You Don't Have to Pay for Cable TV

[RacerX]

Pretty informative, money-saving article: http://finance.yahoo.com/family-home...ries-a-article

How much do you guys pay for cable?

[MakeAJazzNoiseHere]

IIRC about $60/month.

I could get by with just Internet, though.

[atomic charvel guy]

there's some things I cannot live without, direct t.v. is a must for me.
nothing else will do.

[Hellbat]

My cable bill is around $150 a month but that includes nearly every channel my provider carries (All HD channels included) and my internet service which is the 2nd highest speed they have available (15Mbps down, 1Mbps up).

[rjohnstone]

there's some things I cannot live without, direct t.v. is a must for me.
nothing else will do.

+1
Must have my DirecTV.

I also have a Netflix enabled BluRay player as well.

[Spivonious]

I already knew about HD over antenna. You'd have to be an idiot not to, what with all of the digital switchover PSAs last year.

We pay $20/month for "limited basic" cable. It gives us about 25 channels, mostly local networks and shopping channels. If we didn't, we'd save $5 because our cable Internet price would go up. The rest of the shows I'm interested in we watch through Netflix. Although, for the past couple of months, Comcast has been sending down the "preferred" package unencrypted, so my QAM tuners are able to pick up the channels we're missing.

Total TV (about 25 channels with local networks in HD)+Internet(15Mbps down, 3Mbps up) = about $63/month


Also, to semi-correct the article, every TV made since 2007 is mandated to have an ATSC tuner inside, so chances are your HDTV has a tuner.

The best deal if you're computer savvy is to build an HTPC with a blu-ray drive. Netflix streaming, Youtube, Hulu, DVR, and blu-ray all in one box.

Anecdote: I used to think I'd miss TV, but it only took about a week to realize how much time we were wasting watching stupid TV shows. I'm glad we dropped those extra channels.

[MakeAJazzNoiseHere]

Cue that article from The Onion about "Area man won't stop blabbering about how he doesn't watch TV anymore..."

[Forrest]

$0. Any TV show worth watching is available for DL within 24 hours, with the commercials cut out.

[atomic charvel guy]

i spent a fortune on the NFL, MLB and NHL packages, it's a staggering number
but I'd die without them, simply perish.

[Trussrod]

$0. Any TV show worth watching is available for DL within 24 hours, with the commercials cut out.

Where (what sites)?

[audiophile]

$0. Any TV show worth watching is available for DL within 24 hours, with the commercials cut out.

$0 no doubt...
well, technically I do pay $13/mnth for 56GB usenet.

been doin that myself for many years now...
I usually get them about an hr after the show is over.

I still ocassionally watch the OTA HD locals too.

[audiophile]

i spent a fortune on the NFL, MLB and NHL packages, it's a staggering number
but I'd die without them, simply perish.

One of the funniest things I ever saw was downloading an NFL game.
It had all idle time cut out, so pretty much just hike to whistle. Maybe penalties were included. But in the end it was something like a 20 minute video which actually covered the whole game.
The whole game flew by.

so a 3hr broadcast covering 60 min of regulation time is really only about 20 min of them actually in play.

[texasfury]

..................

[atomic charvel guy]

you get paid to watch t.v.? I'm here, but i'm coming to Brownsville.

[Scooter]

I was expecting a how-to on ripping off cable from your neighbor.
I think TV is a waste of time. It seems that reality shows, who's-my-baby-daddy? and infomercials fill up most programming. I just watch the weather and world events anymore. Sports are fine, but I'd rather be there to see them.