Anyone who pays for cable is a sucker

As far as I know, all commercial TV stations in the US have converted their transmitters to broadcasting digital only. Most stations (at least the ones here in the Dallas Fort Worth area are broadcasting multiple signals within their assigned bandwidth. In other words you could be watching channel 4-1, 4-2,
4-3, and so on. All the larger stations have several sub channels going out all at once. If you're on antenna only (no cable) you still have a lot of choices.

It is a bit weird here on our cable system. One of the "local" channels is broadcasting several channels within its bandwidth. The PBS affiliate used to advertise multiple channels within their bandwidth but the cable system seems to only carry one of them.

One thing I believe most of you are leaving out is the ability to turn on the TV and boom, you have 65+ channels to flip through with a remote. Simple.

However, considering Dad runs a Media Center PC in the living room, stores recorded episodes on 4 2TB hard drives…plus has the cable plugged into it, I think they much prefer to have TV. I don't see broadcasted media going away anytime soon. Maybe in 20 years, but not now.

Chris H. said:

One thing I believe most of you are leaving out is the ability to turn on the TV and boom, you have 65+ channels to flip through with a remote. Simple.

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You do have an interesting point. The "always on" and large selection of shows benefit of TV does make it convenient to find something new. There have been several shows or movies that I would have not watched otherwise because I didn't think they were that interesting when I read the reviews but I was bored so I gave them a chance since they were currently on. I ended up liking them.

I can imagine that the younger generation who are growing up with on demand content from the internet and even on demand TV will not really miss the "always on" TV of today. TV will probably still be around for awhile until the majority of people get used to getting their TV shows somewhere else.

Along with my current ability to record up to 6 TV shows simultaneously between the 2 satellite receivers I have. And I can set I think it's 99 timers on each one of them - giving me up to 198 shows I can have set to auto record. Way more than I need naturally, but I have had the occasion to have 4 shows being recorded at a time.

TattooedMac said:

Its OK for those people not living in Australia .....
We really are behind the 8 Ball when it comes to Streaming Content ...
Personally i dont have cable as i dont watch a great deal of crap that is on the box, BUT it would be nice to have access to things like NetFlix and Hulu, because if we dont it really makes the new ATV pretty well defunked in this house hold. Not going to pay that sort of hard earned NOT to beable to use it to its full capacity ...
We (austtralians) have been and still are being bloody well screwed hard by our *** Government Sorry this makes me furious Grrrrrrrrr

But on topic, Im with the OP here that Cable is not the way of the future .....

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I don't see what you are complaining about. The free TV service in Australia is so good that most people do not buy cable or look for streaming options. That's why things like the new TV will do poorly here in Australia. Dirt cheap DVD's bought from the stores (with the bonus content in it's full glory)
plus the excellent free TV service here and TV just can not beat that at the moment.

Sure streaming in Australia is poor but as stated above you really don't miss it at all here.

For those folks that support "Anyone who pays for cable is a sucker"...and if you're saying that most of your TV content would be streamed via the internet...and your internet connection is via cable modem...consider this.

Cable modem service is shared bandwidth with everyone else in your neighborhood. If everyone in your neighborhood decides that they want to watch TV all at the same time (everyone streaming content from the internet)...the whole system would grind to a halt or a crawl. I have this sort of thing happen occasionally just with "normal" internet browsing...and I do usually notice my internet speeds slowing down in the evenings when everyone jumps on the internet at the same time.

Sure...the cable companies sort of guarantee a certain amount of bandwidth to each home (and they do try to "tune" the system via the posts & poles that where cable company hardware is located external to homes)...but the bottom line is...cable modem service is shared bandwidth...and if everyone jumps on the internet at the same time to start streaming TV programming & movies...the whole system would bog down BIG TIME!!!

If you have DSL or other services other than cable modem for internet access...then you may be more guaranteed of acceptable & reliable service to "ditch cable TV" service.

- Nick

p.s. FYI...in case other folks didn't notice...Blockbuster Video (the largest video rental chain here in the US)...filed for bankruptcy last week. Finally the video rental stores (after about 10 years of widespread availability of cable modem service) are suffering due to internet content & improved services & options from cable companies (such as "On Demand" programming & movie rentals via the cable company).

But unless the cost comes down, it can get expensive to purchase content as you watch it if you have to buy per episode.

