[jyl]

I'm hoping for a pretty broad discussion of what is involved in dropping your cable subscription and replacing it with to some combination of over-the-air (OTA) and internet viewing.

What types of programming or specific shows of note can you NOT get after dropping cable? F1? Julia Child and other Cooking Channel-type stuff? NBA games? National Geographic nature shows? Military Channel-type documentaries? Talk shows? Etc?

How's the viewing experience with watching TV online or OTA? Assume you're using a 42" or larger TV. How do Hulu and other online TV content's picture quality look at that size? Now assume your TV is HDTV. How's the OTA and online HD content?

What transmission headaches are you signing up for? Is OTA reception reliable or pixelated / dropping out? Do you need a fancy antenna mounted on a tall mast, or simply cheap rabbit ears? Do you need a wired Internet connection to your TV room, or will WLAN "G" do? "N"?

Talk about the additional boxes you need to connect TV to Internet. There are so many now. Apple TV, Sony/Google TV, TiVO Premiere, internet-capable TVs, and more. How do you choose? Or do you prefer to roll your own and hook a PC/Mac to the TV?

What about using a DVR like TiVO? Can they record OTA channels?

What sort of user interface are you getting into? One thing I do like about my current cable-through-TiVo is the simplicity. I only deal with one remote, one channel guide, one source.

Are you losing or gaining serendipity or specificity? You know how, in the old days, you'd lay on the couch at 2 AM flipping UHF channels and run across some cool program or movie you'd never heard of and wouldn't have known to search out? Cable with a DVR is like that x100, you can just browse through the next weeks' many thousands of programs and record whatever odd or interesting stuff catches your eye then watch at your convenience. On the other hand, if you have your heart set on exactly one specific program - the episode of The Avengers where Emma Peel was nude on the tigerskin rug - you're likely out of luck. How is the serendipity versus specificity tradeoff after you ditch cable?

And more. Basically, what do you need to know about dumping Comcast or TWC or whoever your local cable company is? Bottom-line, would you do it again?