by John Calian |
Topics:
BitTorrent |
HTPC |
Hulu |
iPhone |
Netflix |
TiVo
Its been 6 months now, and I can comfortably say I rarely miss having 800 channels of television pumped into the HDTV via Comcast. We moved into a new house last August, and my wife and I made a deal to swear off paying Comcast $140/month for the TV service. Though we fretted a bit that we would be missing out on Bravo, ESPN, HBO, etc, the real issue we faced was: could my wife deal with my solution for our new alternative TV reality: running everything thru a Mac onto the HDTV. Plus, some over the air via a HD antenna.
With Comcast + TiVo, there was one remote that was fairly simple to use, one interface to master (TiVo), and more than enough programming. But, it cost more than the value we thought we were getting.
The solution: Macbook + HDTV + iPhone as remote + Hulu + Netflix + TiVo + Over the air antenna + BitTorrent + Boxee
The results: Overall, we are very satisfied. Quite a few programs we like are free over the air (in HD) and we pay TiVo ($14/mo) still to record. Netflix has LOTS of streaming content, and at $10 bucks a month we get good value and utility there. Hulu works very well, even the HD content. And you will find shows you never knew existed. I still miss ESPN, but espn360.com makes up for part of that by streaming live and replays of some sporting events. Add in the content we get from bittorrent, and we have an overabundance of video to watch.
As far as accessing all the content, using Boxee is fantastic, it does a great job of organizing the locally access content, Netflix and Hulu (though we often just go to Hulu.com). And accessing over the air content via the TiVo box is status quo.
And the iPhone remote capabilities are not perfect, but more than passable.
So, we save some money and are living in the IPTV world for the most part. Its not a bad place.
Next, its time to finally cut off the terrestrial telephone...
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