

Cable Freedom Is a Click Away  - edw519
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/10/technology/personaltech/10basics.html?_r=1&hpw

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pmorici
I've heard lots of people say they hook Mac Mini's up to their TV. How are
they doing it? I've got a DVI -> HDMI cable but that only handles the Video
are people using junky PC speakers for the audio or is there some kind of in
expensive multiplexer you can buy to get the audio into the HDMI cable.

~~~
ronnier
I don't use a Mac, but for my PC I have a video card with two DVI ports. The
DVI ports on this card will also send the audio through it. If you have a DVI
to HDMI adapter, you'll get the audio on your TV/receiver.

Given that, I'm only using the video portion of the HDMI cable and using the
S/PDIF (a single RCA cable, digital signal though) output on my mother board
to send a digital audio signal over to my receiver.

I use XBMC (Windows, Mac, Linux) for watching movies. It's beautiful software,
free and open source: <http://xbmc.org/>

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pxlpshr
I've been doing this for two years, no regrets on ditching cable box. The only
time I miss it is the rare occasion when friends aren't doing anything for a
UT football game.

It bothers me when companies dismiss streaming/on-demand due to it's
"bandwidth" costs because companies like GigaNews seem to be quite profitable
and offer unlimited download + SLL for $30 a month or less.

~~~
TetOn
>for a UT football game

This seems to be the rub. I can't imagine the networks/cable-cos letting these
assets go in a "pay $X to stream this game" way anytime soon. It seems likely
that live sports (more than anything else I can think of) will likely be the
cudgel for much broader content delivery service agreements for some time to
come.

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maudineormsby
NHL, NBA, and MLB have online streaming options. I subscribe to NHL
Gamecenter. $160 a season, and streams at 2200 kbps, which is good enough for
me.

Sports are slowly caving to the online demand.

~~~
migpwr
Surprising how reluctant the NFL has been to giving their fanbase a live
online option. MLB is, by far, the best online streaming option.

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mikeryan
MLB is the only sport that keeps full rights to their internet streaming.

The rest of the sports have traditionally tied internet streaming to their
broadcast deals.

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meta
The last month I have been doing this with XBMC. The base stuff works amazing
and using xmbclive was quick and easy. The trouble I have been having is
setting up Live TV. Our provider uses IPTV so getting content is as simple as
faking a mac address and joining udp groups. But getting that setup nicely
with anything "set top box"-like has been hard.

In my opinion though, this type of episodes on demand, no schedule required,
watch when you want thing is the future of TV. It is funny that most people
now have PVRs (and swear by them) but really those things are just caching
content already saved and available in cable company head-ends. I am surprised
there hasn't been more movement by cable companies to allow end users to watch
their content libraries whenever and however they want. Especially with the
way TV Shows are getting more serial and epic - miss one episode and you don't
want to watch any until you are caught up.

Is it a matter of bandwidth or maybe just no interest in doing something new?

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wmeredith
There is, but I've only seen it with premium channels. HBO on-demand is
excellent. You just look through the catalog of shows/movies and pick the one
you want.

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migpwr
(Give a reason if you are going to downvote me. I've tried this and know first
hand that it sucks.)

OK. In my experience, this is a poor solution and generally a dumb thing to
do.

It's hard to use, often breaks, and has pretty horrible program selection.
Even with the Netflix membership.

The feeling of not paying "the man" for cable is cool but this simply isn't a
good solution. There isn't an alternative to cable and you will regret going
through the trouble. The only people with no regrets, are the people who don't
watch much TV, or are in denial.

Seriously, what happens when it keeps breaking? It sucks to have your wife
call you at work when it's broken. The remote isn't responding, won't full-
screen, stuttering etc.

Some of you need to be honest and stop giving everyone the no regrets since
leaving cable stuff.

This setup sucks. It's just not as bad as regular TV.

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pxlpshr
I didn't downvote you. I watch "TV" at most 2-4 hours a week (including
weekends), but I do watch a fair amount of movies. Contrary to your
experience, it doesn't break for me but I do agree it's not really quite ready
for prime time.

A majority of cable TV is garbage which is why I refuse to pay for their
bloat. I don't know why anyone in their right mind would want to spend more
than 12 hours watching the idiot box anyway. I'm not pointing a finger at you
but it humors me that I have friends who give me crap for sitting on the
computer (learning I might add), while they sit in front of the TV with their
microwave dinner watching poorly-written, dumbed-down sitcoms.

~~~
migpwr
I watch about 1-4hrs per day depending on what's showing. Mostly sports but I
like NatGeo, History, Travel, Discovery etc. I don't watch any sitcoms but
there are a few well written shows like Mad Men, Wire etc. I also enjoy stuff
like Top Gear and Ultimate Factories. But it's mostly sports for me.

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JeffJenkins
I've been watching TV/movies either on DVD/netflix via the x-box, or Hulu by
attaching my laptop to the TV instead of cable for the last few months. I'm
pretty happy with it overall, and everything which I was really interested in
is available.

Despite the massive amount of content available to me, I've found that I just
watch the shows I'm interested in or a random movie and then go do something
else. I think the main reasons for that are that there's no show that just
starts after the current one (I completely stopped watching Colbert) and there
aren't re-runs of old shows that I liked. In the case of the latter sometimes
episodes of those shows are available, but I seem less inclined to watch them
if I need to find and pick them then if I happen to see it's on some channel
I'm passing by.

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jimbokun
"If you’re an ESPN fan you have two options."

I've been pretty please with the offerings on ESPN360. I can get it through my
DSL connection. (I think cable internet providers block it, but of course the
point here is to break with the cable companies anyway.) They have a lot of
NBA, college basketball, baseball, even European soccer.

~~~
mikeryan
ESPN, as a network, is tied pretty inextricably to the Cable nets.

They get somewhere between $3-$4 per subscriber a month regardless of whether
you watch them. Thats about ~4 Billion a year they make from just subscriber
fees.

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siculars
canceled my time warner cable a few months ago. just use them to get my
internet now at about 40$ a month. they were desperate to keep me from
canceling offering me like 99$ a month for tv and internet and all kinds of
dtv stuff IF i agreed to a two year commitment. uh, ya right. forget that.

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keltecp11
I'm just curious why Cable Companies have not been investing more energy and
time into the homer server market... it seems that is the future... though
actually didn't I hear something about Comcast breaking into the Alarm
industry?

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scott_s
Looks like they've never heard of the Roku: <http://www.roku.com/>

It can't do Hulu, but I've used it at a friend's house to access his Netflix
account. It's quite nice.

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SwellJoe
Looks to me like they have:

 _There’s also the $80 Roku box, a device that allows you to stream video from
Netflix, Amazon.com and other sites directly to your television._

