Let's Talk TV

[Steve Kroll]

It's appalling that you have to spend that much for cable. I grew up in an era when all TV was free.

We paid around $200 for TV, internet and voice. By switching providers I was able to cut my bill by $80 a month. Much better now but still too much.

The cable company has us hooked like drug addicts. Mrs. K is convinced she has to have "Dexter", "Game of Thrones" and her premium channel shows, while I'm addicted to "Cooking Channel", "Food Network", "ESPN", and the like. It's such a ridiculous waste of money. And it's not like we couldn't find other free programs to fill the void if we cut those costs out of the picture. Hell, I'm finding I can be entertained for hours just surfing around YouTube and it's relatively easy to stream that video to the big TV.

 

[Addie]

I have the basic cable and internet. Cost is $139.00 a month. We have no choice in this building thanks to the Mayor signing with Comast and the only cable company in town. Thank heavens he has decided after more than 16 years in office, he is not going to run again.

 

[vitauta]

I have the basic cable and internet. Cost is $139.00 a month. We have no choice in this building thanks to the Mayor signing with Comast and the only cable company in town. Thank heavens he has decided after more than 16 years in office, he is not going to run again.

you mean that your only choices are $139/month vs. no cable or internet? how can that be, addie? i would expect you to be heading a class action suite for seniors, or something.

my basic tv cable/internet runs about $60/month, and i think that is paying too much....

 

[Addie]

you mean that your only choices are $139/month vs. no cable or internet? how can that be, addie? i would expect you to be heading a class action suite for seniors, or something.

my basic tv cable/internet runs about $60/month, and i think that is paying too much....

The contract with Comcast is city wide. This building is wired for Comcast. All city buildings are. It is the only cable company in the city. When cable first came to Boston, there were two bids. The other company has all their wiring underneath the ground vs. pole wiring with Comcast. This city really got screwed for cable with this mayor. The new contract will be coming up soon for renewal. I wouldn't be surprised if the whole city raised their voices against Concast. And the mayor wonders why there are so many dishes on most of the homes. They look ugly, but I understand the frustration with Comcast.

 

[Cooking Goddess]

The cable company has us hooked like drug addicts. Mrs. K is convinced she has to have "Dexter", "Game of Thrones" and her premium channel shows, while I'm addicted to "Cooking Channel", "Food Network", "ESPN", and the like. It's such a ridiculous waste of money. And it's not like we couldn't find other free programs to fill the void if we cut those costs out of the picture. Hell, I'm finding I can be entertained for hours just surfing around YouTube and it's relatively easy to stream that video to the big TV.

We haven't had cable since the mid-1980s, dropping it back in the day when the then-wee'uns were busy with school, sports, scouts, theatre and/or dance. When they got older we just never bothered going back. Last year DH hooked up our old tower to the big-screen and has found way more to view free than he ever thought. His motto: If it's free, it's for me. You might find a lot of the cooking shows you used to watch either at the network website or just by googling. Lots of times Youtube has segments of shows so you have to take time hopping around to see it all. Or just make friends with new stuff you find. If you need help connecting things or looking for sites with free shows drop me a PM and we can work out the bugs.

As far as using an antenna, we have a 12 year old, 7 foot antenna in our attic. We're about 60 miles SE of Boston, 50 miles NW of Providence, and we can pull in something like 18 stations, more if you count the spanish networks. More than enough TV viewing chances to waste time and save money.

 

[bakechef]

My wife and I sat down yesterday and decided we are going to wean ourselves from cable TV. Our bill runs $177 a month and now they are planning to up it another $20 a month. That's almost $200 - which is what I paid for rent in my first apartment (granted, that was a while ago, but I still use it as a reference and think that paying more than $200 a month for anything short of a house is expensive).

I figure we can buy monthly cable internet and get rid of the TV broadcasts.

