Yea you would have no better choice. If you choose to go that route, you can probably get that $5000 dropped to about $2000 by the time you actually pay for anything. I lived in the boonies when I was young and had a service that resembled cable, but we only got around 23 channels back then. I remembered my dad rigged our cable box so we could illegally get the Disney Channel back when it was considered a premium. Ahh the good old days.
I always had cable as a kid, but right now I just stream Netflix through my PS3 and Roku. I'm probably going to break down soon though since UFC on the Roku is nowhere near the quality of cable. Also, I managed to exceed my data limit for the month of February.
I've posted about this girl in the Rant/Rave thread, but I'll say it again. There is a girl in one of my classes who still doesn't own a TV. She will fit this into every conversation she has with any other person. I cannot stand this girl. I don't hate her because she doesn't have TV. I hate her because she thinks that makes her better than everyone else. I subconsciously equate every person who doesn't have a TV with this girl now. As for my own TV habits, there are a few shows I will watch when they air. True Blood, Community, 30 Rock, Castle, and Glee. Other than that, I will just stream shows i want to watch. It's not even that these shows are my favorite. I just happen to be home when they air/ I remember that they are on. For example, I don't really enjoy Glee. I started watching it because I'm writing a paper on the portrayals of teachers on TV, and I'm trying to prove that Matthew Morrison's character is the worst teacher in television history (the best being Mr. Feeny.) True Blood I'm genuinely addicted to, Community and 30 Rock are shows I love without absolutely needing to see them, and Castle is just an excuse to watch Nathan Fillion being his sexy self.
I'm old enough to remember when "color" was just coming to the market. Graphics would appear at the bottom of the screen saying "In Color" with the letters actually in different colors. Our first color TV, a huge console that probably weighed more than a Volkswagen, was delivered on a Friday night, just in time for "The Brady Bunch." I can still here the excitement in my father's voice as he exclaimed, "Look at their fleshtones!" Fleshtones wasn't a word you heard everyday, especially from someone like my father. When I was about 10-11, my grandmother gave me and my brother a 7" B&W TV for our bedroom, which was comparable to giving a 10-11 yo a laptop today. We got the three networks, three independent stations, and PBS, and a variety of Spanish stations out of Newark, NJ on UHF (which used to broadcast the Worldwide Wrestling Federation with Vince McMahon as commentator--his father owned the WWWF at the time and used 2 Ws for Worldwide). When I told my kids about the paucity of channels we had growing up, they just looked at me with disbelief, thinking I was just pulling their leg and had to have their mother verify it. We're wired to Verizon FiOS which we've have found to be an excellent service provider. We've experienced only two technical problems with the TV service, both of which they were able to troubleshoot remotely on a weekend in a matter of minutes. Knock wood, we haven't had a single episode of internet access or email problems since we went to FiOS. Dish Network was fine, unless it was raining, and AT&T's internet service wasn't totally reliable, and when you work from home like I did, that's a huge concern. I'll admit I've never investigated this torrents business as I'm not very tech-savvy, but the wife and I don't watch a whole lot of TV anymore. There are some shows we never miss like Sons of Anarchy for me, Glee for her, and Fringe for both, but the TV in our room is usually on as background at night while we're both doing work or, you know, *nudge, nudge, wink, wink* We'll watch movies on the weekends either via NetFlix, TCM or one of the premium movie channels that we're getting for free from Verizon (the wife is really good about tracking these free deals--she just got us all the HBOs for a year at no charge and we're also getting all the Showtimes for 3 months for free). Amazing when one thinks about a 7" B&W TV that was considered "badass" and a 40" LCD HDTV with fiber optic content delivery, DVR, Blu-Ray and internet streaming that is considered pretty much standard these days.
Our neighbor didn't have a TV because they thought it was bad for kids or something. 15 years later and their daughter is known by the locals as a nympho slut. Coincidence? I think not!
