So here we are again. It has been a while since we last saw each other. How has the diet of only OTA TV been going? Surviving you say? Great! Now that you have been without cable/satellite TV for a bit, let's see if we can find some replacements for some of the non-OTA shows you may be missing.
When we cut the cable, my wife and I did not go the OTA TV route but went straight for the next topic...Internet TV. There are a bunch of sites out there that stream media. Some of the good ones are hulu.com, netflix.com, justin.tv, Amazon Instant Video, and a few others. As for TV content things vary a good bit.
With Hulu you have a free and premium version. They serve mostly TV content and it has alot of network shows on there. New shows are updated pretty quick and available online usually the next morning after they air. I would recommend the premium strictly for the content available. Hulu premium runs $7.99/ month with a free trial available. Only the premium account is available to stream to many devices.
Netflix is a name that many people already know. They offer a streaming only service for $7.99/month and it is actually pretty decent. They do have some older seasons of TV shows but they mostly deal in movies. This would be a good replacement for any premium channels you may have.
Justin.tv is a site that aggregates streams from various sources. They have pretty much everything from kids playing xbox games to MMA fights and literally everything in between. It can be hard to navigate and find a decent stream for what you are wanting to watch. But if there is a show you just have to see there is a good chance someone is pushing it to justin.tv.
But of all of these I highly recommend Amazon Instant Video. If you have a paid Amazon Prime account then you get to use this great service for free. Well you pay $79.00/year for the Amazon Prime service but with it you get free 2-day shipping on all orders, $3.99 per item overnight shipping if you choose, and to top it off now you get the Instant Video service. So where you would pay $95.88 for a years worth of either hulu premium or netflix streaming only service you basically pay $79.00 for a years service. That equates into roughly $6.58/month. Amazon's library is not lacking either. You can browse their site to see what all you can view with the instant video service.
Now I know you are probably saying to yourself "this is all fine and dandy... but how do I get this to my TV!!!!" Fret not. For less than what you would spend on a month of cable service you can buy a Roku Box that just plugs up to your TV and streams all of the above services and more. We bought one and love it. You can also setup a MediaPC/HTPC but we will cover that in a later post. As far as the Roku box goes though, it is crazy simple to setup. Basically you just hook up the power, network, and a cable to your TV and you are set. It walks you through the rest of the setup on screen.
So now that you have had a diet of nothing but over the air TV you can start to supplement some of the missing media with one (or more) of the above services. I would suggest trying out the free trials of Netflix and Hulu premium just to get a feel for them. If you don't like them simply cancel within the 30 day time frame and you are out no money.
Next up: I miss my DVR......
The Frugal Geek
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