has anybody cut the cable and gone back to broadcast tv?

[ginnyinWI]

We're getting tired of paying $50 a month for Dish, and it's going to be going up when our year expires at the end of this month. Right now we're on 200 channels with DVR, and considering buying an antenna and then getting a TiVo instead. It would cost something initially for the equipment (having to buy the TiVo, antenna, converter box and any extras) but after that it would only be the TiVo service fee at about $10.75 a month.

Added to that, we'd increase our Netflix from the $4.99 plan to the $8.99 plan to compensate for losing the movie channels and other stuff. We also subscribe to XM radio so I will get lots of political talk on POTUS and other channels. They just added MSNBC to their lineup, and there is C-Span Radio too. And I've always been a fan of NPR.


Think this is a good idea? I am getting pretty sick of cable news, and anyway can get stuff online if I really want to see something. I feel like we're paying for a whole lot that we don't even care about because we already watch a lot of PBS and that would be free with our new arrangement.

[BethCA66]

1. I have a 2nd gen TiVo that still runs good as new -- get the lifetime service package

That monthly TiVo charge adds up FAST.

[ginnyinWI]

18. thanks--good advice. n/t

[NYC_SKP]

2. Do look into building your own digital broadcast antenna.

I bought two different models, THEN I found how easy they are to build, directions are on several websites.

I'm confident these home made jobs will work better because of their size.

Builders recommend putting them in the attic directed toward the broadcast towers.

If you have signals coming from more than one direction, there are remote antenna motors.

I have though about cutting off my Dish account-- So many channels and not as many interesting shows as there could or should be.

[Common Sense Party]

5. Can you point me to a good website?

That looks intriguing.

[MajorChode]

8. You might try a set of rabbit ears first

If you have a set laying around, particularly if it includes a UHF antenna. If the signal at your house is particularly strong, you may not need anything better.

You can get a fairly decent HDTV antenna for around $20, so I'm not sure if it's worth building your own anymore, but if you wanted to do it, just search the youtubes for "HDTV antenna" and you'll find all sorts of how-tos.

[elocs]

30. "No Such Thing as an HDTV Antenna":

http://www.hdtvantennalabs.com/hdtv-antenna-hype.php

Over-the-air (OTA) HDTV is a big hit these days. High definition television is one on those rare services that comes in the highest quality when it is free of charge. You can watch amazing 1080i resolution broadcasts over the air for free, and get better quality for the same channels than through a paid satellite DTV subscription. All you need is a high definition TV set with a built-in HDTV tuner and an off-air HDTV antenna.

Do you know what HDTV antenna is? If you do, forget it immediately. There is no such thing.

Do you know what a regular antenna is? Antenna is a piece of metal designed to resonate at a specific frequency and to be responsive over a range of frequencies. TV antennas are designed to work either in the range of Ultra High Frequencies (UHF), Very High Frequencies (VHF) or both. Any station transmitting within an antenna bandwidth, i.e. the VHF/UHF frequency range, can be picked up by the antenna and transferred to the TV set.

All television broadcasts, digital and analog, high definition and standard definition, take place in the VHF and the UHF bands. What makes a signal to be HD is its content, the way a signal is modulated, and not the carrier frequency it is transmitted on. On the contrary, for antenna only the frequency matters.

There is nothing specific about a TV antenna that is used to receive HD signals. Your antenna doesn't really care whether the signal is high definition or not. It has absolutely no idea what the signal resolution is, or whether the signal is analog or digital. The antenna doesn't care that you are receiving HDTV as it doesn't care whether you are watching Fox News or NBC channel.

[MajorChode]

38. I'm well aware of this, however many of the newer antennas are marketed as "HDTV"

Which is exactly why I recommended just trying cheap traditional antenna first. The problem with digital is it's an all or nothing approach for the most part. If your antenna doesn't cut the mustard, instead of a degraded analog signal, you get nothing. That's when you have to start stepping up to a better antenna and this can mean anything from an omnidirectional model thrown behind your TV set to a motorized rooftop mounted yagi.

[elocs]

44. "Marketed" is the key word since many are suckered into spending more

for a so-called HDTV antenna.

