What’s it like to cut the cord from pay TV? What’s working, what’s missing, and what kind of equipment does the best job of replacing the cable box? Every weekend, we’re asking cord cutters to tell us about their experiences. This week’s contribution comes from Sergio Ornelas, who sometimes resorts to illegal sites for content he can’t find elsewhere.
Over a year ago I read this Cable Freedom piece in the New York Times and it really resonated with me. As someone who had for years begrudgingly put up with cable service in one mediocre format or another I was really sick and tired of it. The whole idea of paying for all those channels only to watch a handful or to have the ones I enjoyed removed so that I could pay for a larger package always made me feel like I was getting screwed in this deal, never mind the ridiculous bill we got at the end of the month. I never understood why I couldn’t do a la carte, which made so much sense from a customer standpoint, so when I heard about cord cutting I was excited to try it out.
I already had a 42″ plasma and a laptop with an HDMI output, so I picked up a 6′ HDMI cord to connect the two. The first thing I tried was anything free, like Hulu, XBMC, Boxee, YouTube, etc. After having seen Netflix streaming via my friend’s XBox, it wasn’t very hard to figure out that it was time to switch. I spoke to my wife about how much she actually cared about keeping cable and then told her about the idea of cord cutting. She was more than open to it, as she also was really tired of the lackluster overpriced service we were getting. At the time we were using Comcast for both cable and Internet, so our bill was approximately $150 a month, so saving 100 bucks a month wasn’t that hard of a sell to her.
That’s when I started to shop around for possible dedicated devices. The laptop worked, but I didn’t want to deal with connecting it every time we watched TV. I considered a Roku, a PS3 or Xbox, an Apple TV, a Boxee Box, an Eee Box, a Revo, a Mac Mini and Home Theater PCs (HTPCs). The issue with a number of these devices (Roku, Apple TV, game consoles) was that many where limited in what they could do compared to what my laptop could do. I began to zero in on a small nettop or desktop.
It really came down to two options: A Mac Mini or the cheaper Dell Zino. I chose the Dell Zino, along with a Logitech MX Air mouse and a wireless diNovo laptop keyboard to control everything from the couch. I thought about remotes but figured the transition would be easier with a keyboard and mouse that could be used like a Wii remote. I also got an RCA 1450BM antenna to catch over-the-air (OTA) channels.
After using this set up for 10 months now I have found programs that I initially liked have become almost useless to me now. XMBC with the Aeon skin was one of the best-looking interfaces, but since most of the content I viewed wasn’t streamed from my local network it really didn’t get much use. Boxee also doesn’t get as much use as I initially thought it would. I find myself using Hulu desktop and just my browser for the majority of online content viewing. One of the main benefits of Boxee was the discovery of Revision3 and the content they supplied, which reminded me why I liked Tech TV so much in 1998.
Now another problem was sports. As most people know, this is the hardest thing to get around. I’m a college football fan and I found that with ESPN3 and OTA channels I was able to watch more college football games than when I actually had cable. Yeah, sometimes I did resort to illegal streams to watch a couple of TCU games on Versus, but still it got me through the season just fine.
Illegal sites are annoying to navigate, as they are loaded with ads and as of late tend to get shut down often. But with my viewing habits and the limits of online content, I found them to be almost a necessary evil. Channels like Discovery, AMC or Bravo had limited content on their sites or Hulu. Or iTunes didn’t have shows available just yet, so I would make use of unlicensed streams.
I pay for Hulu Plus now, so I’m not against paying for access to content. But I also would rather not wait six months for it to end up on Netflix or the iTunes store, and it just didn’t seem like enough of a value for me to invest in a season pass of a television series that I’m mildly interested in. Even now I’m questioning my Hulu Plus subscription, since a majority of the content I have access to I can watch over the air or even on regular Hulu.
I would really like to be able to stream HBO content. It would be great if HBO Go was available to me without a cable subscription. As a result I went to illegal sites to watch Boardwalk Empire. Content providers really need to catch up, it’s just annoying at this point. I don’t really want to own any more physical media and it would be really nice to access their content without having to wait months for it. I have no interest in buying box sets anymore. I don’t need or want physical media taking up storage space in our apartment.
Even with all these issues I will never go back to cable. The greatest benefit is that I now consume content on my terms. I watch what I want when I want. I like taking a more proactive role in my viewing habits even if it takes a little more work. I’m no longer dealing with flipping through archaic cable interfaces, being forced to settle for whatever is the least boring option in the 200+ channels I have available.
I no longer have to figure out what to delete from my DVR or wonder if a show or movie is still on demand. If a show is worth it and I have to pay for it directly I will, because I don’t mind supporting content directly that I would like rather than supporting a number of channels I don’t enjoy. In the end cord cutting is something I can’t recommend enough to my friends, and even if you think it might be difficult today, just know that with every passing day cord cutting is getting easier and better as content options and services improve.
Sergio Ornelas is a San Francisco-based blogger and cord cutter. Check out his personal blog, or get in touch with him via Twitter.
Want to share your own Cord Cutters survival story? Then send us an email (cordcutters (at) gigaom.com) or get in touch with us on Twitter (@cordcutters). And while you’re at it, also check out the latest episode of our weekly Cord Cutters web series:
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