Cable Freedom Is a Click Away

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/10/technology/personaltech/10basics.html?_r=1&hpw

by edw519 • 17 years ago

26 27 17 years ago

I've been watching TV/movies either on DVD/netflix via the x-box, or Hulu by attaching my laptop to the TV instead of cable for the last few months. I'm pretty happy with it overall, and everything which I was really interested in is available.

Despite the massive amount of content available to me, I've found that I just watch the shows I'm interested in or a random movie and then go do something else. I think the main reasons for that are that there's no show that just starts after the current one (I completely stopped watching Colbert) and there aren't re-runs of old shows that I liked. In the case of the latter sometimes episodes of those shows are available, but I seem less inclined to watch them if I need to find and pick them then if I happen to see it's on some channel I'm passing by.

keltecp11• 17 years ago

I'm just curious why Cable Companies have not been investing more energy and time into the homer server market... it seems that is the future... though actually didn't I hear something about Comcast breaking into the Alarm industry?

pmorici• 17 years ago

I've heard lots of people say they hook Mac Mini's up to their TV. How are they doing it? I've got a DVI -> HDMI cable but that only handles the Video are people using junky PC speakers for the audio or is there some kind of in expensive multiplexer you can buy to get the audio into the HDMI cable.

ronnier• 17 years ago

I don't use a Mac, but for my PC I have a video card with two DVI ports. The DVI ports on this card will also send the audio through it. If you have a DVI to HDMI adapter, you'll get the audio on your TV/receiver.

Given that, I'm only using the video portion of the HDMI cable and using the S/PDIF (a single RCA cable, digital signal though) output on my mother board to send a digital audio signal over to my receiver.

I use XBMC (Windows, Mac, Linux) for watching movies. It's beautiful software, free and open source: http://xbmc.org/

SwellJoe2• 17 years ago

The Mac Mini has a retarded Mini DisplayPort, which doesn't have audio. There is a cable that will combine them into a proper HDMI that does have audio, but it's a little pricey, and doesn't entirely solve the too many cables problem. When I helped a friend wire hers up, we just ran a separate 1/8" phone plug to dual RCA plugs, and configured the TV to use analog audio. Most modern TVs have this option, even for the HDMI and DisplayPort video sources.

jsz02• 17 years ago

Not all PC speakers are junky. Logitech and others make some really good sounding products these days. If you're using an AV receiver most allow you to independently select your audio channel so you could use standard composite audio in or use a USB adapter for optical audio. (I use the one Turtle Beach makes and it works really well)

siculars• 17 years ago

canceled my time warner cable a few months ago. just use them to get my internet now at about 40$ a month. they were desperate to keep me from canceling offering me like 99$ a month for tv and internet and all kinds of dtv stuff IF i agreed to a two year commitment. uh, ya right. forget that.

meta• 17 years ago

The last month I have been doing this with XBMC. The base stuff works amazing and using xmbclive was quick and easy. The trouble I have been having is setting up Live TV. Our provider uses IPTV so getting content is as simple as faking a mac address and joining udp groups. But getting that setup nicely with anything "set top box"-like has been hard.

In my opinion though, this type of episodes on demand, no schedule required, watch when you want thing is the future of TV. It is funny that most people now have PVRs (and swear by them) but really those things are just caching content already saved and available in cable company head-ends. I am surprised there hasn't been more movement by cable companies to allow end users to watch their content libraries whenever and however they want. Especially with the way TV Shows are getting more serial and epic - miss one episode and you don't want to watch any until you are caught up.

Is it a matter of bandwidth or maybe just no interest in doing something new?

wmeredith• 17 years ago

There is, but I've only seen it with premium channels. HBO on-demand is excellent. You just look through the catalog of shows/movies and pick the one you want.

pxlpshr2• 17 years ago

I've been doing this for two years, no regrets on ditching cable box. The only time I miss it is the rare occasion when friends aren't doing anything for a UT football game.

It bothers me when companies dismiss streaming/on-demand due to it's "bandwidth" costs because companies like GigaNews seem to be quite profitable and offer unlimited download + SLL for $30 a month or less.

TetOn• 17 years ago

>for a UT football game

This seems to be the rub. I can't imagine the networks/cable-cos letting these assets go in a "pay $X to stream this game" way anytime soon. It seems likely that live sports (more than anything else I can think of) will likely be the cudgel for much broader content delivery service agreements for some time to come.

maudineormsby• 17 years ago

NHL, NBA, and MLB have online streaming options. I subscribe to NHL Gamecenter. $160 a season, and streams at 2200 kbps, which is good enough for me.

