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Cutting the cable

I’m an entertainment junkie. I own hundreds of music CD’s, books, movies and am an early adopter of Blu-Ray. My usual routine once my two youngest children are in bed at 8 pm is to plop down on my couch, put my notebook on my lap and use that while watching my pretty 60″ TV.

I’ve received my TV content from DirecTV for the last ten years since we built this house – primarily because I’m a huge (American) football fan, and my team, the Green Bay Packers, are out of market where I live and DirecTV has a monopoly on the NFL package to be able to watch my team.

I’ve been happy with the television service (even though it’s the most compressed of all high-def signals) but their customer service is atrocious. About once a year I have a run-in with them that gets my blood boiling, but the other 364 days of the year I don’t have to think about them – it just works.

Almost a year ago I got a great deal on a Mac Mini and bought it to try out Boxee. I’ve ripped my music and movie collection to my NAS and Boxee gave me the ability to stream that straight to my TV plus their collection of Internet content I could stream as well, such as The Daily Show, Hulu and more. My best friend uses Plex, and both Plex & Boxee are based on the XBMC upstream code which does an awesome job of playing back any file you throw at it.

I’ve loved Boxee – the user experience has only gotten better from the Alpha to the Beta that launched today (the screenshots don’t do it justice). I’ve thought about, but never very seriously, getting rid of DirecTV and going Internet only. With Netflix streaming (both in Boxee and on my Xbox 360), Hulu and other apps available in Boxee, there’s a lot of content I can get if I’m willing to be patient for DVD releases of my favorite shows that I can’t watch in real time.

And then in early November, my DirecTV high-def DVR started to die. And it was a painful experience having to call in to their tech support once a week, rebooting my box every few days until they finally agreed to swap it out a month later (I pay $5 / month to lease the box from them – I don’t even own it!) I was pretty frustrated with the entire process, and this is a long enough story as it is, so I won’t go in to all the details, but when I received my bill in early December and found out they charged me $20 to replace the box, I was livid. They never bothered to inform me of the charge or asked for permission in charging me, and you may think “It’s only $20!” – but when I called to ask them to refund it, they refused – so I asked them to refund my $100 monthly charge for November as my box didn’t work and I didn’t feel that I received the service I paid for and they still refused, I started to think about all these options.

After a long conversation with my wife on the advantages and disadvantages of not having cable or satellite (she doesn’t watch TV anyway) I’ve decided to cut the cord. I’m lucky enough to have a nice HDTV antenna on my roof right next to the satellite dish and all the coax terminates at one spot in the basement, so re-wiring won’t be tough.

We spend just under a $100 month on DirecTV (cheapest package, 3 boxes for 3 TVs, DVR service and HD service). I figure with a small investment in buying some new hardware it will pay itself back in 3 months (considering I had already bought the Mac Mini a year ago):

  • HD Homerun: Dual tuner off-air HD tuner with a network jack that any PC in the house can connect to for watching or recording live TV: $150
  • HD amplifier & terminators: $35
  • Digital converter boxes for the other 2 TVs in the house to get off-air: $20 each off Ebay
  • Elgato EyeTV PVR software for Mac: $80 (maybe, see below)

The one kink in my plan is I realized that if I buy the EyeTV to record TV on to the Mac Mini it can only record one show at a time, even though I have a dual-tuner HD Homerun. There are a few shows like NBC Thursday night comedies and Fringe on Fox that I like that air at the same time, so that’s a challenge. One of the major reasons I bought the HD Homerun is the fact that’s dual tuner but also that it has a network jack and works on Linux. One option is to install MythTV on an older computer and use that. MythTV has native support for the HD Homerun and I can mount my NAS via NFS and just point Boxee at it, though there are some questions whether Boxee and XBMC can read the .nuv files that MythTV records in.

It’s a pretty cool time seeing these convergence devices come to life. The Internet is evolving to add video content, whether it’s TV shows like Hulu or movies & DVD on Netflix. CES is happening this week and seeing the Boxee Box, Popbox and Iomega set top boxes only support this point. There are still some challenges – I’m going to have to give up watching my favorite football team, live sports on ESPN, and waiting to watch some of my TV shows until they release on DVD, but I think it’s worth trying.

The content companies are going to have to evolve. They’re going to need better customer service and better ways to allow consumers access to content. (And I’m willing to put up with the movie studios stupid rental window on Netflix if it means more streaming content). My hardware arrived today and now I’m off to start installing all this stuff….

Fringe

Fringe is my new favorite TV show of the season, with Life on Mars being a close second. Fringe, created by JJ Abrams of Alias, Lost and Cloverfield fame, is to me, the X-Files meets Lost. (Which probably explains why I love it so much).

Fringe is roughly half way through it’s first season, and most of the episodes have been standalone and self contained to introduce the new viewer to the characters and over arching storyline. Now it’s just starting to get good, as the over arching storyline is coming into focus, and we’re getting hints of what’s to come. And of course it left us for the next month on a big cliffhanger!

One of the many mysteries we’ve been introduced to, in addition to “The Pattern”, is a gentleman called “The Observer” whom we met in one episode. Now Fox has released on their YouTube channel clips of all the easter eggs of every episode on where The Observer is hidden, and I know I missed picking him out in most of them.

