Cable TV vs. Internet TV

Recently Eleanor and I decided to downgrade our cable tv from Comcast - the fees and charges were ridiculous. With a landline, internet and a premium digital package we were paying almost $130 a month. RIDICULOUS. It would be justified if the system ran flawlessly, but it certainly was not. In our new, developing neighborhood the internet and cable services would just crap out at any given moment. 

With a lot of my design work relying on the high speed internet this just frustrated the hell out of me. Some days my service would be out for half the day. I would also have to constantly reset my router to get it back up and running. If I called Comcast I would on occasion get prerecorded messages of services being temporarily down.

The landline was specifically added to accommodate a dedicated line to my job, but those calls were far and few between with the Florida and Arkansas offices. Mostly it was from solicitors (I briefly forgot why we even cancelled a landline in Florida in the first place). That line is long gone.

I'm not a huge watcher of daily shows or sitcoms. In fact, I can still watch episodes of Seinfeld when the mood hits and there's a chance I haven't even seen the episode before! I don't know any TV schedules of any particular show, nor am I aware of any new programming out there. Most of my viewing was centered around Travel Channel or Food Network. Sometimes the local news would be on. No Dancing With the Stars, no Survivor XVII, no Burn Notice, nada (although I did get hooked on The Walking Dead on AMC last season).

Eventually we downgraded to regular cable and now basic cable - all 15 channels we are "allowed" to watch. Almost half are dedicated to public access, shopping or spanish. I am not paying for that crap. So more than likely we are killing cable tv altogether. I do like watching the local  news, but shouldn't that be free anyways? 

So on a trial run I subscribed to Netflix. Not the full blown DVD package, but the instant queue for $8/month. I've always been a movie guy and the one saving grave to the digital Comcast package was the ability to watch boxing matches and newer movies on Pay-Per-View. But at $4 a view and $60 for a fight on top of the $130/month bill forget it! Keep yer damn digital package. Netflix for a short time offered a substantial library of movies, but like DVD rentals at a store, eventually you exhaust what you're interested in and the selection of "newer" movies disappears. What to do?

Instead I started trying foreign and indie films. WHOA. A whole world had opened up. The past three months have been a revelation in what American movies have been missing - telling a good story. So far I've actually been into Korean, Chinese and (surprise surprise) Eastern Indian films like Kingdom War 1 & 2, Chocolate and the Warlords. The production can be great and for the most part they rely on a good storyline, whereas American films rely on the absolute best CGI and production tricks to sell a film. I'm not turning my back on the big blockbuster - I do enjoy those. Just lately as I surf Apple for movie trailers I don't see much that's all that appealing. I hate the Twilight and Potter series. Action flicks aren't what they used to be (the Expendables, Fast & the Furious - pleh!) and the funny thing about comedies now are they just aren't all that funny (Hangover 2 - really?).

A recent purchase has been a Roku player to take advantage of my high-speed internet. Now I can get Netflix downstairs. I use the laptop so El and I can watch in bed and I have a Nintendo Wii to watch it in our Master Sitting Room. The only downfall is losing connection on a fairly regular basis - no faut of my wireless router, but of Comast constantly losing its signal. Once I research a less expensive carrier I'm switching. Comcast you blow. You can add more channels to the preloaded Roku, but honestly the ripoffs of Food Network and Travel channel are just plain terrible. What do you expect for free?

For anything I'm missing I can just log onto Hulu or the hosting cable network's own site to watch the latest episodes, but honestly I haven't been jonesing for anything in particular. One unexpected result has been me actually getting out of the house on a regular basis to explore Charleston and its surrounding areas more - that's a plus. No vegging out in front of a monitor unnecessarily. That's what I call a win-win situation.