My family watches quite a few shows, but we did drop Cox last month. We ended up getting Dish and it is much cheaper. So far so good and the bill has dramatically gone down.
I to cut the cable last year and saw my monthly bill drop by about $100. Took a little getting used too at first. That first week was a real eye opener as I had never realized how much junk I would watch. Not on purpose, but just sitting down and surfing through the channels. When you cut out cable, channel surfing isn't really there. You have to know what it is you want to watch.
I'm running a similar setup through a Mac mini. What's great about the mini is that it has digital optical output which means that when taken through a receiver you still get all the surround sound effects. Hopefully some day apple will start including blu-Ray players.
On the Mac mini I use a program called Plex. Once it's set up, its fantastic. Has various apps with it as well, including a netflix app. Basically it's a one stop source for your media and scrapes your videos for imdb data, background images, and audio.
This season fx started something new where they are delaying streaming the shows for 30 days grrrrrrrr. In those rare situations I'll buy a season pass from iTunes and watch they next day. Still way, way cheaper than cable.
I'm running a similar setup through a Mac mini. What's great about the mini is that it has digital optical output which means that when taken through a receiver you still get all the surround sound effects. Hopefully some day apple will start including blu-Ray players.
On the Mac mini I use a program called Plex. Once it's set up, its fantastic. Has various apps with it as well, including a netflix app. Basically it's a one stop source for your media and scrapes your videos for imdb data, background images, and audio.
This season fx started something new where they are delaying streaming the shows for 30 days grrrrrrrr. In those rare situations I'll buy a season pass from iTunes and watch they next day. Still way, way cheaper than cable.
With only one exception shown on TNT, everything we watch on cable networks is on USA. All of the shows are available the next day on the TNT and USA web pages. The same holds true for all the major non cable network programming that we watch. What sold me on the mini is the simplicity of the system. All I did was upgrade my wireless router to wireless N and plug the mini into the TV via an HDMI cable. Setup complete. To me, the lack of blu ray isn't much of a detractor because 1) there is plenty of HD content available online 2) I own a blue ray player for the occasional blue ray rental and 3) I haven't actually bought a DVD in years.
I've been reading a lot about plex but I'm not entirely sure what it does? Is it just a fancy player? VLC has played every video file I've every thrown at it. One upgrade I'm considering is buying one of the elgato tuner/dvr sticks just in case I want to record something played OTA like a football game or particular news show.
I've been reading a lot about plex but I'm not entirely sure what it does? Is it just a fancy player? VLC has played every video file I've every thrown at it. One upgrade I'm considering is buying one of the elgato tuner/dvr sticks just in case I want to record something played OTA like a football game or particular news show.
I need to have my wife read this. Most of the shows we watch are on USA or over air except the girls like the disney channel. I need to see if they have them online.
The thing to remember is that most network websites only keep the past 4-5 full episodes available. If for some odd reason you come into a show mid season you can always catch up by renting from Itunes (or some other equivalent).
I have a sony blue-ray dvd player that connects to my network. Now I spend more time watching Netflix on the TV than I do satellite.
Netflix is starting to get a lot of deals going on with the network syndicates. There are starting to be more and more series (new and old) on their instant play now.
Netflix is starting to get a lot of deals going on with the network syndicates. There are starting to be more and more series (new and old) on their instant play now.
I'm in town, so that's good to hear. I may actually be willing to pull the plug on the cable, what I pay could translate into 2 or 3 pretty nice guns a year. LOL
This ... I still have a few months on my contract with Directv ... but ... it IS gonna end ... I see some changes in our future.
I finally got the nerve to make the call. The cable guy is coming on tuesday to shut off the TV portion of our cable service. Here's hoping that wasn't a dumb thing to do.
