First, though, let me tell you what I use instead of cable, and how each one fares on its own.
DTV Receiver + Antenna
Since my television doesn’t have any kind of tuner built in, I ended up using the Digital TV voucher sent out by the FCC last year to get one of the DTV boxes. It gathered dust for a while, but I dug it out and used it, along with a home-made DTV antenna, to get over the air (OTA) programming. The home-made antenna has since been replaced by a manufactured one. OTA programming gets me all of the local channels in the area with varying quality and reliability. While I have room for complaint, I am mostly satisfied with it.
Media Center PC (sort of)
At some point in 2008, we had decided to get a new computer, as the previous one was getting a little long in the tooth (3 years old!) We decided on a Dell Vostro, since I had by this point pretty much given up on PC gaming (which gave me the opportunity to seriously consider a console gaming system; in typical me fashion, I chose the PS2). The Vostro is not and probably never will be a gaming machine. Funny thing is, though, sometime later the wife and I both got laptops. Not wanting to waste a perfectly good computer, we gave it to the kids (jackals, wolves, what have you) as an internet computer. They do still use it for that, but I eventually moved it next to the television, then split the video to use both the monitor and the TV as output. So now I have a kludgy media center PC ready to go. I have no complaints about it.
Netflix Streaming
Netflix has a growing library of titles available for instant streaming, and while that library quite often doesn’t include what I want to see right then, it nevertheless has enough in the back catalog and frequent new additions to keep me interested. I almost never run out of stuff to watch on Netflix, and the kids love it (plus it means they aren’t pawing at a bunch of frail DVDs). I have lots of Anime, foreign films, a smattering of British comedy, and lots of documentaries (especially Frontline) to choose from, plus Netflix occasionally scores big and gets some fairly recent titles (District 9 comes to mind as an example).
Hulu
When networks participate in Hulu, the service works pretty well. Fox? Check. NBC? Check. Beyond that, it’s hit or miss. What’s not to love about the idea of hopping online and finding the last 5 episodes of a show you like but were too busy to watch when it aired? I know, many of you have DVR, but I’m not about to try the TV tuner thing on the media center PC, nor am I particularly keen to saddle myself with yet another monthly bill for the privilege of using some company’s product to do this.
ESPN3
If there is any complaint one might have about not having cable, it is the distinct lack of sports programming available over the air. Sure, there is some (annoyingly so in some cases, which I will get to), but I actually don’t always want to watch it over the air. Enter ESPN3. I became familiar with the ESPN3 web site when I saw an article on one of the tech news sites about watching the FIFA World Cup online, live. The article stated that ESPN3 planned to live stream all 64 games, which turned out to be slightly erroneous. ESPN3 did live stream most of the games, except for the ones that were broadcast on ABC. Over the air. This is annoying because, of all the over the air channels, ABC is the one I don’t always get, although the situation has improved a little since buying the manufactured DTV antenna. Still, live streaming television was really in a rough state four years ago during the 2006 World Cup (and I managed to catch some of the matches, illegally, that way), and so any improvements in this are highly welcome. The next test for live sports for me will be this Fall, when college football starts up, but on the whole, I am pleased with the state of live streaming.
Individual Websites
On occasion, for whatever reason, be it licensing or general curmudgeonliness, TV networks and/or show creators refuse to stream their episodes anywhere except on their own web sites (South Park and Comedy Central, I’m looking at you). But still, when they are there, at least they are there.
The Pirate Bay
For everything else, there’s the bandits. Say what you will about TV networks making piracy the only option for non-DVR time shifting.
Future States
Plenty of evidence has surfaced in the past couple of months to suggest that instant, on-demand entertainment over the internet (to the television) will be the norm, and it won’t even have to be painful for much longer. Roku makes a spiffy little box that provides the immediate hardware, and Google, Apple, and Boxee are also working on or have their own hardware platforms, not to mention the current-gen console gaming systems like PS3 and WII. What we’re still missing is a little bit of software (better searching and organizing of the various content sources would be welcome) and of course the content. Hulu and Netflix stand as mere shadows of what they could be, and Apple has perhaps indicated with its rumors of $.99 episode “rentals” a willingness to provide on-demand streaming for television shows. While we still have some distance to go, the future is definitely bright for anyone who wants to cut out all the junk they don’t watch now and only pay for what they do watch.
Verdict
In the mean time, though, life without the cable company is not always easy. Sure, you get the freedom to pay for what you are consuming (or sometimes nothing at all), but you don’t always get the variety you crave. If that’s OK with you, then you might as well switch now.
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