Cutting the Cord
We’re renovating our house and have moved into a rental for the next six months or so. I decided to do a little experiment and ditch my long-time cable TV provider, DirecTV. We were spending over $100 a month for one of DirecTV’s zillion-channel packages (of which we watched maybe 10 on a regular basis). After doing much research online, I decided on the following setup in our living room.
I Want My Free TV
Here in Dallas we can catch over 30 channels over-the-air using a cheap antenna…and 13 of these are in HD! So right now my $2000 HDTV has an antenna proudly perched on its top. Getting NBC, Fox, ABC and CBS over-the-air takes care of probably 90% of the shows we watch. Your mileage may vary regarding OTA reception. In many cases an external-mounted antenna may be required to get decent reception.
Boxee to the Rescue
To help bridge the satellite TV gap, I’m running free software called Boxee on my desktop PC. Boxee is an amazing program that allows users to access multiple Internet video and music sites, and to bring them to a large monitor or television. I’ve placed my PC just around the corner from our living room and am running a 15ft DVI to HDMI cable from the PC to our TV. Boxee also gives us a great interface to access all the photos, video and music on our PC hard drive, along with a wide range of television shows, movies and songs from sites like Hulu, Netflix, YouTube, CNN.com and CBS.com.
This evening, Boxee announced it is releasing a set-top box in 2010. This product will bring Boxee to the masses and is likely going to sell like hotcakes.
DVR or Die
So far the biggest drawback of our new setup has been the lack of a DVR/Tivo. Not having the ability to fast-forward through commercials has been pretty frustrating. And having to actually watch programs when they air has been a bit of a challenge as well. My wife and I were joking we didn’t even know what day of the week most of the shows we watch air. There is yet another free solution to this problem though. It’s called MythTV. This software requires a bit more setup (including the installation of some relatively inexpensive PC accessories); but being the computer geek that I am, I’ll probably have that up and running in the next few weeks.
Can I Live Without ESPN??
Another major drawback is the lack of the 5+ ESPN channels we were getting from DTV. I’m a college sports fanatic, so this is a pretty huge void for me. ESPN360 does provide a decent amount of live programming, but it’s no replacement for ESPN and ESPN2. I guess I’ll be heading to friends’ houses for any major ESPN broadcasts.
Has anyone else ditched their cable/satellite provider? Let us know in the comments. I’ll keep you updated on how this setup works out for us.
Tags: boxee, hulu, mythtv, Tips and Tricks