[MajorChode]

50. It makes sense if you think about it

If you remember all the hype around HDTV, the government didn't really communicate that point very well. All they told you was you needed a converter box if you didn't have a digital receiver. Most people had shitty antennas on their analog TV sets that stood a good chance of not being able to receive enough signal for HDTV. So for the average man on the street who didn't know shit from beans about how antennas work, all he knew was he needed an antenna that would work with his HDTV, thus "HDTV antenna" made sense and didn't require much explanation.

[NYC_SKP]

11. Here are a few good links:

building the antenna: http://lifehacker.com/5138746/build-your-own-dtv-antenna

buying an antenna for your zip code: http://lifehacker.com/5123432/antennaweb-finds-the-best-outdoor-antenna-for-your-house

Which direction to face your antenna: http://www.antennaweb.org/aw/Stations.aspx

:donut:

[ginnyinWI]

19. wow that looks different--

My husband did some research online and someone said that Radio Shack has an antenna that can pull stations in perfectly from even 25 miles away and it only costs $4.00. We'll try that first. :)

[MajorChode]

21. It may be worth buying a cheap antenna first

However, you should probably check in your local area to find out where the broadcast antennas are. In some areas, they are all grouped together in one big antenna farm. If you live within a few miles of the antenna farm, it may be worth trying a cheap one. 25 miles sounds a bit optimistic for a really cheap antenna, but I don't know specifically which one you are referring so it may be fine. Antennas are getting much cheaper these days.

[NYC_SKP]

24. $4.00? Wow!

At best buy they were $49 and up!

Some have an electronic booster.

I'm kinda pissed that "free broadcast" has to cost money.

But it is a higher quality.

I just hate spending for things without knowing if they'll work.

The "boosted" one doesn't work as well as the other.

I need to try the homemade one, I'll bet it's better than either (though a bit ugly).

[ginnyinWI]

25. link

http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2062017

Scroll down and read the comments. One person mentions being 25 miles from Milwaukee and getting good reception with this thing that cost all of $4.19. We'll see; we're about that far from Milwaukee ourselves.

[ginnyinWI]

27. well--we tried the 4 buck model

It doesn't get all the channels in. So we're going to have to try better ones until we get it right. I suspect that we might have to go to an attic antenna to get better reception.

[tXr]

36. Hi ginnyinWI

I also dumped cable in January as I watch very little TV and could no longer justify the expense for increasingly sub-par programming.

I got this HD antenna and it works very well. I use it indoors and get crystal-clear reception on ~65 channels.

Although rather pricey, it was still less than one month's cable bill, so I have already recouped the cost several times over - and I don't miss cable at all.

[ginnyinWI]

39. we're considering a similar one made by RCA

We'll just keep going until we find one that works well. The two we tried today don't get in one of the local PBS stations. We will save hundreds a year, so I don't mind the initial 100 or so buck to set it up. ;-)

[MajorChode]

53. You might actually get worse reception

Most attic antennas are Yagi and highly directional. They work great for a single channel when you aim them at the transmission antenna, but if another channel is in the opposite direction, you'll actually get relatively bad reception. They do sell models that have a motor on them so you can aim them at the channel you want, but they are pretty expensive. Some cities have all the local channel antennas located in the same general area, so a directional antenna works great. If the $4 antenna doesn't cut it, you might try the homemade coathanger antenna and see what happens. You can also install it in your attic so it's out of sight and it might work a little better up there too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWQhlmJTMzw

[begin_within]

3. We never did get cable

We've only ever had broadcast, and that's what we have now (we get about 10 stations). I have to say that digital broadcast is not the "pristine" signal that they claim it is. Many times it blacks out completely, other times it freezes on one picture, or dissolves into mosaic of squares, or strange artifacts appear. Sometimes even the sound goes haywire and voices are much deeper than normal. Analog broadcast wasn't perfect either, but you could usually get an acceptable picture by turning the antenna some way or another. With digital it's wild and unpredictable and I think the whole changeover was a big crock of B.S., really.