The first thing I am going to do is order a few antennas and start capitalizing on free over-the-air television transmissions for local channels and news/sports/etc. And I just read an article about how to set up a computer to act as a DVR. I have an extra computer and enough know-how to do this. We also have a Roku streaming video device with Hulu and Amazon video-on-demand. That covers almost everything except cable and premium programs. I may just have to miss out on those, but I guess we cheapskates can't have everything.

That's exactly what we did. We have windows 7 on the TV computer, and it has a built in media center with DVR ready to go. I put a good sized antenna in the attic and connected it to the existing coax, all 4 TVs get signal from that. We also have rokus in the bedrooms. Setting all of this up, the system paid for itself in 6 months, the computer was brand new, I built it.

I decided on windows media center because of ease of setup, and a built in Netflix app. All controlled with a Logitech remote. We have a wireless keyboard with a track pad for surfing, also Logitech. This setup works well.

 

[Aunt Bea]

I don't have cable on my ancient television. I can pull in 17 channels with my rabbit ears.

I am worried that when my old set goes I will have to hook up to some sort of cable service to get one of those new flat screen televisions to work.

My biggest expense is for the internet and the land line telephone. I can dump the phone and save about 50.00/month but, I would miss the internet connection and that is currently running about 40.00/month for unlimited service.

I suppose I could snitch my internet connection from the kids next door!

 

[pacanis]

Wow Steve. That's exactly what I've been trying to talk myself into doing. And I currently pay 96/month. It just seems like too much, but I like flipping channels and where would I be without my current sports networks and Deadliest Catch (and similar).
Bakechef, we may need to start another forum and put you in charge of it! lol

 

[JoAnn L.]

I just watched another episode of Craft in America on PBS.

Craft In America | PBS

This is a fantastic series that explores craft in many of its forms.

Pottery, woodworking, iron working, jewelry making, basket weaving etc.

Not only is technique shown but also the artists share the sources of their inspiration.

Wonderful!

I just got done watching Craft In America. I got it from Netflix. I enjoyed it very much. My DH really enjoyed watching the woodworking, he has his own work shop. I love the passion that these wonderful people have. Thanks for telling us about this great program.

 

[bakechef]

I don't have cable on my ancient television. I can pull in 17 channels with my rabbit ears.

I am worried that when my old set goes I will have to hook up to some sort of cable service to get one of those new flat screen televisions to work.

My biggest expense is for the internet and the land line telephone. I can dump the phone and save about 50.00/month but, I would miss the internet connection and that is currently running about 40.00/month for unlimited service.

I suppose I could snitch my internet connection from the kids next door!

Nope, just plug your current antenna into the new flat screen TV and you are good to go, no converter box or cable box needed, there is a digital tuner built in. I have one of those old style rooftop antennas hooked to three HD televisions. You'll instantly have access to over the air crystal clear HD.

And you don't need any special, expensive cables either, the cable in my house is likely from 1986 when my house was built. The cable coming from the wall to the TV is one of those that came from a VCR years ago.

 

[Cooking Goddess]

Thought of another end-around to watch some stuff without paying. Check the library's list of DVDs. I live in a town of 11,000 but my town library shares with about a third of the libraries in MA. There was a book/media share between libraries in my old city of 33,000, so I'm going to guess it's everywhere. Anyway, we have access to borrowing over 8000 titles. All kinds too: theatre releases, cable programs, PBS. Freebies - yay!

 

[Kylie1969]

I watched Doc Marten again last night.

What a smart show. Funny and poignant.

I'm hooked!

I agree, great show

 

[Steve Kroll]

I took the first steps toward cable freedom today. First, I purchased a couple of antennas. Then my wife asked "will we be able to record programs we want to watch later?" So I did some Googling around and found an e-book on how to build your own DVR using an old computer and a few parts. That inspired me enough to go on eBay and find a nice 4-year-old computer for $56. To complete the system I bought additional memory, a larger hard drive (enough to store 80 hours of HD television), and a TV tuner card for the PC (includes a remote). The Linux-based DVR software (Mythbuntu) is free.

Total cost: $240. Not much more than I am paying per month for cable.

I am psyched! Now the real challenge will be putting everything all together and getting the individual pieces to talk to one another.