From the age of 10-15 I was only allowed to watch Jeopardy. I am a fucking whiz at trivia, but I have limited social skills.
Similarly to a poster above (I'm too lazy to look), I lived out in the boonies and only had like 28 channels until I was 15 or so. We didn't even have MTV, you know, back when they actually played music. I am pretty sure the only premium channels we got were HBO and Cinemax. On second thought, I'm sure about Cinemax. I was 15, I liked cable porn back then. Around then, I got into DirectTV, and not by subscription. I miss having nearly every channel and pay per view movie at my disposal. Now, I use the DVR and torrent things that I miss. Hell, half the time the DVR is full of things like Diners, Drive-ins and Dives. I will definitely have to look into both seedboxes and using RSS feeds to set up downloads. Has anyone here used Usenet? Is it worth the cost?
The big hoking Zenith oak console swiveling TV we had when I was a kid sits on one of the rooms of my house and still works. Even the remote still works. It's pretty impressive that sucker is still kicking. I had a color TV in my bedroom as did my parents only theirs was bigger of course. I currently have three in my house. It's a bit over the top but when my Mom said she was going to give the Zenith away I had to have it. I had no friends I can remember that didn't have a TV. I had some that had no cable but everyone had a boobtube.
I don't own a TV. My room is cramped as fuck, I'm moving across the country soon as I'm done with school, and I'm too much of a stingy bastard to pay for one. That doesn't keep me from watching TV; I watch it on the 'puter.
Got this in a rep: I was thinking that if there was enough interest we could spin up a thread in the Tech board, and people could share their setups and provide help in setting them up for the less technically inclined. Anyone?
My sister and brother in law have a fantastic entertainment room set up in the upstairs of their house with everything you can imagine. It's actually kind of ridiculous. One day I'd like a nice setup too, but there is no way in hell I'm going to drop as much cash on it as they did. It would be nice to have some alternatives to think about.
I didn't have cable growing up and didn't get one until college. I missed out on the great Nickelodeon age of the 90s that randomly gets referenced and I have no idea what they're talking about to this day. It sure as hell made sure I never wanted to stay home from school as a kid because there was nothing on besides Soap Operas and talk shows. Love me some Jenny Jones and I can definitely tell a He or She on Maury. I also ended up watching Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien way too much as a kid. I just played video games to make up for it. In college I got spoiled because we had all the channels and HBO. God bless college. Now I just have a basic cable package. I get mad at the ways and when people say they don't watch TV. When people say "I don't watch TV, I watch Hulu." I fucking want to punch them in the face. You're fucking watching TV, just on your computer. Still goddamn TV. Or when people say things like "I don't watch TV, it's all garbage and brainwashes people." It insults all the people who have real jobs that provide some stress and just want to go home and be entertained for a little while. I'm a communications major, I've studied all the ways media affects people. That argument is generally bullshit and the stupid people who do get affected by it are going to end up in a cult anyway. The only "I don't watch TV" thing I accept without thinking the person is crazy is "I'm too busy to watch TV." Pretty sure my entertainment center costs more than everything else in my apartment put together. Excluding the refridgerator and oven which came with it.
I was a bit of a TV junkie growing up and in college. In college, my roommate's mother stayed with us a lot of the time (I was renting in the condo that roomie's parent's owned. It wasn't as weird as it sounds that the mom was there a lot). She paid for ALL THE CABLE because she couldn't tolerate flipping through the guide, seeing a movie she wanted to watch and discovering we didn't have to channel. So we had all the channels and she paid for it. When I moved out to my own apartment, I found out how expensive cable really is and I didn't get it - I had rabbit ears. Now with the digital conversion deal, I pay for basic cable (~10 channels). I don't miss it on a day-to-day basis, though I do find myself saying to people a lot, "No I haven't seen that show, I don't have cable." However now it's like I'm a junkie on a bender when I DO have access to cable, like in a hotel on vacation or something. I watch as much terribly awesome VH1-type reality TV as I can. Which reminds me that it is a REALLY GOOD THING that I don't have cable.