[Dr Morbius]

10. I too have no cable, because it starts at about $85 a month.

And I agree, "digital broadcast" bites, big time.

[quakerboy]

16. To be completely fair

We found that Digital cable sucked pretty bad as well, for the time we had it.

[elocs]

31. Sorry about your experience, but my digital broadcast is pristine

and I get 3 times as many channels as I used to be able to get with analog tv. So in my opinion the changeover was in no way a "big crock of B.S." although I think indoor plumbing has sure been a big waste.

[ginnyinWI]

40. I'm new to this but

it seems to be a matter of getting a powerful enough antenna for your location.

[Common Sense Party]

4. We haven't had cable in more than 10 years.

I won't pay that much money for what is, for the most part, garbage. I would waste far too much of my time vegging out and not get other important stuff done--like surfing the web. :P

We were actually without TV completely for this past year...whenever they switched from the analog signal. We're in rural mountain country, and until I bought a powered antenna, we couldn't pick up anything. It was great to have during March Madness, but we don't watch anything regularly on TV.

[quakerboy]

6. Yes

Dropped our cable very early in January. The internet has everything I have needed. Daily show, one day late. A whole lot of other shows. Just canceled my Blockbuster subscription too. We just weren't using it enough to justify it. I occasionally miss Rachel Maddow, but thats really about it.

[GoCubsGo]

14. You can watch Rachel live here...

http://www.tvpc.com/Channel.php?ChannelID=2453

Click on the "Live TV" link on the upper left side, and you can watch Comedy Central live, too. I'm about to drop my satellite. I will miss BBC America, but TVPC lets me get most of the BBC stations live. Can't complain about that.

[quakerboy]

15. That could be handy

Not sure how it will do over my connection. The 4g thing is fairly fast, but the consistency isn't there just yet.

Edited to add: Thank you.

[ginnyinWI]

20. I like the Beeb too, but PBS has a shortened version.

I'm talking about their news program, not the other shows. I'm going to be looking into tv online options too--our HP computer has a built in tv tuner. And HULU should have anything that's on NBC and MSNBC, right?

[GoCubsGo]

49. I haven't checked HULU as far as MSNBC goes, but...

I know you can download Rachel, Keith, Ed and Tweety on Itunes. Used to be able to download them from the web page. Don't know if that is still available.

My local PBS carries a half hour of BBC World News a couple of times a day. They also carry quite a bit of Deutsche Welle, as well. In fact, one of their channels often carries several hours a day of it, depending on whether or not they are broadcasting from the Statehouse. As much as I bitch about South Carolina, they have the best PBS/NPR I have seen. I get Georgia NPR and sometimes their PBS, the programming is nowhere near as good.

[tabbycat31]

33. if you have itunes, Rachel has a full video podcast

one day late of course, but you can also get it for Keith too

[jannyk]

7. We can't even get broadcast here on the Oregon Coast, but We

don't miss anything. We do have high speed internet and watch lots of movies on Netflix/Roku. Anything else I want to see, I can see online - it just might not be on the same day it is broadcast. Bill Moyers, NOW, Frontline, Lost, Grey's Anatomy, Bill Maher, Newshour, Washington Week - all are online shortly after broadcast - we miss cable/satellite not at all.

[sfpcjock]

9. I'd like to do it

MSNBC is online, you know. Like Dylan Ratigan's segments are almost posted in real time and there's fewer ads to watch. This Cox PVR is a piece of shit with no skip forward button and a small hard drive.

Recently, I see that all the old documentaries are online, well most of them. Stuff you'd really like to see again. All the ads have been removed from them. You just need a 10 euro Rapidshare account to download:

1. http://xhgc18.blogspot.com

2. http://www.mytvblog.org

3. http://forums.mvgroup.org - I use Bit Torrent and it's much slower, like 5 Kbps/sec instead of 100, but necessary for some stuff

I use the free Format Factory or free Realplayer SP converter to convert the AVIs to MPGs or WMVs that the Sony Bravia TV can play on a flash drive in its USB port. If you have an HDMI-output computer you won't have to convert.

