A Childhood without Television
Another computer? Another computer. See that tiny thing to the right? That’s the Dell Studio Hybrid. That’s a tiny PC. And buying one is going to save me over $1000 a year. I have a big screen LCD in my living room and my basement office. During my long heart attack recovery (also known as 2008) I spent most of my time gaming downstairs. Computer gaming, Xbox 360 gaming, watching TV (Hulu.com), watching movies and reading the Internet. Cable TV became something Linda would have on upstairs, but I realized, almost everything she watched could be seen on the Internet. I have so many computers and online devices, I have a nice Wifi Network, and I’m paying for Road Runner Turbo. “Linda,” I said gently (such things must be handled gently). “How about we cancel cable TV?”
It took months but finally she agreed. She suddenly agreed. Just as the cable bill was going to be paid. We turned in the cable box that day. So I had to find – rather than build – a computer or face the prospect of two kids and a wife with a banged-up knee going entertainment-less for several weeks. Linda also added the caveat that the computer I get for the upstairs TV be “good looking.”
We’ve now spent two weeks with our Dell Studio Hybrid and there’s a lot to recommend. The PC is about the size of a portable hard drive from 2003. It’s tiny! Has all the ports needed and is HDMI all the way. Linda missing flipping around or just having the TV “on” – but my kids now live in an “on-demand” world. Mom and dad navigate, but there are all kinds of videos for them to watch (safesearch is on). Spongebob at Nick.com, Hannah Montana at Disney, NBC and FOX on Hulu.com, cooking shows, Rachel Maddow, movies, Netflix On Demand, etc., If we need a laugh, we have hamsters and giggling babies on YouTube.
This is the future, I think. It can only improve. We’re digital frontiersmen here – I hear this is how College kids are living these days. My kids will grow up without television telling them what’s on when and how they can view it. Going back won’t be hard. It’s kind of exciting. Only one problem, what am I going to do about Football next year?
Know any other TV/Movie Internet options? Feel free to post.
March 4th, 2009 at 11:50 am
I agree with getting rid of cable TV. I’ve been slowly working my wife toward the idea of us canceling cable TV (it has to be her idea, right?).
Being in Canada we don’t (yet) have Hulu but there are plenty of options with Miro. Miro offers everything from cooking shows to classic cartoons and the whole Revision 3 line of shows (and more). Joost deserves a mention, as well.
My wife doesn’t yet realize but I’ve been slowly turning the PC into a HomeTheatrePC. We’ve got an infrared receiver and remote control plugged in and XBoxMediaCenter (XBMC) running for our “shelf” of shows. It’s entirely possible to go without cable TV these days.
March 4th, 2009 at 6:25 pm
We went without cable / satellite for several months ourselves, it was basically the same story – once I realized how little we actually watched TV and how many of the shows we did watch could be found online or via Netflix, it made no sense to spend $60+ every month on television.
It worked really well. Of course there was a transition period, but everybody handled it marvelously. The biggest benefit I saw was the drastic reduction in advertising we were being bombarded with – the house was so much quieter!
Then we moved across the state. We (perhaps foolishly) used the prospect of getting cable again as a way of easing the moving trauma, and now the days are filled with blaring advertising again (unless the remote is within reach). I think I’m going to see if we’re in a contract for cable and/or how much it would affect our other cableco services and see if we can cut this out of our lives again..
March 4th, 2009 at 9:27 pm
That is a nice little computer. I honestly thought it was a portable hard drive at first.
March 5th, 2009 at 9:21 am
We are kinda slowly moving in this direction. We watch more and more shows using the FioS “On Demand” feature and I do have a DLink DM-320 in the living room which we sometimes use to watch movies I have ripped to my server.
The problem is that my wife isn’t computer savvy. She has a hard time just getting the DVD player on in the living room. So it would be a tough transition in that sense. The other issue is that she watches her shows (that get recorded on the multi-room DVR) on multiple TVs. That means in order to make the transition I need to have multiple PCs connected to TVs.
All that aside, it is *very* tempting.
March 5th, 2009 at 11:00 am
I don’t watch all that much TV and spend more time reading, so getting rid of cable would be fine with me. My wife isn’t too keen on it, so it will probably have to wait. Cable isn’t all that expensive here because we get it bundled with our ISP and cable is the only broadband provider in my area.
March 5th, 2009 at 1:16 pm
Road Runner Turbo? Is that your internet support? We’d love to go DSL over fiber optic lines as we are trying to get away from our huge cable bill as well, but even though we live in town next to Purdue they don’t have fiber optic internet available yet… (Cable is on the chopping block in a month or less at our house, even though I’m staying home all next year…)
We’re also going to try moving over to phone through the internet, theoretically $200 or so for a 1 time payment and then free from then on out… I forget which company we’re going through.