Christmas time is almost here, which means things are busy. CJ's birthday is Friday (he turns 4 and is very excited about it), then Tom's birthday is less than two weeks after Christmas. I almost have all the shopping done. I know it isn't CJ's or Tom's fault that they were born so close to Christmas, and I know I'm not going overboard, but I'm sure it will seem almost obscene once I get everything wrapped.
This past weekend we put up the Christmas tree, and CJ had a grand time helping us put up the ornaments and a star. Now he wants a tree for his room, and another tree in some unvoiced location. He just decided this morning he must have three Christmas trees. He also wants a lion, a fire engine, a rocketship, a cowboy, and blocks for his bath.
I've been getting into the holiday mood by cooking and baking. A couple weekends ago, I baked a chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream frosting and several batches of oatmeal raisin cookies. I've also cooked large pots of beef stroganoff, chili, and chicken and dumplings. Later this week I'll bake CJ's birthday cake (spice cake with cream cheese frosting) and I'm sure I'll make some more warm comfort food. I plan to spend part of next week making gingerbread cookies with Christopher since he asked. I've never done homemade gingerbread, but it should be fun and I can't wait to have my boy help me with cutting cookies and decorating them. It's been cold and rainy--not as bad as folks back East are seeing, but cold for the desert. CJ wants to see snow and a fireplace and snowmen. I might need to turn on the YuleLog on TV on Christmas morning!
Speaking of TV, I recently stumbled across a site called CancelCable.com that gave some wonderful information on how to cut the ties with the cable company and access TV in other ways. Some are old-fashioned, others are new-fangled, but it opened my eyes overall to how much I have been paying for my entertainment.
See, I get cable. I have for a while. I used to have a satellite dish but it came loose during a monsoon season and we could never get it aligned just right after that. I got tired of coming home to find "Attention: Acquiring Signal" on every channel. Shortly before CJ was born, we got a TiVo Series 2 with DVD burner and lifetime subscription that I loved dearly until it died. I haven't buried it yet. It sits in my linen closet while I decide whether to buy a new hard drive for it.
After the TiVo died, I got an dual tuner HD DVR from the cable company and fell in love again. Oh, how fickle I am! I like shiny things. I especially like shiny things in HD. But I read the site and started thinking about what I actually watch versus what I pay to watch, and I realized I wasn't getting quite the deal I thought.
See, I thought I was being frugal for eschewing the premium channels, but getting the "free" tier of movie channels. I never watch them. If you include football on Sundays, when the TV is on for about 9 hours for all the games, we watch about 30 hours of TV a week. Most of that is recorded via DVR and watched later (except the football games, which we watch live). It roughly equates to me paying $1 for every hour I watch. That seems like a little, but not enough of a deal for me.
Spurred by my reading of CancelCable.com, I decided to reevaluate the situation based on what I had. I have an XBox 360 that can run as a Media Center Extender. I have a PC with a TV tuner running Windows Vista Home Premium with Media Center. I have a wireless-B network that I need to upgrade anyway. I got an over-the-air digital antenna to hook up to the PC and enabled Media Center to watch live TV and record. I got a new router that I need to hook up, and a couple of plug-in ethernet adaptor to create a wired network--they use existing electrical cabling to carry the signal. Once I get that done, I'll finish setting up the XBox as an extender, which will let me watch live TV or recorded TV from my PC elsewhere in the house.
To replace my other cable channels, I'll use Hulu.com and Netflix streaming (a membership with Netflix costs less than $10 a month, significantly less than my cable service). Some shows I can catch on YouTube or on the network website.
I did have to invest in some of the infrastructure for needed upgrades, but the Circuit City stores near me are closing so I got great deals on the equipment. Plus, I'll recoup those dollars quickly once I cancel the cable service. I plan to do that shortly after Christmas, after I make sure my network is setup correctly.
One interesting thing I learned--I knew that HD signals are compressed through the coaxial cable due to bandwidth. The picture was nice enough that I didn't realize how much degradation that compression causes until I went over the air. The difference is incredible! I feel like such an idiot since I didn't know one could catch HD signals over the air. I thought you had to have some sort of converter box. Maybe it was my confusion from when HDTVs were really HD Monitors, and you had to have a converter box for the signal. I didn't know my TV could display the signal as sent without any help.
It will be a fun project to complete over the holidays. Most of all, I'm just looking forward to some time off and spent with my family instead of at the office.
Batman Essentials
22 hours ago
3 comments:
I have been thinking about cable along the same lines as you but there are a couple of things holding me back.
First, Netflix is streaming their on demand video, as compared to Blockbuster which is using progressive download. The practical difference is that you will notice the quality of the picture change on Netflix's service. You could start a movie and it looks great but then get really crappy and then look great again. The larger your TV, the more you will notice the differences.
While I love Hulu, it really doesn't replace my dual-tuner DVR. The networks put a lot of their content on Hulu, but not all, and especially not when it is current. For example, if you want to watch Saturday Night Live, you will find some of the clips on Sunday morning, but not all. And I notice that there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason as to what they put on and take off. Ohhh, and don't underestimate the frustration that you will experience by not being able to use a DVR for Hulu content. The DRM scheme prevents this.
I don't know about your signal strength but I live in downtown Lexington and can pick up some HD signals but not consistently. I have had a couple of conversations with the tech-guy at KET and really my best option to get great signals all the time is to install a 30 foot tower.
And the final thing that has me gun shy from dumping a bunch of money into a net-only set up is future DRM. Your HDMI, DVI and other HD quality cables are subject to the whim of the provider. A good example is the new mini-DVI port on brand new Apple computers. People that legally bought a movie from iTunes and were playing through the mini-DVI connector found that their movie would not play because the DRM in the movie noticed that it was not an authorized cable. The providers are trying VERY hard to close the analog hole and I am afraid that if I built a nice system, I would find next week that it is worthless because they have tweaked their DRM.
Just my two cents.
Those are all very good comments, and things I thought about when investigating our system:
1) Streaming video quality can be choppy, but compared to our digital cable signal at 480i, pretty much the same. We notice a difference when the camera moves, but it's something we feel like we can live with.
2) We discovered that Hulu doesn't post all content when I forgot to record SNL a couple weeks ago. I love Weekend Update (except for the guests at the desk), and the only Update clips available were guests at the desk. I've since set a series record on the PC.
3) From our Phoenix suburb, I'm 20 miles from all the transmitter towers. Analog reception is spotty, but digital is good. Nice thing about digital is I just point in the direction and I either have the signal or I don't. No futzing with rabbit ears. And if you can get their digital feed, you get the HD if they broadcast it.
4) The expense isn't as great as I thought. Yes, I may run into DRM issues, but they started putting that onto my cable content before my TiVo died (meaning I couldn't burn the 6.2 Sopranos season). It's a risk I'm willing to take for now because even with some investment, the short term cost benefit is good, and the long term even better.
If you're interested, I give more details on the setup. Also, check out AntennaWeb.org--enter your address, and it will tell you what channels are available, how far you are, and what kind of antenna you need. You might get away with a high-powered indoor antenna after all.
No go on the powered indoor antenna, I have tried. The problem here is that I live in downtown Lexington and so the transmitters are in three seperate directions and I run into issues with ghost signals because of buildings. I have spent alot of time on AntennaWeb over the years. Interestingly, I received perfect signals when I lived in Midway.
I would love to hear about your setup. You can email me at roycornett --- at -- gmail - dot - com.
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