[hippywife]

12. Haven't had cable since I moved here

almost 13 years ago. Wasn't available at that time in our rural area and now we could care less about having it. :hi:

[GoCubsGo]

13. I am about to do the same...

I have Dish. I love it, but the oak trees are blocking the reception from one of the satellites. Of course, it's the one that has most of the stations I watch, including WGN. WGN was the main reason I got satellite over cable, since the local cable company doesn't carry it. I don't feel like messing with the tree company again, especially since they cut the wrong branches last time. Also don't want to go through the trouble of having the dish moved. Not sure that can be done anyway. Would have cut my service off sooner, but autopay already charged me for this month--two days before the trees leafed out and blocked the reception.

I can still get MSNBC on TVPC.com, along with a bunch of others. And, like you, I tend to watch a lot of PBS. For twenty bucks a season, I can hear the Cubs on WGN radio. The only other thing I will miss is the Travel Channel.

BTW, Dish puts out some nice converter boxes. I have their lowest level model. Works just fine.

[ginnyinWI]

22. If you cancel Dish, they should pro-rate your payment

up to whatever day you cancelled. That's what they did when we ordered HBO for one month and then stopped. (We only wanted it for one or two movies and shows last fall, and were willing to pay the cancellation fee. If I had that to do over I'd just have waited to get them on Netflix.)

I have no complaints at all about Dish except it costs something. It's cheaper than Directv and cable in my area, but it isn't as cheap as broadcast with a TiVo.

Travel channel is nice, but if you watch one program over and over you see how formulaic they all are--all cable shows tend to be this way. PBS has some great travel and nature programs anyway.

[Catshrink]

17. My cable contract is up in July

I have a package - landline, internet, and TV. I rarely use the landline and realize I can get most of the cable TV shows I watch online. I plan to dump all but the internet. 4-6% paycut looming and the cuts have to come from somewhere. The paycut last year was about the same and I had to cut out a lot then.

[MajorChode]

23. Ironically broadcast TV may actually be far higher quality than cable

Many cable companies use very aggressive video compression in order to cram as many channels as they can into the existing bandwidth. Sometimes it's so bad you can see the excessive pixelation in movies with a lot of action.

[ginnyinWI]

26. also, in our area, PBS has multiple channels now.

With Dish we only get two of them. They've added a do-in-yourself channel, a weather/traffic channel, a secondary replay channel, etc that we can't get with Dish.

[elocs]

32. I also get the 3 Wisconsin PBS channels free and over the air

and the high definition is beautiful.

[ginnyinWI]

41. it's true!

We set up the converter box and antenna today and unplugged the satellite connection. The quality was definitely better--and we just have a regular Toshiba tube TV that's a few years old. No HD or anything, but it was so crisp and clear and bright that we just sat there watching the commercials. McLaughlin Group was on and I could see all the comb-over hairs on Pat Buchanan's head! But we have to get a better antenna because we can't get all the PBS stations to come in.

[CBHagman]

28. I had believed I couldn't do without cable.

For a number of years I tried to talk myself into giving it up (I had the usual channels -- all the cable news, TCM, TBS, Bravo, etc.). It had doubled in price in the time I had it, and moreover there were only a few channels I really liked and watched, namely TCM, MSNBC, etc. I am a big PBS fan, so that was an issue, and as it happened, my cable package offered three separate PBS stations (not digital channels from the same station, three stations).

Around the time the digital transition occurred I finally unhooked my cable box and took it back to Comcast. I didn't even have a converter, so for a couple of months I went without TV at all. During that time I watched some cable at the gym (which I can still do) and watched a number of things online. It was a huge surprise to find I could do without TV.

Eventually I got the converter box and later a DTV and found out about multiple digital channels for PBS, which is still what I primarily watch, aside from Jeopardy! The biggest disappointment was discovering I couldn't get all the separate PBS stations I wanted; one of them is still more or less blocked, or only available by cable or some other system.

I still miss MSNBC and TCM but sometimes watch them at the gym, and of course there are plenty of things I can get online, including some things I can't even get on cable.