Cable is costing us $108 a month. That's 15mbps internet, HD cable with two HD receivers and sports package.

I watch Football, HBO shows like True Blood, Boardwalk Empire, Eastbound & Down, and I'm looking forward to the Fire & Ice series that will be coming out. That's not counting all the programming I'd be watching while on the computer or just looking for stuff to watch.

Internet is $60 a month. That would be a $42 budget for watching TV for the month. With the premium channel shows I like to watch and everything else, I could possibly end up spending more than that in a month.

I much prefer a subscription service like Netflix. I pay $12.00 a month now for unlimited streaming content and the ability to get rented movies in the mail.

I use an outside antenna to pick up my locals on my TV in HD with less compression than
satellite,cable and Uverse since it has a built in ATSC tuner and use Uverse for all the channels of interest in HD which cannot be gotten over the air. I like the idea of getting
those over the net but improvements will have to be made without the greed of the providers interfering with caps and limitations not to mention the latency on some providers.

I toyed with ditching cable (Sattelite actually) but I found my OTA choices weren't what I really wanted and streaming at the connection speeds available in my area is not a reasonable option.
Plus, just about that time Dish Network offered a package which they speedily dumped, that I am grandfathered into that was supposed to be 35 HD only channels with $5 for local channels. Soon after it appeared and disappeared I had something like 100 HD channels and 200 SD channels for the same price I had been paying ($29 + $5 local channels +$6 DVR + taxes). This year they dropped the local channel charge. So now I am looking a $35 +tax so I am not about to change for as long as they will continue to give me this same deal.

Oddly enough, my cable provider is my ISP. I'm sure as the paradigm shifts from cable/satellite delivery of video to internet delivery of video (which is over a cable or satellite feed anyhow), they will find a way to get their monthly $1** out of me somehow. I DO have complete faith in that. Makes me wonder how many GB's of HD video I watch on TV each week... lets say 4 hours a day of network TV, the Discovery Channel and History International x 30 days a month. That's maybe 120 hours a month, not counting weekend daytime viewing. Anyone know the size of a hour's worth of television-quality (not SD-DVD quality) HD video? I'm imagining it has to be somewhere around a gig an hour as a TV episode from a SD quality DVD in .mp4 is around 750MB for 42 minutes. I'd guess I do another 50GB+ of plain old data on my home computers if I include downloading Linux distros, operating system and software fixpacks, YouTube videos, sharing photos, online software and music purchases, current streaming video usage and other general mayhem. All this makes me wonder what the ISP (who is my cable/satellite provider) will do with the rates after enough people in my area drop the $60 to $100 a month television packages, and spike their internet usage from 50GB to 200GB+ a month. Simple business sense would seem to dictate that the ISPs will need to hike access rates to cover that loss in cable revenue and the surge in bandwidth usage. Essentially, I currently get my TV on what could be described as a dedicated television data line, with an unlimited data plan and content restricted to subscribed channels. When I move that load to my ISP connection and plan, will I still continue to be allowed $50 a month 7MB "unlimited" home ISP package? Or will the ISP/Cable/Satellite provider follow the cellular industry lead (see AT&T running into data/voice bandwidth contention) and give me tiered home data plans? If it's tiered, what happens if I leave the TV on all night by mistake and run up the data? How do they charge for recording 4 shows at once, even if the TV is off? Is that a 4GB download for an hour? And regardless, how long until the backbone to feed those connections is actually available to people outside urban centers? I mean a backbone to view content as clear, stutter-free and instantaneous as current television allows? I'd imagine that the 100+ homes in my small circa 1950s subdivision outside of Minneapolis could really clog up the current copper infrastructure if we all decided to quit being "suckers" (as it was described), and started demanding total sustained group delivery of 100GB+ an hour of data every evening 24/7/365. I think I'll enjoy wired cable/satellite for now.

Village Idiot said:

I much prefer a subscription service like Netflix.

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I agree that a subscription service is better for people who watch a lot of content on their TVs. As you said buying them individually could end up costing more depending how many shows a person watches. If the prices end up being the same as cable then there really wouldn't be a reason for people to switch.

As of right now most of my streaming stuff is the free stuff from either Hulu or from the network's websites. We don't know how long they will be free. Hulu already has a premium paid version but if advertising revenues are good enough then all of them might remain free for years to come.

