low-tech

[cellio]

The ultra-basic cable service that was $12/month when I signed up is now up to $18/month, and we don't watch that much TV anyway, and we've moved the TV since the last time I tried to pull in local channels without cable. So today I went out and bought a pair of rabbit ears. (Dani didn't think I'd be able to find them in a store. Ha! I'm not the only TV Luddite in Pittsburgh. :-) ) They are provisionally hooked up to one VCR, and I'll run that in parallel with the cable (different feed) for a little while to see if the reduced-but-probably-adequate signal is, in fact, adequate. So far I've managed to pull in NBC, CBS, ABC, and PBS, but not WB and Fox. I think I need to reconfigure the VCR for it to see the UHF (VHF? I mean numbers over 13) channels, which is where these two live.

Due to historical quirks we actually have three VCRs hooked up to the TV rather than the canonical one (viewing) or two (dubbing). This has in the past been handy for segregating taping (especially when things conflict -- ever notice how if you only care about three or four shows, two of them will still be on at the same time?). I had thought to hook the rabbit ears up to the cable splitter that's feeding those VCRs, but a few more minutes of thought would have showed me why that wouldn't work before I actually installed the rabbit ears and started playing with them. But that's ok; if it should ever be relevant in the future, there's room on top of the TV for a second pair of $12 rabbit ears.

The theory I'm going to test out is: rabbit ears will be good enough for the network shows I want to see right now, everything else comes out a year later on DVD (and VHS for archival is dead or dying), and NetFlix is cheaper than cable. (I haven't actually joined NetFlix yet, but I will when I have a long-enough list of stuff I want to see that I don't want to buy.)

Comments

[mbarr.livejournal.com]

From someone who spends enough on cable to not mind:

BitTorrent is a wonderful source of the TV shows you want to watch, but don't have enough DVR space or slots to record. I don't mind so much downloading a show when I'm paying for the channel anyways.

And if you are feeling really legally minded.. iTunes Store has almost all the shows currently, generally one day after they air, and it's legal. They just upped the resolution to 640x480 from 320x240, but I'm not sure if that's only on movies, or on TV shows too...

[ealdthryth.livejournal.com]

Don't forget about your public library as a source of videos that you want to watch but not buy! We have a large selection of movies and TV shows. I have never seen an episode of 24 or Alias during their normal runs on TV. I have watched them all up through the latest season on DVD by checking them out from the library.

[cellio]

Good point! I hadn't realized (= thought to check) that libraries do DVDs too.

[cellio]

Thanks. I looked briefly at BitTorrent once (I had a specific problem that was ultimately solved with a borrowed tape), and ran into some trouble figuring out what I had to do to the firewall to fulfill the BitTorrent contract (i.e. be a server) while still protecting my home network. I haven't done anything with iTunes yet; sounds like it's worth a look (though I'd much rather watch TV shows on my 32" TV while sitting in the comfy chair than on my monitor while sitting at my desk).

[dagonell.livejournal.com]

What? Did you think the American Public(tm) borrowed *books* from there??? :D :D :D Between the music and the movies, the local one lends out as many CD's as they do books.
-- Dagonell

[cellio]

What? Did you think the American Public(tm) borrowed *books* from there???

Well, this part of the American public is hopelessly old-fashioned, then. :-)

[dsrtao]

The reason that you can miraculously obtain rabbit ears is that over-the-air HDTV uses the same frequency range as old TV...

[cellio]

Aha!

I didn't know there was over-the-air HDTV. I thought it was only a cable/satellite thing.

(Does my TV become obsolete in 2009, by the way, or just my basic (non-digital) cable service if I were keeping it?)

[mbarr.livejournal.com]

It's easy to do the firewall part these days, without too much risk. If you aren't running the program package, you shouldn't even be exposed much. It's only one port, normally..

I can email you a server to look for torrents, which is decent.

It does look like they've updated iTunes to 640x480.. it's a much nicer resolution, and it's about what TV resolution is.