So I think you should be just find deciding on an arrangement for your preferences. Good luck! :hi:

[elocs]

29. I went all high-def, over the air years ago.

With digital tv I now get about 13 channels and I also complement it with all of the Netflix streaming videos as well as those online so I have no need of cable or satellite.

[ShamelessHussy]

34. I recommend boxee tv

http://www.boxee.tv

I switched to that, and netflix.

I only pay for netflix, and a DSL Internet connection, but even combined they are still cheaper than a cable bill, with plenty of content, and it is better than TiVo not just because it's free, but everything is recorded for you =)

t

[Generic Brad]

35. I need my bread and circuses

And I make no apologies for that.

[jobycom]

37. Sort of. I don't have cable. I use an antenna for sports, and stream Netflix through a PS3.

It's not exactly cheaper, since I pay 45 bucks for the Internet connection and 15 bucks or so for Netflix, and the PS3 cost 400 or so. But for me it works, since I already had the Internet, and bought the PS3 for the games. SO I don't pay extra on what I already have.

Most of what I use TV for anyway is movies and football. Can't stand tv news, and while I like some shows when I watch them, I don't really follow any shows. I'm not much of a schedule person, so I'm not home when they are on. Plus, Netflix has a lot of tv show collections on their Instant View, so I can watch Dr Who from beginning to end when I feel like it. All for about 15 dollars a month.

I also hooked my retired laptop to my TV and bought a wireless keyboard, so I can watch Youtube or Hulu over HD. Youtube is harder to work with, since you can rarely get a video to play straight through in HD unless you let it load first. But still, there are all types of options with a computer.

There are a lot of shows I'd watch if I had cable that I can't really see now, like Travel Channel or HGTV shows, so there are things I miss. But overall, I didn't watch enough TV to miss it. It's been five years since I had cable.

[nickinSTL]

42. I did.

We now have a whopping 4 channels (ABC, NBC, CBS, CW - not counting the 2 local weather channels).

As a result, the only thing I watch anymore is sports - and pretty much only football. And what I get of that is limited since I don't even have Fox.

Mostly, anything I might care to see I can see online, anyway.

[Radical Activist]

43. No cable for years.

The few shows I miss seeing I catch on hulu. The cable news networks are shit anyway. I don't need 24 hour coverage of tiger woods and the latest official lies from Iraq. Netflix is nice. I never bothered with TIVO.

[bif]

45. Never had cable

Seemed like a supreme waste of money.

[yankeepants]

46. Never had it won't pay for it

We live in a rural area that has no cable and we have too many trees around the house for dish (not that we want it anyway). We have an antennae, a digital converter box, netflix, internet access, and lots of other stuff to do besides watch the box.

Life is good.

[elocs]

47. Check out this site to find your stations, distance, type of antenna needed.

http://www.antennaweb.org/aw/Address.aspx

I used this years ago and it was very helpful in determining what kind of antenna I would need. Since my house has steel siding and a metal roof so I knew I would need an outside antenna.

[Zorro]

48. Yes

In LA there are probably 50-60 digital/HD OTA channels.

It's quite a smorgasbord, with multiple Latin, Korean, Chinese, religious, and educational channels in addition to the normal network and local independent broadcasts.

No real need at all for cable, unless you can't live without Jon or Keith.

[stray cat]

51. Broadcast tv? All we would get is static

[cbayer]

52. We get what we can through the air, and I am completely satisfied.

We move a lot, so sometimes we get 15+ PBS stations and sometimes we get none.

The good news is that if you are willing to wait a little bit, you can get pretty much anything you want on the internet. We are LOST addicts and watch it on Wednesdays instead of Tuesdays.

No way I will ever pay for cable or satellite TV.

:hi:

[marigold20]

54. Yes, we canceled cable to save money

We also canceled the phone and now have just internet. We had an antenna installed and have had no problem receiving twelve channels - 3 PBS, and 3 each for ABC, CBS, and FOX. We don't get any NBC channels (wrong direction) but we're surviving just fine. It takes very little time now to surf through all the channels and discover that there is nothing on.

[we can do it]

55. 1992 Do Not Miss It One Bit

[unpossibles]

56. I don't even watch broadcast - just internet and DVDs for me

and I get so much more done.