Giving up TV
OK well I’m not really giving up TV I’m just giving up all the channel fees that I pay monthly to my cable company. I’m planning to use my ISP service and use it for all my viewing. It’s a past due, bold move and I’m ready.
Movies
I will not be giving up my Netflix account, instead I bought an xbox 360 and will be doing the instant viewing of Netflix movies via the xbox interface. Netflix is about $18 / month. Xbox online is about $50/year. I have been pretty happy with the list of available movies for instant viewing. I got a great deal on the XBOX which also came with bunch of great games!
News
I’ve been getting my news online for a long time, years, so this won’t be much of a change. I have a folder of NEWS & VIEWS links which just about cover all my interests in both text and video based formats. I also have my favorites that come right into my reader.
Custom Channels
I use MIRO and subscribe to shows like HDNation, TED Talks, Daily Show, Onion News Network and so much more. The interface is slick and the content is robust.
And then there is HULU. Just yesterday I caught up on episodes of “Lie To Me”. It’s a great way to sample TV shows.
Now for some it may annoying to not get all the episodes in a row, etc, but things like that don’t bother me. It can also be frustrating to not watch something as soon as it comes out but that doesn’t really bother me either.
One of the good things, IMHO, is that the commercials are few and short!
DVRing a show or using ‘on demand’ has been great but giving up all that is going to save me a bunch of money every month but even better than the savings is the total control of what I watch. I love exploring the scores of TV channels that are sprouting all over the web. Here are just a few that give you an idea about how there is something out there for everyone:
VOD Cars (my evo is in episode 19 haha)
As the technology has improved the masses are posting their stuff and it can make for some very interesting and even intellectually stimulating video viewing.
Of course, the more of us who do this the more likely ISP prices are going to go up OR they’ll start implementing the much feared tiered charging plan for bandwidth usage. So when that happens I’ll reassess but for now, this is the way to go for me!
Oh, and there is always TV for the iPhone!