Fringe Television has edited all the clips together:

If you’re not watching Fringe, you should be. And how can you not love the fact they tell you before each commercial break when the show is coming back (60 or 90 seconds). Great for DVR users!

(Via Fringe Television)

  • in Sports, tv
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Are you ready for some football?

My favorite time of the year is quickly approaching, as we are just over a month away from the start of the college football season, and the NFL is now in full swing with training camps.

I’ve started to watch a few baseball games this year (especially when the Twins are on in HD), but nothing compares to football for me.

I was surprised to see last night that the newly formed Big Ten Network that launches Aug. 30th, will be included on the basic tier of DirecTV. And here I was already to shell out $10 / month for the sports package. I’m glad I don’t, as NFL Ticket just hit my bill. I’ll be interested to see how much HD bandwidth the Big Ten Network gets, as they keep talking about how they’re launching with the most HD content of any new TV channel. DirecTV’s new satellite doesn’t come online until October with more HD capacity, so this will be interesting to see.

In related news, I’ve gotten my hands on a few Packer tickets this year – I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to see Favre play knowing this is probably his last year. (But we say that every year, don’t we?)

10 days until the first preseason game! Are you ready for some football?

Joost Beta Invites

Do you need a Joost beta invite? I’ve hooked up all the friends (I think) who want one, and still have a bunch leftover.

Drop me an email at pcutler _at_ foresightlinux.org if you want one.

Mac & Windows only now, thought there have been rumors of a Linux client sometime in the future.

It’s definitely interesting – and different. Joost continues to sign up content partners, and it’s getting better each week. I don’t use it all that often as I’ve been mostly using my laptop now rather than my desktop, but when I am in my den, I’ll run it on my extra Windows box from time to time just as background noise and to keep tabs on what the Joost folks are up to.

I Steal Television Because I Have To

I came across this blog post about stealing TV a few days ago: I Steal Television Because I Have To.

The author is spot on – it’s not about theft, it’s about control. And sometimes recording TV something happens you couldn’t control, and you have no way to get the show you wanted to watch. A week ago Tuesday, my Season Pass on my TiVo for The Unit didn’t work. No idea why – no idea what channel it was trying to record, but it recorded a blank screen for an hour.

So I went and got the torrent.

The TV industry needs to wake up – and some are. ABC’s announcment this week that they’ll be releasing TV shows the day after – with non-skippable commercials – is a step. It will be interesting to see what the future holds, especially with TV-like content developed and delivered over the internet and not over the air.

Jacktracker

For you 24 fans out there (and I’m a raving one):

Introducing the Jacktracker. Using Google Maps, Flickr, and other tools, some enterprising fans have put together a history of all the hotspots in L.A. Jack has visited in 5 seasons of 24. Click on the map points to get a history lesson, and zoom in with Google maps.

Very, very cool fan made tool.

New Lost Theory

One of my favorite discussions is with a friend of mine about the TV show, Lost. We each take our guesses of what’s going on or who is next to die, or throw out a theory of why they’re on the island. (His is related to The Tempest, mine is about redemption).

However, this site offers a new theory, and fairly well thought out. I know I would have never thought of it.

It’s interesting, but I don’t know if I buy it.

Game Over

“Alias,” AKA Canceled – Nov 23, 2005 – E! Online News is the headline of a story over at E! Online. In a shock to no one, ABC has pulled the plug on Alias after 5 seasons.

I still hadn’t made up my mind on how this season was going – last year I jumped to conclusions way to early, and it turned out to be one of the better ones. Though little things still bugged me this season, I was willing to go along with it.

Alias executive producer Jeff Pinkner said in a statement that the crew was “very saddened to face reality that Alias is coming to an end.” He promised a “surprising” and “thrilling” finale.

The worst part of that article? One little blurb at the bottom that reports CBS has pulled the plug on Threshold as well. I was really into Threshold in it’s inaugural season. Poor Carla Gugino, Karen Sisco on ABC didn’t work out, and now this.

DirecTV NFL Sunday Ticket

I don’t understand the black out rules around NFL’s Sunday Ticket on DirecTV.

Last week, the Packers the play the Steelers at 3:15 on CBS. CBS stays long on the Raiders / Chiefs, so I flip to the Sunday ticket channel for the Packer game. No go, it’s blacked out, as it usually is when broadcast on the local station.

While I appreciate CBS for staying with the hot game, I was annoyed that I couldn’t see the game I wanted to see, when I supposedly pay for “all” the games.

Yesterday, the Packers are at the Falcons, 3:15 on Fox. The Vikings are the noon game, and are going long. I switch to the Sunday ticket channel, assuming the Redskins / Buccaneers game is the game of the week at 3:15, and watch the Packer game on Sunday ticket. At halftime, the signal is disconnected. Sure enough, the Packer game is on the local Fox affiliate.

So why one week do I get the game and one week I don’t? Is it up to Fox and CBS to determine when DirecTV puts the blackout in effect? Worked out for me yesterday, but still annoying.