T1B

About 5 years ago I got tired of being [homosmack softball] jammed by cable guy [/homosmack softball]. So we switched over to Dish Network/ATT bundle. So now I get jammed with spotty TV reception.

Have considered going back to cable guy, but know that I'll be back in the same boat with them, all be it with a steady tv signal and and quicker pron downloads.

Been looking into interweb TV and maybe running my phone through it as well with something like vonage.

Our TV watching is largely History channel, discovery, nick, A&E and Fox news for daily neocon marching orders.

I hear the old tyme networks are still in bidness, but haven't been to the bottom end of the dial in a while to confirm this rumor. I 'spose I could maybe go old school and receive this stuff through an actual antenna like we used to do in the dark ages.

Any of you geeks out there tell the satellite/cable mafia to GFY and do it this way? If so I would still need a good hi speed interweb connection. What does it cost to buy just that from cable guy? Are there other sources for it that are reasonably priced?

In the next couple of years or so, it's quite possible that all of the above services will be available through digital broadcast networks, since the switch to digital TV freed up a whole buncha bandwidth over the public airwaves... huge shift in technology is coming.

holy shit!

someone else does poke their head into this ghost town of a forum from time to time.

what you say makes complete sense and is doable. trouble is the cable/satellite mafia will jam many millions of dollars up the asses of the whores in dc to keep it from happening.

I'm in the process of doing this. If you haven't yet, here are some things to check out:

GoogleTV: Sony for new TVs, blueray players or Logitech Revue for existing HDTVs. It will allow Apps, Web tv services, web browsing, netflix and if you do have an antenna (HD of course) or Cable/satellite, you can actually connect it in. http://google.com/tv/

Hulu and Hulu Plus - Hulu is free and Hulu Plus is rolling out at $10/mo. I like Hulu and if y ou don't mind being up to 1 week behind everyone else, its a great solution.

Netflix - Netflix is doing a huge push to have more on demand content.

HD Antenna's are great for Local TV. It is HD quality, digital content. Works great if you get a decent antenna and are in a good location to get all the HD channels.

Apple iTunes store and Amazon, etc.. - these places offer movies and TV show streaming/rental services so if you have one or two Must see TV shows, you can get them on here and pay $10-20 per show / season which is still saving a ton of money vs having hundreds of channels you don't watch ever and paying up to $100. AppleTV now costs $99 for the actual device which is not bad, although they did cut back the HD to 720p.

BoxeeTV is another Device that is coming out as we speak. It is a bit pricer at $299 but boxee is a service that is supposed to tie together a lot of different free services.

To be honest, I'm interested in the Logitech Revue (GoogleTV) and then possibly something like Hulu Plus. I don't know too many people who don't already have Netflix and at less then $10/mo, its a must have. I currently have DirecTV and don't have any reception issues usually. The few times I have problems, its still less then I had it with the cable company. Yes, just because cable is delivered to you through a cable, doesn't mean that they do not use Dish to transmit their stuff down to the local companies. For some reason cable sucks in the NOVA area and i used to have unexplained outages all the time. The only reason I'm contemplating canceling my direcTV is cost. With HD, PVR and 3 boxes, its still very reasonable compared to cable, but at $100 for us, I could use that money in other places if I could spend $20/month on Netflix and HuluPlus and save $80. The savings would even cover the price of an appleTV or Logitech Review in 1-3 months. Considering that we also play games on our 3 consoles and like to read and screw around on our PCs, there is just no great reason to keep the TV service.

ElTaco wrote:HD Antenna's are great for Local TV. It is HD quality, digital content. Works great if you get a decent antenna and are in a good location to get all the HD channels.

I'm not using one at present, but the "best" HD antenna is made out of a piece of cardboard and some wire coathangers...

seriously.