Cutting the cord - not for the faint of heart...

We're taking the plunge!

After talking about it for years, I'm finally getting things setup to cut the cord with our cable TV provider and try living with the local over-the-air (OTA) and Internet provided video content.

Before doing this, I had to ensure that the rest of the family was going to make the transition with me.  We had a number of deciding factors:

1. The cost of the Cable TV services is around $3/day for our fairly basic package.  This fact alone was enough to convince my wife (the chief financial officer of our house) to allow me to spend a bit of extra money to make this all happen.  Some of the pieces that I had to purchase were in the $80-$100 range, but that's just about the cost of one months service, so they will pay for themselves in just a few months.
2. We're not a "glued to the latest sitcoms or cable-only TV shows" house.  A few friends of mine are absolute glued to the latest installments of some for-pay-only channels (i.e. HBO "Game of Thrones"), or cable-only channels ("CourtTV", "Spike", etc) (see "Bit-torrent shows" below).
3. The shows we do find hard to live without are easy to get through other means.  My wife and I don't watch much, but when we do it's usually on one of the local channels ("Big Bang Theory" on CBS, or "Masterpiece" on PBS).
4. The shows that are not broadcast locally can usually be found through other legal means.  We're currently subscribed to NetFlix, mostly for the entertainment of our two daughters (10 and 5).  For them, NetFlix has enough variety that they enjoy being able to watch multiple instalments of a show at a time.  As a bonus, they can continue to watch their shows when we're on long trips or waiting at the doctor/dentist office.
5. There are a number of streaming services that can provide a broader variety of shows.  The previously mentioned NetFlix is one popular example, but another one that has caught on is the Amazon OnDemand service.  If I subscribe to the sreaming-only options for both, it comes to roughly $14.60/month ($79/year for Amazon, and $8/month for NetFlix).  We've opted for the NetFlix "stream plus one DVD" so our total monthly cost for these videos is $22.60.  Compare that to the $90 we were paying monthly and it starts to make sense quickly.
6. The ability to DVR shows was an extra cost that was driving me insane.  We originally got along with the basic cable package, but when our stand-alone DVR died and we had to go to the one provided with our cable company, we had to upgrade to the basic digital package (extra $$), then pay an additional fee for the DVR capable set-top-box - in total about $30/month in additional fees.  Considering the old DVR we had been using (a very solid ReplayTV system) only initially cost $250, I should have looked into a replacement rather than diving further into the Cable TV trap.
7. We also want to move all the DVD videos to a "media server".  This isn't a direct replacement of an existing cable TV solution, but it is going to be a side-effect of getting this all setup.

So, those are all good benefits, but there are some drawbacks.

1. There will be something that we don't get that will be "popular" or a "must see" that we will miss.  For our family, the Disney channel might be that one channel that or daughters will miss.  But then, I lived without all the drama that HBO's "The Sopranos" provided and they are now available via DVD on NetFlix - I can get hooked on them if I really want to.
2. The technology to make this all happen is going to be completely home built.  I am technical enough that the maintenance doesn't scare me.  What I don't want to have happen is failures to record the special TV show (i.e. daughter on TV, or "final episode" of a series).  But then that has happed with our current cable company provided equipment too, so I've been through that pain already.
3. The complexity of this may not be acceptable to my family.  To quote Iyaz Akhtar of "This Old Nerd", the "Partner Acceptance Rating" is paramount to making this all work.  I have to make sure everything I put in place isn't overly complex.  Thankfully, all three are fairly geeky so I don't think this will be too much of a problem.

To make all this come together, I'm starting to put together a list of items we need to pull this together:

• TV tuner - First and foremost is the ability to bring in TV signals and convert them to something a computer can use.
• DVR software - This is the software that will schedule the shows to record, plus provide a method to view them.
• Media server system - The actual hardware and OS that will store the files and run the DVR software.
• Media "extender" - Since I will want to put the recorded video on other TVs...

The "Third Rail" of topics, bit-torrents for shows.

When I first started discussing cutting the cord with my brother-in-law a number of years ago, I lamented the lack of programing available on the local OTA stations.  (At the time, NetFlix and Amazon OnDemand hadn't been created yet.)  He had just created a bit-torrent downloader, and was having good luck with it, even setting up an automatic DropBox site to let him start downloads at home just by adding a torrent link via his smartphone.  That was working well, and the automation to download the files and get the latest episodes worked great...until the cable company sent him a lettering telling him to stop.  I'm undecided how I will proceed on this front.  I will probably save the bit-torrent setup for a later experiment since most of what we watch is available OTA, but I'm sure there will be a time when the cable TV and networks lock us out and I'm tempted to look at less than socially accepted means.

Comments

[Jiminy]

Kind of cool up until the point where you start talking about stealing content that you want, but are too cheap to pay for.

It's kind of pathetic that, for $3 a day, you are considering selling out your ethics (in full view of your children - whom you are supposed to be teaching right and wrong to).

Ditto your brother-in-law - apparently ethics wasn't a required course at ITT.