I admit it, I’m a big television watcher. When I moved to the farm I made sure my DISH network would be up and running by the time I got here. When I arranged my phone service, the phone company offered to bundle my DISH service in with my phone service for a savings of $5 a month if I would sign a one year contract. I thought I’d be here that long and couldn’t see a downside so I signed up and then promptly forgot about the whole thing.
Fast forward to the present. I’m making arrangements to leave the farm after just over seven months and was calling around to cut off utilities and tie up loose ends. When I called the phone company they reminded me about my one year contract, which would cost $99 to break. Evidently there’s a loophole where you can assign responsibility over to the incoming resident. I contacted the farm owners and they agreed to take over the phone. The next step was to unbundle my DISH service and arrange to have it discontinued on my leave date. The phone company finished up with me and transferred me over to their DISH desk.
After arranging to have the television service discontinued on the 22nd and establishing where they were to send the box so I could ship my DVR back to them, I rang off, happy to have everything taken care of. A couple of days later the farm owner emailed to say he’d called the phone company and picked up the service. Another thing checked off my list! That evening I sat down to watch some TV and lo and behold, almost all my channels were gone! All I had left were shopping channels, pay-per-view channels and, interestingly, the STYLE network. I have nothing against the STYLE network but not 24/7!
I thought about calling the phone company and/or DISH and then realized that I have so few days left here, it really wasn’t worth the trouble. Although I’d been busily watching all the programs I had recorded on my DVR in preparation for returning it, I still had a few left. I also had about a dozen DVDs. My mom would be arriving in a few days and I knew we wouldn’t be watching so much television as I normally do so I felt like we would be okay for evening programming.
The only remaining problem was missing my shows! How could I miss the latest episode of Grey’s Anatomy? What if I missed the latest heartbreak on Private Practice? How could I survive without knowing which designer got kicked off of Project Runway next? I’ll be at one of my sister’s houses in a couple of weeks so I called her and asked her to save those programs for me on her DVR. She had already erased this week’s episodes of some of my shows and she reminded me that many of them are available online.
I went straight to ABC’s website and watched full episodes of Grey’s Anatomy and Private Practice. What do you know?! It wasn’t bad at all. Then I remembered all those funny Hulu commercials and went over there. I was amazed at all the programming that is available. Now that I’m knitting in the evenings instead of playing on the computer it’s easy to watch TV on the computer instead. Yesterday evening I knit and watched several episodes of Caprica, a SYFY channel show I’d been meaning to check out.
I know a few people who only watch television on their computers and I never quite got it. Now I do! If I weren’t moving, I’d cancel my DISH anyway, hook a laptop up to my television and just watch that way. Whenever I’m in my own home again, I intend to do just that! What a great way to save some money.
Have you ever watched television on your computer? Have you cancelled your service in favor of watching on the computer? How is that working for you? What are the downsides? Obviously you need a high speed internet connection for it to be worthwhile, but I already have that. I’m impressed!
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9 comments:
We're looking at dumping our cable and doing just that. We may add Netflix for $8.99/month. In addition to movies, you can stream a lot of shows from Netflix. Either way, it will be a lot less expensive than the cable, which we never watch because there's nothing on!
Yes, don't forget about streaming from Netflix. You can also "rent" digital downloads of movies from Amazon and iTunes. I love tv on my computer!
I've been without a tv for two years now, and I don't miss it. If I want to watch something, I either use sites like hulu.com or wwitv.com where I can watch shows from anywhere in the world, or I watch DVD's. Why should they charge us for something that used to be free? I save a lot of money this way, and spend most of my time doing more useful things like gardening or making things for my home.
I live in Canada and there's not a lot that you can watch here online but there are some shows that I do.
Two years ago I canceled my cable and starting renting videos from an online company. It only costs me a third of what basic cable was costing and it fills my "watching" desires quite nicely. Makes the "watching" a little more special too.
@Linnea - that Netflix deal is very intriguing. I don't know what the box costs that allows you to stream programming but $8.99 a month sure beats the cable bill!
@Leah - I knew about Amazon and iTunes but have only used it on the plane before. Now I need to look at it more seriously!
@Ordella - it really is a money saver. I'm not sure doing completely without is a viable option for me but I'm glad the computer is there to provide some programming when I need it!
@Shirley - do you mean when you go to Hulu.com in Canada you see different programming than we here in the States do? That's interesting.
I know my kids watch things on their computers, but generally, when the tv is on, it's in the background (like now, in the evening), and I'm "sort of" watching / listening, but on my computer reading, writing, researching, or editing.
I do use my computer to watch the handful of DVDs I have (Sex and the City - yep - all those shoes!!)
I watch TV on the computer all the time. Result: I hardly ever watch programs on an old-fashioned television at all. The thing sits in the back room and collects dust.
There are many ways to acquire content, some of which probably need to be explained by a wily teenager or twenty-something. Legit strategies include Hulu (and sites like it), iTunes, PBS, network websites, individual programs' websites, and DVDs. Don't forget you can get many DVDs for free at libraries.
My son has his computer connected to a 42-inch flat-screen TV, so he can watch programs in full sofa-lounging comfort.
Mary -- there are a lot of devices that stream netflix -- the easiest is your computer! You can also do it from tivo, wii, a ps3 or an xbox360, and a device called the roku. I don't think you have any of those, but the computer is how I do it most of the time, although I'm very excited about the Wii streaming (that's brand new).
The next time I have a choice about TV I'm definitely going to give full-time computer tv watching a try before I blindly subscribe to satellite or cable. I'm glad to know there are so many options!
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