There is still the issue of increasing internet usage and our current infrastructure's lack of capacity to handle all of it.

the8thark said:

I don't see what you are complaining about. The free TV service in Australia is so good that most people do not buy cable or look for streaming options. That's why things like the new TV will do poorly here in Australia. Dirt cheap DVD's bought from the stores (with the bonus content in it's full glory)
plus the excellent free TV service here and TV just can not beat that at the moment.

Sure streaming in Australia is poor but as stated above you really don't miss it at all here.

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I dont see where i did complain about the TV service in Aust. I simply stated that as far as developed countries go we are 3rd world when coming to streaming content.
Im super happy with the TV situ here. I get about 15channels running through my HDTV. Some might be doubled up as i didnt count Station channels, but 7 has 3 different ones all together. 50 24hr Sport is what i sit on most of the time ........ So yea all in all im happy, BUT what we have available via streaming is limited. I did find last night via Whirlpool Forums that FetchTV is finally here, albeit a little pricey, but it is here, so its getting better, and with iiNet offering 1TB it could be the way to go ...... Anyways works a callin

Ditch Cable? Not anytime soon for me. We still have the basic cable. No On Demand, no show recording. You turn on the TV and you have 70 channels to pick from. That's it. (Don't even own a digital TV anyway.) Plus, out here, there's ONE cable/internet provider. There's ONE phone company. Etc. So they can charge whatever they want for service and get away with it. If you don't like it, too bad! Plus, it seems a lot more complicated to have to go through the computer to find a show you want, rather than flick on the TV and have it right there.

P.S. There's NO WAY that you're gonna get a TV signal out here either. -_-

MacDude121 said:

Plus, out here, there's ONE cable/internet provider. There's ONE phone company. Etc. So they can charge whatever they want for service and get away with it. If you don't like it, too bad!

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I think that would be the higher possibility of the death of cable more than anything else. If they keep increasing their prices then people will eventually be forced to find alternative methods if they can't afford it or don't want to pay.

MacDude121 said:

Plus, it seems a lot more complicated to have to go through the computer to find a show you want, rather than flick on the TV and have it right there.

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I personally won't say it's much more complicated. For example if I go to Hulu all I have to do is do a search for the show and all the available episodes are listed for me. It's basically like a website version of TiVo or a DVR. Hulu makes it even easier because they have a "home page" for each show so that you can just bookmark that and go there every time a new episode is available.

The biggest downside is that episodes are only available after the show has aired on TV so if you don't have access to TV at all then you will have to wait longer to watch your favorite shows. This might change if streaming content becomes more popular and financially profitable for the networks.

EndlessMac said:

I personally won't say it's much more complicated. For example if I go to Hulu all I have to do is do a search for the show and all the available episodes are listed for me. It's basically like a website version of TiVo or a DVR. Hulu makes it even easier because they have a "home page" for each show so that you can just bookmark that and go there every time a new episode is available.

The biggest downside is that episodes are only available after the show has aired on TV so if you don't have access to TV at all then you will have to wait longer to watch your favorite shows. This might change if streaming content becomes more popular and financially profitable for the networks.

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Okay, I see your point. Still, Not everybody in the house is "Computer savvy" if you know what I mean. Doubt my parents would enjoy having to use the computer every time that wanted to watch something.

You do have a good point. People who didn't grow up with computers probably won't think of it as a natural thing to do.

EndlessMac said:

You do have a good point. People who didn't grow up with computers probably won't think of it as a natural thing to do.

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Yup. Exactly right.

dtravis7 said:

I know how the digital TV and the converters work, but was just wondering if there are still some Analog signals in some areas still. Here I tried an old TV and not one channel!! All gone.

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I get three channels.

bobtomay said:

There do not exist any analog TV OTA signals in the U.S. any longer. A TV with a digital tuner does not require a converter box for OTA signals.

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Not so sure about that. I think my TV is too old to have a digital tuner. It was purchased in early '05, so it was probably made in '04. The owner's manual isn't any help determining the type of tuner. But I'm pretty sure it only has one.

chscag said:

As far as I know, all commercial TV stations in the US have converted their transmitters to broadcasting digital only.

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That's what I thought too, but those 3 channels come in through the TV's tuner with the converter box turned off. There's sound and you can make out the picture well enough, but it's fuzzy.