Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler Cutting the cable guy

I thought I post this up since the subject of a la carte TV has come up in the past.

I'm a HUGE Tivo fan, we currently own a Series 3 and Tivo HD. We've had them going back to the DirecTivo (non-SD). I've been using them w/ Comcast's TriplePlay for a few years. However, I got more and more frustrated with the increasing prices at Comcast. When my 1 year promo ended some time last year, they slowly increased my bill from month to month by almost $50. I called them to complain and said they could decrease my bill by removing some HD packages and get it down to about $150. I countered (knowing it wouldn't go anywhere...) that I could get those same package channels OTA on my Tivo and still have DVR functionality.

The tide turned in November when the PS3 finally had Hulu Plus capability. If I could do Hulu Plus on my PS3, I could use Hulu to supplement my OTA channels. Sadly, I did realize that not all streaming content is on Hulu Plus. It should be called Hulu Derivative, cuz you don't get more than Hulu, in truth, it's less. BUT, it's not Comcast. Then Roku had a sale on their XD box so then I had an option for my bedroom TV.

Last week I finally cut the Comcast cord (for cable TV), including mailing back the cablecards. I still need a landline so I kept their VoIP service. I also can't live w/o sub-15Mbps service so I kept the internet. But w/ this 'double play' package, I dropped my monthly cost by about $80/mo. I just bought an Arris modem on ebay so I can stop the $5/mo cable modem rental fee.

Here's some ways that I keep the home viewers happy w/ content.

1) Most of our TV watching is OTA, so using our outdoor Channel Master 4228, we can get quite a few channels in the Bay Area.
2) Tivo, Roku, PS3, Wii and our Macs all have Netflix capability so we're good w/ movies.
3) Slingplayer sits on one of the Tivos so we can watch on our Macs or iPhones anywhere in the world.
4) On the family Mac Mini, I use an Elgato Hybrid TV tuner. I was going to use it w/ OTA but for fun, I tried it on the 'dead' cable' line. Lo and behold, it pulls in the OTA channels unencrypted, along w/ some analog channels (including Discovery) and some unencrypted cable HD channels.
5) I have a lot of movies and TV shows on our home NAS that serves content to our iTunes libraries. Fortunately, I can use our Tivos as DLNA clients. I run a program on the Mac called PyTivo and it transcodes the videos for use on the Tivo. On the Tivo's Now Playing List, the videos show up on folders at the bottom of the list, after Netflix.

Some of the negatives
1) I am now only limited to broadcast sports. Fortunately, I can get NBC/Universal sports on OTA. I may opt for ESPN3, NBA, or MLB streaming packages but haven't felt the need.
2) I can't channel surf anymore but it makes me more efficient when watching TV. Plus I have more time to play video games and read.
3) I miss some of my cable shows like Archer, Tosh.O, and Psych. The wife misses Top Chef and a few other Bravo shows. Some of these can be watched online or on Hulu. Or there are other ways to get them.
4) Some content needs to be manually put onto the server. The good thing is that this really only involves 2 shows.

Overall, I'm happy with the decision and wish I did this a year ago. That saved money will be going to my new plasma this year...