How much TV can you get off the internet?

[scottmandue]

Can you watch live TV? Can you get mainstream TV (NCIS, Elementary, House, etc.)? Sports, ESPN, NFL, college football, motor racing?

In my never ending quest to throw out my satellite box (and the $30 a month bill) I have looked at (with your help) game boxes (PS2 etc.) dedicated boxes (Boxee, etc), modern Bluray and flat screens all (well, most) have some sort of built in browser.

However searching the Internet and pouring over reviews they all seem to have some short comings.

So I was ordering a memory card reader online and start looking at gaming computers, $600-$800 (you can pay a lot more) meets all my requirements, 1G video card with 1080P HDMI out, fiber optic surround out to connect to my home theater, windows 7, high speed Ethernet connection, 2TB hard drive, for +$100 you can get a DVD/Bluray player/burner with player software.

Never watched TV on my computer so I'm afraid I will take the leap and find it lacking or a huge PITA to watch network TV.

Yes I am familiar wit Netflicks ($9? mo), HULU, VUDU, etc. (do the have a mo fee?)

Thanks in advance...

[GH85Carrera]

The folks that own TV networks and sell the TV time are working HARD to make internet TV difficult. You can see their point. If people drop cable TV and go to watching TV on the internet for free the money goes away. The only thing left on TV will be public access and the shopping network. No more real content. And there is not a lot of worthwhile content now.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

All of it - if you know where to look and/or are willing to pay enough.

The dirty little secret in telecommunications now is that TV providers (cable, satellite, etc.), phone providers and internet ISPs are all selling the exact same product - bandwidth. That's it. The only difference is that a TV provider sells you bandwidth pre-occupied by primarily TV programming, an ISP sells you bandwidth pre-occupied by primarilly Internet access and a phone provider sells you bandwidth pre-occupied by voice communications. You can get any content off of any of them with the right tools or set of tools.

For example, you can get any TV program off of either "Internet" or "phone" bandwidth. Either go to Hulu, NFL.com, YouTube, PirateBay or any one of a million other sites to find what you want (note, some legal/legit, some not). You can get the same things off of a phone connection with a DSL/twisted pair dry line (really Internet access, but done through the telco).

You can (in most cases) piggyback phone & Internet on a cable (TV) line. My local phone company actually bundles Direct TV with their phone service via a special converter box. They're all selling the same thing at the end of the day. You can get pretty much anything you want, it's just a question of how convenient and quickly do you want it and how much are you willing to pay.

For me personally, I dumped cable & land line a long time ago and now use Apple TV piped through a Personal Hotspot run through my jailbroken iPhone. Total cost for "all I can eat" phone, text & Internet (including streaming with Apple TV) is $45 a month (plus the iTunes charge for movies or TV programs usually $1-$5 depending on what I want to watch). A hell of a lot better than paying $150 or $200 a month for dedicated services - particularly suck-ass cable TV which is 99.9% crap anyway. Most people don't want to deal with setting all that up but for me it's worth it. YMMV. Good luck.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

If you care about getting shows "real time" you generally have to subscribe to pay services, but they are available online (MLB.com, sports, etc.) For most TV programming it doesn't matter - at least to me. I'm very discriminating and picky about what I spend my time watching so I don't care if it aired originally yesterday or three years ago. For sports I go to a friend's house or a sports bar. I don't care about most of it anyway.

[vash]

is "TV" code for porn? hahah.

[intakexhaust]

If you work an arrangement with a good bud or family member who subscribes to sat. provider Dish, with their account log on from anywhere and your good to go. So what your getting is on demand movies and programs, etc.. It's a little different than streaming so you get a smooth frame rate and HD even with a slower connection. The funny thing is, let's say you work an arrangement out with a friend, whoever and no actual line is needed to be piped in to your house, meaning you could be in Timbuktu as long as you have a connection. No extra boxes are needed or that other gizmo they push to sell. The Dish online is not an extra charge and HBO is free. However, unless the Dish subscriber has the other premiums, you won't get them.

We tried it in a friends RV and it worked perfect. Also, if you have and Intel proc. with WIDI, get the adapter to push wireless to the TV. I think more will be going this direction with the new Win 8 interface, i5 and i7 touch screen slim laptops. The everyday laptop will suffice but after playing with the new stuff, quite a difference.

[scottmandue]

Originally Posted by Porsche-O-Phile

All of it - if you know where to look and/or are willing to pay enough.

The dirty little secret in telecommunications now is that TV providers (cable, satellite, etc.), phone providers and Internet ISPs are all selling the exact same product - bandwidth. That's it. The only difference is that a TV provider sells you bandwidth pre-occupied by primarily TV programming, an ISP sells you bandwidth pre-occupied by primarilly Internet access and a phone provider sells you bandwidth pre-occupied by voice communications. You can get any content off of any of them with the right tools or set of tools.

For me personally, I dumped cable & land line a long time ago and now use Apple TV piped through a Personal Hotspot run through my jailbroken iPhone. Total cost for "all I can eat" phone, text & Internet (including streaming with Apple TV) is $45 a month (plus the iTunes charge for movies or TV programs usually $1-$5 depending on what I want to watch). A hell of a lot better than paying $150 or $200 a month for dedicated services - particularly suck-ass cable TV which is 99.9% crap anyway. Most people don't want to deal with setting all that up but for me it's worth it. YMMV. Good luck.

