"what is it that i need to cancel cable and use internet for tv??"

"what is it that i need to cancel cable and use internet for tv??"

My friend sent me a facebook message asking me that question.  I sat back and realized that there should be a post that directly address that ... so here is the answer.

What you will need at the bare minimum is a computer.  Simply a computer.  Something within the last year or two should work great.

I did a post early talking about hooking up a computer to the TV.  In a nutshell, I would make sure the computer has S-Video, HDMI/DVI, and maybe (maybe) VGA.  If you are rocking a DVI-out to HDMI-in, you will need to have some way to hook-up audio.  Maybe PC Speakers or a Home Theater ... Odds are it will be better than those built in TV speakers.

Now we have a TV hooked up to your television.  You are ready to stream TV from hulu.com, abc.com, cbs.com (and many others) for free.  You can use pay-per-episode sites like iTunes and amazon.com/vod and subscription sites like netflix.com.  Oh, and all of the wonderful video casts from places like msnbc and revision3.

There are numerous ways to customize this machine.  You can add in a TV Tuner Card and record TV shows off the antenna.  You can get wireless keyboard/mice and remotes to make navigation easier.

Just remember to have fun with it!

Configuring Clear QAM on the Hauppauge 2250

For a TV tuner, both Ian and I have the Hauppauge 2250. It's a dual tv tuner that can pick up two HD channels over the air simultaneously. I bought an antenna (two, actually) in order to cancel all of my cable services; it turns out the bill is actually cheaper when you have basic cable added anyway. In this case, there are some options, to recover broadcast HD from your cable provider. The benefit here is that you don't need to spend money on an antenna, you don't have to worry about the positioning of the antenna, and your cable bill will likely be lowered in the end as a result.

I followed the directions here at this website, which were really helpful in figuring everything out (thanks to Ian for pointing me to this):

To configure this in Windows Media Center:
1) download the Clear QAM beta plugin for WMC here:
2) go to the "Set up TV signal" menu under the settings submenu, under the tasks menu.
3) Update your TV setup options, then say "No" to the automatic signal setup.
4) Pick "antenna" as your tv signal.
5) Pick ATSC as your signal type.
6) Just go through the rest of the menu, pay no attention to the lack of signal strength indications.

After this, go to your WMC guide, go to the "Online Media" menu and select the Clear QAM plugin from the program library. Complete the scan, it may take awhile.

Note! If you have trouble with a "case13" error here, just click with your remote instead of your wireless keyboard/mouse. I went to a lot of extra trouble in order to avoid these errors when I didn't need to.

After you reboot, go back to the signal strength area and see what you get. Write down the channels which you don't get, and head to the guide setup in order to remove them. Now you're getting HD over your cable and you can return your antenna!

Power Consumption of Media Center

I got the latest energy bill for my apartment.  I saw and increase of about $5 due to the media center that is running 24 x 7 x 365.  Because I don't think I've had the machine running for the full billing cycle, the actual added cost might be close to $7.50 or so.

This isn't much, but it is am important factor to consider when deciding if going cable-less will actually save you money.

Please keep in mind I decided to use a year old gaming desktop as my media center, this is probably the least energy efficient route.  The power supply is about 2x to 3x bigger than what would be found in a standard desktop.

It could be assumed if you used an average computer for your media center, your energy bill will increase by less then $10.

Where to Find Streaming TV Online

*Note* I will be updating this post as I find new sources to stream TV, so please check back often to see what is new and exciting.

I wanted to put together a simple list of where you easily find TV shows online that is both quick and legal.  I plan to add a new source to this post every day or so, but that might be a hard pace to keep up :).

Hulu.com

This is probably the single greatest site on the next for stream TV and movies.  There are too many sources to name, it has a collection of current hits and some good oldies.  A quick rundown of what I found interesting:

• Most NBC Shows
• Most FOX Shows
• Links to abc.com and cbs.com for their content
• The Daily Show and Colbert Report
• Mojo

To see what they are showing (full episodes, by network) check this link.