Jen and I got rid of our TV again. Just to clarify, that doesn’t mean that we got rid of the actual box that shows moving pictures – that we kept. We got rid of our subscription to DirecTV, which around here is essentially the same thing as getting rid of the box. With no satellite or cable service, the box on the TV stand is essentially a large paperweight due to the fact that it is in our basement and, even more important, I have a total lack of desire to put up any kind of aerial antenna. So no signal can reach the little magic box, which means that that while we can still pass away the hours staring at the tube, we will be basically staring at fuzz. This might interest those who are avid EVP fans (which has something to do with electromagnetic waves and dead people – it is clearly ridiculous and I can’t be bothered with it) but for the average person, fuzz is fuzz, and it isn’t even the good kind of fuzz we used to get when I was younger where there was always the potential of seeing an exposed boob flashing up from the Playboy channel or Skinemax.
So we have no TV. We did this once before when we were first married and went without for about a year. It was a great year in which we spent way more time talking and reading and basically doing things we wouldn’t have done had we still owned a working TV. Even then we didn’t get rid of the box – I love movies too much and we would occasionally rent DVD’s to satiate the hunger for flicks. Eventually we picked up a powered aerial antenna which gave us access to the local channels, and shortly thereafter we decided that a few bucks a month on satellite service wouldn’t be all that bad if we could watch “Alias” on a clear signal. Jennifer Garner in skimpy outfits REQUIRES a clear signal. Can I get an AMEN, brothers?
Unfortunately, that few bucks a month eventually turned into something on the order of $70 a month due to purchases of sports packages and regular increases in rates. The price was too much to pay for the little that we watched. We’d check out a few shows weekly, and I dug having Fox Soccer Channel for weekend soccer matches, but we didn’t think we could justify the cost on a monthly basis. In all honesty, DirecTV was wonderful and their service had nothing to do with our decision – they were even willing to cut the price we were paying in half for an entire year so we would stay as customers. (So note to anyone reading: call your service and tell them you want out to see what they are willing to do for you, price-wise.)
But we still love to watch certain things like “Lost”, “Battlestar Gallactica”, and a few others, so we weren’t really thrilled with giving those up completely. So here is what we did, and you can too if you have the desire and a high speed DSL or cable internet connection. We got a cheap VGA to TV converter box for the computer which cost around $35, and a long RCA cable that would reach from the computer to the TV’s video in port (ours is an old school non-HD set with only a RCA video input). We had the stereo receiver downstairs along with the computer and TV so we hooked up the sound to run through that instead of the speakers that came with the computer. You could easily use the computer speakers instead, but this seemed to work out well for us. So now we have the video signal from our computer sent to the TV and the monitor, and the sound running through the stereo. All of this cost around $75 to set up, including the extra speaker wire needed to place the speakers around the room, and about one afternoon of work.
The beauty of this whole thing is that with the exception of one or two, all of the shows we like to watch are available free through streaming video on the networks websites on a single day delay. Additionally, shows that are not available for free are on iTunes for a low fee. Soccer matches are available sometimes through streaming video on various websites, and other times they can be found on a pay per view basis. The ultimate in a la carte entertainment.
The video quality is as good as what we were getting from the satellite service, although on some movies it is a tad on the dark side, and the sound is actually better due to the fact that we have it running through our stereo receiver.
Anyway, this has worked out wonderfully for us and I recommend it to anyone who has a computer near the TV, some time, and the desire to eliminate one of your monthly bills.
So there are obvious upsides to doing this. One of the downsides is that you are much less likely to learn things like the fact that daylight saving time starts tomorrow, which I just found out about 10 minutes ago. Also, since we can’t watch the evening news, we miss out on all kinds of things. For example, I had no idea that just last week, someone was killed in
So we have to go through alternative sources to get news, like the internet, which does have, if you can effectively sift through the approximately 87 billion sites hosting videos like “2 girls, 1 cup”, a few sites that contain actual information, like, for example, that daylight saving time starts tomorrow. That was a long sentence. Sorry.
Unfortunately, now when I get my weather information I don’t get to see a dumbass weather reporter standing in a blizzard or tornado.
That I miss.
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