I once house sat for a girlfriend's family who had a huge set up with: TV Stereo VCR DVD Laser disc Surround Sound They had about 6 remotes to operate this, and I got frustrated, so I rewired the system to have it make sense, and it worked great. Unfortunately I forgot I had done this when I left, and my girlfriends dad didn't see the logic I had put into it to make the system make sense, and they paid some guy 400 bucks or so to reset the system to how he wanted it. That was more than I was paid to watch the house.
Not only that, it is a completely retarded statement. There are TV shows out there that have incredible artistic value or can teach you a whole lot. Shows like The Wire, Breaking Bad, or even extremely clever comedies like Arrested Development immediately come to mind. I think we are in a bit of a golden age in terms of the sheer quantity of quality programming we have had access to since the Sopranos. To say that these incredible shows are brainwashing people is tantamount to saying listening to Beethoven is a waste of time. And this doesn't even address the value of valuable documentaries or the History channel, or Nat Geo/Discovery etc. Oh and I would be interested in reading about the entertainment setups people set up. I vote yes, Mr. Data.
We had several consoles over the years, all second hand. I'll never forget the first one we had, with the colored, lit from behind push button controls - and how my dad got his hernia from trying got carry it into the house.
My parents were pretty big on restricting my access to television - it was never anything insane, but I saw the first episode of the simpsons when it aired in Australia when I was 10. I was 15 before I saw another episode. Apparently Bart and Homer's relationship wasn't something my parents wanted me modelling... We never had cable or any kind of pay television, and my parents made sure that any time there was news broadcasting, that was what was showing, as an attempt to keep me from becoming a couch potato. But I had internet access (through Fidonets and then BBS accounts) continuously from age 7 - so I ended up glued to a monitor anyway. Probably slightly more employable - but still pale and tubby. I have cable now, but it's kind of a waste of money at this point. I just keep it on because other people in the house watch it. I torrent everything and use the exact same cheapy media player as Nettdata. I don't bother with anything fancy - I just have a few portable harddrives plugged into the thing directly. Mostly, I would happily watch the commercials - but it shits me that 'fast tracked' shows from the US are still 6 months behind for the most part. Ultra fast tracked is still at least a week after UK broadcast and only happens for Doctor Who and shit that noone actually watches. Most of the shows I watch are aired on the cable service I paid for or free to air television anyway - so I don't feel particularly guilty about it. But I still take care to cover my tracks when pirating stuff from the intarwebs. If I did get a pay up or else letter - I'd laugh at it (Australia), and ignore it. Then I'd review my current methods of obfuscation - because honestly, unlikely that someone would successfully ID me with current tech. If it was legit, I'd first contact EFF Australia for advice, and I'd then go talk to my friendly lawyers - and hope that one of them would give me a way to weasel out of it. If that failed, I'd probably invite the plaintiff to run a credit check on me and ask if they really thought it was worth the effort. Then I'd be more careful about my leeching methods. OpenSSL over HTTPS VPN to an international provider who doesn't keep records and a well secured seed box going to private trackers? I don't worry too much about being identified. Side note, if anyone's got an invite to what.cd floating around?
On a side note, could we start a thread for tracker invites? I would be mostly useless for this as the only private tracker I even frequent is Elbitz, but I would help where I can. Anyway, I think it would be fun.
I know that I, at least, would really love something like this. Particularly if people were willing to explain it from the ground up so people like me could learn the lingo as we figure out how to configure our homes. I think I have posted before that I'm probably on the edge to make the jump from having cable at all and the biggest barrier to me right now is unfamiliarity with the technologies and underlying terms. For example, I don't know what a tracker is or really what a torrent is, besides some sort of method of downloading large files. so if people put together explanations and examples for all this stuff in a tech help thread that would be gold.