^^^This, I'm thinking 'bundle"? WTF it all comes in on the same high speed connection, they just want to sell me little converter boxes that they can charge a monthly fee for!!!

Come to think of it, most of what I watch is DVR so I don't need 'live' TV, my question is I'm a A/V snob... want my 1080P and 5.1 surround, when you view TV second hand off a service is it downgraded?

Thanks

[scottmandue]

Originally Posted by vash

is "TV" code for porn? hahah.

Dude! Internet porn is free!

I mean... that is what my friend tells me

[lane912]

i pay for ---
cable INTERNET connection 40$
hulu subscription 8$ apple tv
netflix- 10$ apple tv
rent movies on tunes through the apple tv box-

for what we watch we would pay 120$$ to comcast and get 90% more garbage than we want-


IMO- cable can and should charge for what is watched, not what can be watched-

charge me for only what i have watched and make everything available

[plumb4u2]

I may be in the minority here but my thoughts are, these cable providers are big business and they employ god knows how many people, and in the times we are in this is a big deal

I do agree that much of the content is crap, but what I feel is crap and you guys feel is crap may be the best thing on TV for someone else

These companies have to provide all this content to please everybody

I personally don't have time to search all over the Internet to find something to watch, so for me it's easier just to join the masses

My .02

[Icemaster]

Cable TV described in a couple words - "Here comes Honey Boo Boo".

Ahem...

Apple TV reconditioned units - Refurbished Apple TV - Apple Store (U.S.)

Just picked one up. For $85 bucks, I'll give it a go and hook it up to my older LCD without wireless. Time to start weaning the kids off pushed TV and start moving them to pull.

[epbrown]

I haven't owned a tv in about a decade, and I went without a tv for about 20 years before that. I still watch the occasional show and almost everything is available online - it only gets tricky when the network doesn't own the rights to what you want to see. That's mostly sports broadcasting, but it's the occasional show as well. Oddly, CBS is the network that seems to have the most restricted online content, since they seem to outsource their content or just negotiate viewing rights very poorly. A lot of their content is either completely unavailable (Person of Interest) or restricted to ppv sites like Amazon and iTunes (Big Bang Theory, How I Met Your Mother, Two and a Half Men). What that means is these shows are typically not available until after the next season starts, and then you still have to pay per ep, instead a flat-rate viewing fee like for Hulu, Netflix, or Amazon Prime.

[scottmandue]

Originally Posted by Icemaster

Cable TV described in a couple words - "Here comes Honey Boo Boo".

Ahem...

Apple TV reconditioned units - Refurbished Apple TV - Apple Store (U.S.)

Just picked one up. For $85 bucks, I'll give it a go and hook it up to my older LCD without wireless. Time to start weaning the kids off pushed TV and start moving them to pull.

Ok I'll take the bait... does an iTunes account cost anything (other than your soul )?

[Hugh R]

I have time warner as my ISP, they offer almost everything on internet that they offer on cable for the same price. I can watch from my iPad.

[Hugh R]

Apple TV is not iTunes, its totally different. Well worth the $100 purchase price. you can watch Hulu, netflix if you have an account and a bunch of other stuff. Plus you can play your itunes music via your wi-fi through your home theater if its part of your wi-fi set up.

[epbrown]

Originally Posted by scottmandue

Ok I'll take the bait... does an iTunes account cost anything (other than your soul )?

Yep - AppleTV lets you watch video from your device on your tv. iTunes is their content provider and you pay $2/episode to watch content, no matter how old it is. Most stuff is on Netflix or Hulu after a year, and that's viewable for ~$8/month.

[scottmandue]

Originally Posted by Hugh R

Apple TV is not iTunes, its totally different. Well worth the $100 purchase price. you can watch Hulu, netflix if you have an account and a bunch of other stuff. Plus you can play your itunes music via your wi-fi through your home theater if its part of your wi-fi set up.

Don't have iTunes or any apple product... not that I hate them just haven't picked up any of their products... so if I buy a Apple TV box I don't have to sign up for anything (other than netflicks, HULU, and/or other online services)?

Online reviews say the Roku does everything the Apple does except iTunes.

[Icemaster]

Originally Posted by scottmandue

Don't have iTunes or any apple product... not that I hate them just haven't picked up any of their products... so if I buy a Apple TV box I don't have to sign up for anything (other than netflicks, HULU, and/or other online services)?

Online reviews say the Roku does everything the Apple does except iTunes.

Correct. Only drawback I've seen thus far is lack of Amazon Prime. But i get that thru my newer Sony TV, PS3 or Xbox.

Frankly I'm just pissed at TWC charging me 30 bucks per month for HD boxes, one of which is a DVR. Been thru 5 of their POS DVR's already. I may just turn my old PC into a DVR and tell them to shove the 'value added' services and keep basic cable for a bit. We'll see how the Apple TV thing works out.

[Rick V]

Originally Posted by Icemaster

I may just turn my old PC into a DVR

Thats what we did

[Icemaster]

Oh yeah, and any of the digital movies that you have on hand can be watched thru iTunes streamed to the Apple TV box.