Basic route: Who are you? You are a person who watches local news and perhaps a show or two on network TV. (CBS, ABC, NBC, PBS, FOX, WB etc.). You hardly ever watch ESPN or college or pro sports and you don’t even know who Dexter is.
Here’s your rock bottom solution. Over the air TV (OTA). Since the conversion from analog to digital, the signal quality of network broadcasts is usually better than the one they rebroadcast over cable or dish. If you don’t have a newer HDTV, take the money you’ll be saving on the cable bill and buy one. Most OTA programming is broadcast in HDTV these days. As an added bonus, you’ll get subchannels that provide weather and other alternate programming. In a good metropolitian area, you may be able to get upwards of 30 channels. The OTA signal is digital now, so you either get it or you don’t. It’s not like the old analog signal where you could coax the channel to come in when the weather conditions were right. Also, don’t spend a bundle on an expensive HDTV certified antenna, plain old rabbit ears will do unless you live right on the edge of the broadcast zone, then you might want to spring for an old school outdoor antenna. Try the rabbit ears first. This solution will cost you $0 dollars and the average savings will be close to $1200 - $1600 a year.
Basic with options: Who are you? You’re the person who is semi-technical. You can read a manual and you know how to use and program your universal remote control. You love the movies on demand and watch a lot of movies. Your solution is simple, you’re a Basic + Netflix. Now bear in mind, you’ll have to be a bit savvy to set up the streaming content over your TV, but Netflix has made that simple. If you can hook up a gaming system, you’re in. Netflix supports uPNP (Universal Plug and Play) devices for streaming. This includes just about any set top box you can think of, Play Station 3, Wii, among others. There are DVD players that support Netflix and many newer TV’s have a Netflix button you push on your remote (Samsung internet ready TV's). No more renting DVD’s by mail, the movies just stream directly to your TV. The downside, the movie selection for streaming is often not the latest releases, oh and you’ll also have to figure out how to change your tv source from Antenna (OTA) to an HDMI (recommended) source. Also, there are lots and lots of TV shows you may have not watched (past seasons), that will allow you to get hooked and watch back to back. My kids and I watched Lost seasons 1 – 6 in a couple of months this way. More Downside – no sports unless on network TV - in other words, no ESPN. A Netflix account will run you around $110 a year for a net savings of around $1090 – 1490 a year.
Basic with options plus internet TV. You are the techno-geek who either has their PC connected directly to your TV or is willing to figure out how to do it. You like Sci-Fi, Discovery, CNN of FoxNews and you enjoy several TV shows on cable. Things get a little complicated here, and this barrier to entry is usually technical, although it is getting better. You’ll need to use a set top box and your options are boxee, appletv, roku or googleTV. Google is is struggling to get content providers while the other three options will give you good content. These boxes basically provide you with a menu, but pull the content from sources like Hulu and directly from sites like NBC.com and others. Downsides include content not being available in real time (shows posted to websites are usually delayed) and again, no real sports, although ESPN is available for a fee. Many are not in High Definition (when streaming). The savings begin to dwindle as you start to have to buy a Netflix account, a Hulu+ account, an ESPN account etc. Eventually, the savings start to converge and you still have to learn how to switch between OTA sources and HDMI sources on your TV. My mom still can’t play a DVD on her tv, she is definitely not a candidate. You could pay upwards of $30 to $40 bucks for a Netflix account, Hulu+ and others.
None of these options include any kind of DVR options (recording shows to watch later). But if you think about it, all of the content is available on demand, so your DVR time shifting becomes a thing of the past. The BIG negative is sports and live cable TV events like awards shows. I guess it just depends on how important those types of TV shows are to you.
These are just three options, many more will probably be coming and as you can see, cutting the cable cord is complicated at best. It is do-able, but you’ll lose some of the convenience you have for a single source content provider like Cable or Dish. You’ll also have to become “active” in your TV selections. Some pundits have stated, and there are studies backing them up, that TV is a lean back activity where you just turn on the TV and let your mind go to mush. Using Internet TV and streaming devices demand that you make decisions and seek out content you want to watch, and this is a lean forward activity that many really don’t like.
Meatmeter's bottom line is that if you enjoy sports, awards shows and not having to look at rabbit ears in your living room, your best bet is to stay with Cable, Dish or ATT's new alternative U-Verse (Verizon has their version too). If you don’t watch much TV and can pull down your favorites from websites now, why not cut the cord and see what happens? Our opinion is, until there is an easy one stop, one button solution to rival the ease of cable or dish, alternatives will flounder.
Tell us what you think in the comments if you've cut the cord or are considering and have tried some of the options above.
Ranks Internet TV and cutting the cord to Cable or Dish as "Rare" for now
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