I’m preparing to move into a new house in exactly one week and I’ve made the decision to try to drop the cable habit in the process. I still have to deal with the cable company for my internet needs, Charter Communications in my neck of the woods, but I’ll cut about 2/3 of my bill by forgoing a cable package.
In small part this is a monthly cost saving venture, but in reality it will take at least a year for me to see the net gain from this venture as I am going to have to make quite a few purchases to make it happen. I’m not honestly convinced that it is time for most people to be trying this yet, but as I have a wife, a two-year-old, a couple jobs, and now hopefully this blog again I don’t really have that much time to watch TV anyway.
I’m still in the planning phases of this project, but I thought I’d kick it off with a general outline of what I’m thinking of including and see if I got any feedback before commencing with my scheme.
Home Server
I’m going to be borrowing at least some of what Ars Technica laid out in their recent HTPC Guide in creating a back-end media server. This will be the most critical component in my network as it will hold most if not all of my media and at present I plan for this to be the only true computer as there is not a chance my wife is going to tolerate booting up the TV. I’m hoping I can bring the cost in on the server at around $800-900, but I’ll update you on that tally as I start buying the components.
I should note that I did consider purchasing a Drobo or Synology box rather than rolling my own server, but decided against it in the end as I both want the greater control offered by making it myself and I also haven’t put a computer together in over two years and simply have the itch.
Media Extenders
I really have not dug too deeply into this piece yet so I won’t run on about it, but the front runner for this duty at the moment is an Xbox 360 as they can be had cheap on Craigslist in my area and offer a simple interface which should be pretty spouse friendly.
Antenna
My needs here aren’t too drastic as I have towers for all the networks within a couple miles of my home, but you should be sure to check AntennaWeb to figure out what you would need in your area. I could probably actually get away with basic rabbit ears, but to guarantee a consistent signal I’m going to go with something like this from Antenna’s Direct and place it in my attic.
I’ll let you go for now and update when I start making some more progress. I’m looking forward to the challenge and hope I’m able to give you some tips about the pitfalls in the process.
Special thanks to Iyaz Akhtar and his fantastic This Old Nerd site for some of the inspiration for this project.
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2 Responses to Cutting cable and joining the over the air and over the top revolution
Paul Z January 14, 2011
Best of luck! My wife and I dropped the disk (DirectTV) 2 years ago and really don’t miss it. Not to mention we just watch less TV. At first we went cold turkey and only had over the air rabbit ears but that wasn’t enough to feed our addiction. We’ve since added a HTPC, XBOX 360, iTunes, and Blue Ray Player. Basis Hulu, Netflix, and other streaming sources have filling in the gap that DirectTV left when we dropped them.
What the cable and satellite companies just don’t seem to understand is that we live in a world rich with media choices. Effectively giving the smart consumer a custom tailored concierge media experience. It takes effort to get it all together but in the end my wife, son, and I have a extensive local media library on the HTPC and access to so much more over the net. If Direct TV came to me and said “Paul you can pick and choose your a 30 channel line up for 30 bucks” or something like that I’d jump for it.
But no they want to force me into a contract or some other agreement where I have to get 120 channels and there maybe 20 of those I’m interested in. The rest to me are garbage. So why should I pay 100 or more bucks a month for cr@p I don’t even want to consume? Feel free to send me email if you need advice from someone who’s been around this block a couple of times.