No TVFollow

I put more emphasis on internet than tv, since anything on tv you can easily get on the internet one way or another.

I have a media PC downstairs that acts as a DVR and TV tuner, the upstairs computers are both internet connected and can share the tuner feed from the media PC. The garage PC technically has internet, but it's mainly used to drive the CNC mill and eventually the plastic extruder. The media PC setup looks about like this

I mainly watch movies and how its made and the occasional tv series that catches my eye, etc.

Dish Network dropped the Korean Station that my husband always watched so now cable(not cable) is only good for the occasional boxing match and second release movies. We've talked about dropping it, but I figure by the time we get serious about actually doing it, it will be time for Game of Thrones again.

Both. The wife watches a lot more TV than I but what shows I do watch, I want to see when they broadcast, not when the network makes it available for streaming or when it goes to DVD or whatever. Likewise for Flea and her favorite shows.

Even torrents (setting aside legality/ethical issues) aren't gonna work for me. If I'm not seeing Mad Men at 9:00 CST then I'm behind the curve, damn it

I watch enough TV for it to be worth it right now, but I do have access to Netflix and Amazon Prime streaming. If I dropped the TV, I wouldn't follow as many shows as they were current, but I'd still get to watch them eventually, which would be fine. I don't root for the local baseball team, so I have MLB.tv anyway. I pretty much just follow the shows on FX when they're current. I'll occasionally watch some other shows on other channels, but FX has the most series I'll make sure to catch every week.

This was the way it was going for me as well, and the thought was on my mind with football season picking up. But I figured I'll just listen to the radio, as I spend a lot of the time when it's on not actually watching, but instead doing something else and just listening in. The radio commentators are usually better anyway.

The Mrs. only has one or two shows she actually watches anymore, and she can get those online for a low price or free. The kids made good use of Sprout before they dropped the channel from the normal package a while back. At that point the only thing we really had on with any frequency was PBS for the children's programming; and even that was mostly background noise. We can put on a DVD that auto-repeats and get the same effect for a much lower price.

SpoilerEdit: I'm also very disappointed there aren't more "T.V. only" responses on a internet forum.

Edited, Sep 3rd 2013 12:40pm by someproteinguy

Hip hip hooray! The Super Readers save the day!

Both for me. I get the idea of just having an internet connection and accessing content that way, but usually the good content you either have to wait for, or pay for (or use a potentially illegal source for). I've long thought that online content providers would replace cable TV, but IMO it's still just not there yet. Netflicks *almost* made it, but then they lost a ton of their licenses and their content is kinda meh now.

I suspect that's going to be a problem for some time. Cable companies (or equivalent) can leverage better terms for bundling of content to end users. Content generators (networks) will tend to maintain sites with some of their stuff on it, but it's usually not available right away. Anyone legally providing that content has to be licensed to do so, which costs money. They're going to expect to be able to charge for their content to the consumers, which means they have to add some value along the way. Large scale bundling is how cable makes this work financially, and presumably an internet content provider would have to bundle in some way, but to beat the cable guys, they have to provide options for customers. So far, I really haven't seen this happen. You either subscribe to the service, or you don't, and you get all that they have, or nothing. Which means that the "all they have" tends to be broad and limited at the same time (see: netflicks/hulu/etc).


I'd like to see genre based content options. Let me pay a few bucks a month for their "scfi" package, or "action movies", or whatever. Make broad bundles more expensive and narrow ones less so. Allow me to go all the way to micro transactions for a single episode or film if I want. I think once you build the infrastructure for that kind of delivery to customers, you'll start seeing more people move to that model. So far, that hasn't happened though. Lots of technical and legal obstacles to over come, not to mention lots of uncertainty in terms of revenue stream. It's safer to just provide a broad and generic set of content and get customers that way. So that's what we've seen so far.


Until something like that becomes available via online provider, I'll stick with cable. Cable actually provides that (to a degree). You end out paying for a ton of channels you don't care about, but you do get to pick channel bundles (sorta), and have access to both free and pay on-demand stuff. So ironically, the cable companies have actually done most of the stuff that I had assumed internet companies would more easily be able to do. I think the online only folks could do it better though. They don't have the requirement to provide "basic cable", nor an historical model that bundles large amounts of channels so as to subsidize content. An online provider could simply offer narrow pay options at lower cost for what cable companies today charge as "premium" or "extended" cable options. At least theoretically.

Edited, Sep 3rd 2013 3:29pm by gbaji

I have all the channels and internet but I cheat and don't pay for it.

The Local News: Reminding you of what you found out eight hours ago on the internet.

Why watch in blizzard conditions when you could watch it clearly from the internet?

Anyone with Epix Drive-In should be made aware that at this very moment Terror of Mechagodzilla is on.

I like to channel surf though. Maybe it's just the old school in me, but I've found that even though I can go out and select just the shows and films I want to watch, I still find myself scanning through stuff looking for something interesting. I've run into a number of films (and occasionally shows) that I would never have looked twice at in a "download and view" kind of format, but found quite enjoyable. Dunno. YMMV.