Alternatives to cable and sattelite in TV?

[billethkid]

I know not watching television is one alternative. But if one just simply is fed up with having to subscribe to more than one wants in progamming...what are the alternatives?
Do off the air antennas do any good in TV? Any other suggestions?

btk

[EdV]

Before I can answer that, is High Definition a must have?

[memason]

If watching television "live" is not an issue, you might try the internet. Lots of folks are giving up cable to watch their favorite shows online. You'll need high speed internet to get good streaming and HD is available, but only in 720p for the most part.

Check out www.hulu.com as well as the major network sites (ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, etc.) to see if what you want to watch is available.

I'm living in Germany, at the moment and all our US TV watching is via the internet.

One caveat...if you have cable and stop your service, Comcast will charge you more for the high speed internet connection. It'll still be less expensive than the bundle, but... :grumpy:

Cheers....

[villages07]

You can subscribe to Netflix minimum unlimited plan ($9/month) and, with a high speed internet connection, stream movies and other entertainment to your TV. Not all the latest movies are available for streaming but certainly quite a library available. And, you still get movies in the mail, including all the latest stuff.

You'll also need a Netflix-ready device .... certain brands of bluray players or a Roku. Since I already had a non-Netflix-ready blu-ray, I recently bought the Roku media streaming device for $80.

So far, so good.

[l2ridehd]

There has to be a way to solve this problem and have all the features and coverage at a reasonable cost.

My best guess would be get the basic cable from comcast at $11 a month, get the high speed broadband at $42 a month, use Netflix, then use an Ooma Voip phone, internet for all other sports and shows, and you should have a robust communication package at a reasonable cost.

I am moving down this path now, have not solved all the problems yet, but believe there are solutions. I need to find a way to use the laptop to stream all other news, sports, and shows to the TV monitor. Also need to find all that media for free if possible.

Should be able to have TV, phone, Internet with full coverage of everything with lots of movie options for around $60 to $70 a month.

[iandwk]

If you have one of the newer HDTV's with a built in HD tuner, you can get in the clear HD channels, called QAM channels. QAM is a method developed to allow a TV to receive digital signals over coaxial cable. We get all the networks, PBS, and a few others in HD. We subscribed to Comcast's limited basic plan. We watch a lot of stuff on Hulu and Netflix through a computer hooked directly to the TV. The video card has 2 outputs on it. The other output goes to a computer monitor, so the computer is not just used for TV. Our bill is around $56 per month for Internet and TV.

I have a question. Has anyone ever tried getting the QAM channels without a cable subscription? I'm not looking for something free, just curious. With the discount on Internet that Comcast gives if you have a cable TV subscription, limited basic is effectively around $6 per month.

[aljetmet]

Rumor that Apple is introducing a $0.99 per episode for Television

http://www.pcworld.com/article/204087/apple_to_introduce_99cent_tv_show_rentals_and_ipod _touch_rumor.html?tk=hp_new