bluray is also compressed.

There's no difference... you could argue that some providers wind the compression up on their distribution over others.

Cheers, Ed.

 

[duncanapple]

OTA HD *is* compressed. Either as MPEG2 or MPEG4-part10 (H.264) Depending on where you live. Bluray is also compressed.

There's no difference... you could argue that some providers wind the compression up on their distribution over others.

Cheers, Ed.

Hmm - thats not what I had read before. Does anyone else have input on this? The case very well could be that the cable/sat companies wind them up even more, which makes sense given they are trying to send hundreds of channels through the bandwidth they have. OTA just needs to send one signal from the tower/s.

My parents have the same Hitachi 42 inch Plasma (1080i) I have - They use Direct TV and I use OTA. My picture is faaaaaar better. And I have the picture settings on both identical.

My Brother has a different TV altogether (a 65inch mitsu diamond series) and cable HD. Granted its a bigger TV, but its also 1080P. Even when standing back and extra few feet to account for the screen size difference, my TV is still the winner hands down.

And to keep the comparisons going, my in-laws have a brand new panasonic 50 inch plasma, also cable HD, again, mine wins.

One more - a buddy of mine has a samsung 50 inch plasma - he has cable HD AND an antenna (our cable company has had times where not all locals were provided in HD) and the antenna *is* better. Even on the same TV!

There clearly must be some truth to the compression/transmission techniques. Not claiming to be an expert, but from what I have read/seen, all signals are not created equal.

 

[DAMAC3]

Hmm - thats not what I had read before. Does anyone else have input on this? The case very well could be that the cable/sat companies wind them up even more, which makes sense given they are trying to send hundreds of channels through the bandwidth they have. OTA just needs to send one signal from the tower/s.

My parents have the same Hitachi 42 inch Plasma (1080i) I have - They use Direct TV and I use OTA. My picture is faaaaaar better. And I have the picture settings on both identical.

My Brother has a different TV altogether (a 65inch mitsu diamond series) and cable HD. Granted its a bigger TV, but its also 1080P. Even when standing back and extra few feet to account for the screen size difference, my TV is still the winner hands down.

And to keep the comparisons going, my in-laws have a brand new panasonic 50 inch plasma, also cable HD, again, mine wins.

One more - a buddy of mine has a samsung 50 inch plasma - he has cable HD AND an antenna (our cable company has had times where not all locals were provided in HD) and the antenna *is* better. Even on the same TV!

There clearly must be some truth to the compression/transmission techniques. Not claiming to be an expert, but from what I have read/seen, all signals are not created equal.

Hardly any cable companies and no satellite companies (Direct or Dish) pass their HD channels on without additional compression, even the network stations. You will always have a better picture getting the content directly OTA. Even if there is no additional compression, you are still getting the signal directly from the affiliate OTA as opposed to having it passed through your content provider before coming to you.

In many cases content providers (I know Dish does this for sure, and I think Directv also) take a 1080i signal, which is supposed to be 1080x1920 pixel lines, and compress it to 1080x1440.

BTW - OTA is compressed. MPEG2 is a compresssion format. Cable and Sat companies are moving to MPEG4 because it is more efficient (i.e. better picture with less bitrate). However, they usually use too much compression so they can cram a few more HD channels into their limited amount of bandwidth to attract subscribers. Networks are already allocated so much bandwidth OTA for their one channel, so they have no need to change compression formats and over-compress the signal (except for the fact that they sometimes push too many subchannels, but that is for another discussion).

 

[kadeschs]

Do that, plus make sure the ISPs don't put bandwidth caps on service, and optical media will officially be dead.

Right. My telephone company gimps bandwidth unless you bundle your DSL service with a cable service plan. Basically, they say sure you can download stuff to watch, but you gonna continue to pay for the cable anyway.

 

[Galley]

I dumped my satellite TV service for a Blockbuster Online subscription and the MLB.TV Premium subscription. I watch all my favorite shows on Hulu and the like. I've never bothered to hook up an antenna to my HDTV.