 

[bakechef]

It's amazing the deals that you can get on used computers off ebay. I got an off lease dual core Dell for $60 shipped that I use as my home media server.

I was going to go with mythbuntu, but no netflix with linux (because no access to Microsoft silverlight) I would have preferred a linux media center, but this pushed me to windows.

 

[Steve Kroll]

It's amazing the deals that you can get on used computers off ebay. I got an off lease dual core Dell for $60 shipped that I use as my home media server.

I was going to go with mythbuntu, but no netflix with linux (because no access to Microsoft silverlight) I would have preferred a linux media center, but this pushed me to windows.

I was more concerned with not having a DVR. TiVo is another scam (you "buy" the unit and then they charge you a monthly subscription on top of that), so I didn't want to go that route. It looks like Mythbuntu does the same thing for free.

We've got 4 Roku boxes in the house. There's a Netflix channel on those (as well as Hulu Plus and Amazon VOD), or I can just run it on the PC and stream the video to the TV. We also have a Windows server set up with our entire movie library on it. All the Roku boxes will play those, too.

There's a ton of options out there for low cost entertainment. After doing some research, I honestly don't know why we've been throwing money away all this time. When we first moved to this town 15 years ago, we were paying a TOTAL of $60/mo for cable (including premium channels) and internet. They suckered us in and just kept gradually jacking the price up a little at a time so we wouldn't notice.

To heck with 'em.

 

[Cerise]

And, then, there are the commercials. This one makes me laugh.

TEMPTATIONS TV Commercial: Boots (30 sec) - YouTube

 

[Addie]

Thought of another end-around to watch some stuff without paying. Check the library's list of DVDs. I live in a town of 11,000 but my town library shares with about a third of the libraries in MA. There was a book/media share between libraries in my old city of 33,000, so I'm going to guess it's everywhere. Anyway, we have access to borrowing over 8000 titles. All kinds too: theatre releases, cable programs, PBS. Freebies - yay!

CG, most of the cities and towns in Mass. participate in that program. So if your local library doesn't have what you want, they can get it from another town if necessary. Great program. I have taken advantage of it many times.

 

[bakechef]

I was more concerned with not having a DVR. TiVo is another scam (you "buy" the unit and then they charge you a monthly subscription on top of that), so I didn't want to go that route. It looks like Mythbuntu does the same thing for free.

We've got 4 Roku boxes in the house. There's a Netflix channel on those (as well as Hulu Plus and Amazon VOD), or I can just run it on the PC and stream the video to the TV. We also have a Windows server set up with our entire movie library on it. All the Roku boxes will play those, too.

There's a ton of options out there for low cost entertainment. After doing some research, I honestly don't know why we've been throwing money away all this time. When we first moved to this town 15 years ago, we were paying a TOTAL of $60/mo for cable (including premium channels) and internet. They suckered us in and just kept gradually jacking the price up a little at a time so we wouldn't notice.

To heck with 'em.

I wanted everything in one platform for the luddite in my household, lol.

I use plex on my media server to serve up my digital media to Roku boxes and phones, tablets and such, works really well.

Been cable free for over 2 years and with this setup, I don't see us going back.

 

[Cooking Goddess]

I wanted everything in one platform for the luddite in my household, lol.

HEY! I resemble that!

Bet "the Luddite" can do things you can't do. In this house DH and I speak totally different languages. He talks "Tech" and I talk "Culinary".

 

[Cooking Goddess]

CG, most of the cities and towns in Mass. participate in that program. So if your local library doesn't have what you want, they can get it from another town if necessary. Great program. I have taken advantage of it many times.

Addie, I was just saying that if they do that kind of stuff out in "the sticks" they must to it everywhere else. I actually volunteer at out town's library so I promote them every chance I get.

I remember back in pre-historic times (before computers) our city's library back home did a book share program. Now THAT was an accomplishment. Nowadays I can log in from home, peruse the library site, and order anything I want that they might have. Almost as cool as the invention of the toaster.