Movies & TV blog

How to survive without cable or satellite

By Tony Black | Tuesday, April 14, 2009, 11:00 AM

Sick of dealing with poor customer service, ridiculous prices or the weather having the ability to disrupt your television viewing experience? Zack and I were, so we decided to say goodbye to cable and satellite and hello to alternative viewing options.

Let’s face it, there are way too many “alternate viewing” options available to name them all, but here are the ones Zack and I find work best:

Free, over-the-air broadcasts
You can watch all the broadcast channels (ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, CW, FOX). I could use this to watch some of my favorite shows: LOST, How I Met Your Mother, Heroes, Smallville, Ugly Betty, 30 Rock, The Office.

The benefits:

• It’s free, minus the cost of purchasing an antenna
• You can view the high-definition broadcast of each channel
• Really good quality

The drawbacks:

• Local stations put their news promos on your favorite TV shows whenever they get a chance so if the weather is bad outside, expect a continuous ticker about school closings to take up half the screen (though of course this is true when these stations are viewed via cable or satellite, as well)
• There is no traditional DVR in this cable/satellite free world so you either have to watch it live or dust off the ole’ VCR
  *Note: Zack and I bought a device named EyeTV for our Mac computer which allows us to record TV shows off the antenna. EyeTV digitally records over-the-air broadcasts onto your Mac. You can watch it in a high quality form (better quality than Time Warner) or convert it to iPod or AppleTV formats (among others). The only downside is the large file sizes of each recording. Zack and I are very happy with it. EyeTV is our primary method for watching TV.

Network websites
ABC, CBS, NBC and FOX all offer most of their shows on their websites.

The benefits:

• It’s free
• The drawbacks:
  • They only have the newest episodes online. In CBS’s case, I could only find one new episode of a show I wanted to watch online. So if you get more than 1 episode behind, you might out of luck
  • The quality is lacking. Since the shows are streaming, they don’t all offer high resolution viewing.
  • There are advertisements built into the videos. The amount of ads is minimal, however, compared to those of broadcast TV.
  • The sites can be hard to navigate and the interface for the video players is limiting. Full screen doesn’t always mean full screen.

  Hulu.com
  Hulu offers streaming full episodes of news TV shows from NBC and FOX shows.

  The benefits:

  • It’s free
  • They offer high quality versions for each video
  • Easy to use

  The drawbacks:

  • There are advertisements built into the videos. The amount of ads is minimal, however, compared to those of broadcast TV.
  • They only offer new episodes of NBC and FOX shows. Given the excellent interface, it’d be nice if Hulu were able to license more content.

  iTunes
  Apple’s iTunes offers a wide variety of TV shows new and old. New episodes are generally available the day after they air on TV. The is our secondary method for watching TV shows. We use it to watch shows which aren’t available through over-the-air broadcasts (like South Park, The Soup and Top Chef to name a few).

  The benefits:

  • Wide selection. You can find almost anything to watch on iTunes, including movies.
  • Easy to use interface. You’ll have to download iTunes if you’re on a PC, but users of Apple products should find it already installed on their computer.
  • When you buy something on iTunes, you are downloading it to your computer so there is no lag or reduced quality like you could have with streaming media.
  • Since you own the episodes, you can re-watch them whenever you want
  • They have started offering HD versions of some TV shows and movies
  • You can move your purchases onto an Apple iPod or iPhone and watch them wherever you want

  The drawbacks:

  • The cost. Most standard definition TV shows cost $1.99 while HD versions cost $2.99. Affordable, yes, but if I were to buy every show I watch off iTunes it would cost much more than Cable or Satellite.
  • If you don’t have an Apple iPod or iPhone and the show you purchased isn’t DRM free, then you can’t copy the episodes onto your portable media device (like a Zune … but really, who has one of those?)
  • Download time. An HD episode of a show can take quite a while to download, so if you are into instant gratification, this might not be the route for you.
  • File size. If you start buying a lot of TV shows through iTunes, be sure your computer’s hard drive has plenty of room. An HD episode of an hour long show (45 min. runtime) can take up around 1.5 GB on your hard drive.

  Netflix Instant Viewing
  Netflix.com is always adding more and more titles to their “Instant viewing” library.

  The benefits:

  • If you already have a Netflix account, instant viewing is free
  • It determines the quality of your viewings based on the strength of your Internet connection. Strong / fast connection = better quality

  The drawbacks:

  • If you are not the primary Netflix account holder, you won’t have access to this feature
  • As far as I can tell, you can only watch TV shows which are currently on DVD, and even then it isn’t guaranteed to be available for instant viewing
  • It determines the quality of your viewings based on the strength of your Internet connection. Weak / slow connection = pour quality

  Other “alternate viewing” options we have thought about trying:

  • Amazon Unbox
  • XBOX or PS3

  Can you think of any other ways to watch TV without cable or satellite? Did I leave out a benefit or drawback to a method I mentioned?

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