Sports are slowly caving to the online demand.

hexis• 17 years ago

You could always use your savings for football tickets.

spudlyo• 17 years ago

I'm a satisfied GigaNews customer, I download on average 30G a month from them.

csbrooks• 17 years ago

Can't you watch UT with rabbit ears?

scott_s• 17 years ago

Looks like they've never heard of the Roku: http://www.roku.com/

It can't do Hulu, but I've used it at a friend's house to access his Netflix account. It's quite nice.

SwellJoe2• 17 years ago

Looks to me like they have:

There’s also the $80 Roku box, a device that allows you to stream video from Netflix, Amazon.com and other sites directly to your television.

migpwr4• 17 years ago

(Give a reason if you are going to downvote me. I've tried this and know first hand that it sucks.)

OK. In my experience, this is a poor solution and generally a dumb thing to do.

It's hard to use, often breaks, and has pretty horrible program selection. Even with the Netflix membership.

The feeling of not paying "the man" for cable is cool but this simply isn't a good solution. There isn't an alternative to cable and you will regret going through the trouble. The only people with no regrets, are the people who don't watch much TV, or are in denial.

Seriously, what happens when it keeps breaking? It sucks to have your wife call you at work when it's broken. The remote isn't responding, won't full-screen, stuttering etc.

Some of you need to be honest and stop giving everyone the no regrets since leaving cable stuff.

This setup sucks. It's just not as bad as regular TV.

pxlpshr2• 17 years ago

I didn't downvote you. I watch "TV" at most 2-4 hours a week (including weekends), but I do watch a fair amount of movies. Contrary to your experience, it doesn't break for me but I do agree it's not really quite ready for prime time.

A majority of cable TV is garbage which is why I refuse to pay for their bloat. I don't know why anyone in their right mind would want to spend more than 12 hours watching the idiot box anyway. I'm not pointing a finger at you but it humors me that I have friends who give me crap for sitting on the computer (learning I might add), while they sit in front of the TV with their microwave dinner watching poorly-written, dumbed-down sitcoms.

migpwr4• 17 years ago

I watch about 1-4hrs per day depending on what's showing. Mostly sports but I like NatGeo, History, Travel, Discovery etc. I don't watch any sitcoms but there are a few well written shows like Mad Men, Wire etc. I also enjoy stuff like Top Gear and Ultimate Factories. But it's mostly sports for me.

nollidge• 17 years ago

You're probably getting downvoted for reporting your subjective experience as though it applies to everyone.

What exactly keeps breaking? I have had a setup like this for over a year now over 802.11g. Hulu can be hiccupy, but usually only if I'm eating up extra bandwith.

migpwr4• 17 years ago

We mostly had problems with the remote, but also various pieces of hardware, like the roku. The playback would show up a little dark but I don't think it was directly related to the setup. It was also choppy over the wireless at times. We did a 2 month experiment and decided it wasn't ready. The programming available is horrible though. How many times can you watch Helvetica?

I hope you're right about the reason I'm being downvoted and that it's not because of the typical anti-TV mentality that will sometimes accompany these threads. Sorry for doing a bad job of wording that. (and probably this as well)

Come on guys! As if hyping yourself up with startup news isn't a waste of time. Most of the threads on here are junk food news now. It's no different than watching something on cable.

jsz02• 17 years ago

It's definitely not for everyone but I don't think it's as grim as you state. I use my HTPC as a computer and forgo the remote control & full-screen-centric interfaces. Anyone who can handle using Hulu, Netflix or iTunes can use it. It's just a computer on a big screen.

jimbokun• 17 years ago

"If you’re an ESPN fan you have two options."

I've been pretty please with the offerings on ESPN360. I can get it through my DSL connection. (I think cable internet providers block it, but of course the point here is to break with the cable companies anyway.) They have a lot of NBA, college basketball, baseball, even European soccer.

mikeryan2• 17 years ago

ESPN, as a network, is tied pretty inextricably to the Cable nets.

They get somewhere between $3-$4 per subscriber a month regardless of whether you watch them. Thats about ~4 Billion a year they make from just subscriber fees.

Cable Freedom Is a Click Away

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