Friday, May 20, 2011
Cutting Cable
After a bunch of tinkering we're finally ready to cut cable tv. The antenna has been mounted in the attic and supplies every room in the house with live tv. The HTPC is acting as a completely automated (some maintenance required) DVR using XBMC, ted:torrent episode downloader, Event Ghost and The Renamer. The 360 provides ESPN and Netflix (and Hulu Plus if I sign up). The final task was to run some network cable to keep Christina's work PC on the wired network and I finished that up last night. We're mid billing cycle so we'll keep the cable boxes for a bit to make sure we can live without them, but I'm just really excited to cut the Verizon bill by 67%.
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4 comments:
not sure what the other programs are but i'm sure you'll like xbmc. if you have any trouble w/ the antenna during the rainy season keep in mind that the same channels are probably available on the cable coming into your house. why did you have to run a cable for christina's computer? what're the specs on your htpc? proud of you cutting the cable like the big boys :). the real question is, what are you gonna do with your monthly windfall?
XBMC has been great although it's a little slow to update it's library.
I'm pretty sure the channels w/o paying thing is a myth; at least with Verizon. You can't get channels by plugging directly into the jack even when you're paying for service. Every tv needs a box to get anything. From what I've read, when you cancel tv service it's turned off at the ONT, effectively removing your house from any and all service.
I had to run network to Christina's computer because I'm using the existing coax wiring to distribute the antenna signal. This forced me to put the modem in the master closet where the Verizon signal comes in. Christina's work computer must be on a wired connection due to policy (and they have the wireless settings locked down, I checked).
I think I mentioned the htpc in a previous post, but it's a micro atx board with the amd e-350 apu. It's like an atom pc on sterioids.
As for the money, I have a feeling it will become Avery's funds very quickly.
Correction: TVs with digital tuners would not need a box. That didn't come up in our situation. Our digital TVs already had DVRs and we had to get digital adapters for our analog TVs. We still won't get anything when we turn off the service though.
definitely not a myth since that's what we're doing. it probably has something to do with fios versus cable. looks like fios carries everything on fiber directly to your house (pretty cool). the down-side is that they must have re-modulated the cable signal using a box that they installed at your house. for the cable company, the signal is already present they just encrypt the channels and also filter the subscription channels out.
i think your ota antenna will do fine and it will actually end up with better picture quality than having the channels compressed to fit down a cable's bandwidth.
on a side note, for verizon's fios i would have expected higher data rates. i wonder if they're artificially limiting it so that then can "grow" their offering over time.
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