Topic: Cable vs Internet television

[PyroMenace]

I believe if I had my own place I wouldn't even subscribe to cable television. I rarely surf stations anymore. I also think I am done with the DVD, any sort of video entertainment I typically find now is through online services like Xbox Live and Netflix. But now that I read stories like Showtime and Starz backing away from online streaming which is Netflix in this case, it makes me wish the cable subscription either needs to die or change. Now I know it wont, sports entertainment while I can care less for is mostly accessed through television networks and there's the immediate availability of other shows like reality television. Anyway, I was wondering how you all felt about the subject, what is your video entertainment intake and what do you think it should be like?

[K-man]

I pushed for not even having TV service when we moved in here and just using Hulu and the PS3.  Beth wasn't having any of that and so now we have DirecTV.

It's a good thing though, because our ATT DSL is flat out shitty and it would have been a horrible experience anyway.

[ren]

We don't have cable tv and just watch everything online. It's pretty much impossible to do it 100% on the level in Canada because we don't have anything like Hulu. I still buy tv shows on dvd though.

I would definitely prefer internet tv over cable tv but it's not going to happen anytime soon. Almost every Canadian ISP has bandwidth caps now and they seem to just be getting lower and lower.

[Cobra951]

I've heard nothing but bad stories about run-of-the-mill DSL.  My brother had a lousy experience with it here.

Sandy has Netflix streaming to the TV here.  It's mostly shit.  Shit, shit, shit.  They get almost nothing new or good, ever.  If you want the good stuff from them, you have to get it the old way: DVDs in the mail.  Then half of what you stream has some really shitty encoding.  The word of the day is: shit.

My brother has a Roku box.  He has a bad experience with that because the internet speeds are not constant.  Overall he gets good throughput, but at times it drops down, and the playback freezes.  This is not the DSL I mentioned above.  He got rid of that in a hurry.  He has Roadrunner, which works like a dream at my mother's.  It must be a neighborhood or infrastructure thing.  A better buffer in that Roku would probably solve this.

As much as streaming is becoming the norm, I can't see it displacing cable and satellite TV anytime soon.  Streaming has a long way to go, and some setbacks to contend with, like the constant pernicious attempts by the big ISPs to meter your internet service.  Edit:  For example, Ren's neck of the woods.

[iPPi]

In Canada, it's a little different.  The CRTC has locked content down quite dramatically.  The selection for Netflix in Canada is terrible.  About 90% of the content that I am interested in is not available.

Cable TV on the other hand, is still very unappealing to me as well, since I don't think it is easily justifiable to spend $30-$80 per month to just watch one show, or a particular channel.  As a result, I personally do not have cable TV service.  My parents do though, even though they don't watch TV very frequently.   That said, if you're interested in sports and news, then cable TV might be worth having.

Streaming is also a problem in Canada because ISPs put stringent limits on bandwidth usage.  I get 60GB of usage per month right now and that is barely enough (I've been using campus bandwidth when I get the chance instead of home bandwidth), otherwise I would go over my allotted bandwidth.  I could "buy" or "upgrade" my service so I get more bandwidth, but I can't justify the cost.

[Quemaqua]

I have little desire to watch TV either via cable or via the Internet.  I keep the TV on for company a fair bit, but rarely watch it all that often, and when I do it's usually Discovery or CSPAN History or something like that.  Every now and again some cop shows.  But again, these aren't things I often go out of my way to watch, I usually just see them because they're there.  If everything went to the Internet, I'd never watch anything at all.

[gpw11]

In Canada, it's a little different.  The CRTC has locked content down quite dramatically.  The selection for Netflix in Canada is terrible.  About 90% of the content that I am interested in is not available.

Cable TV on the other hand, is still very unappealing to me as well, since I don't think it is easily justifiable to spend $30-$80 per month to just watch one show, or a particular channel.  As a result, I personally do not have cable TV service.  My parents do though, even though they don't watch TV very frequently.   That said, if you're interested in sports and news, then cable TV might be worth having.

Streaming is also a problem in Canada because ISPs put stringent limits on bandwidth usage.  I get 60GB of usage per month right now and that is barely enough (I've been using campus bandwidth when I get the chance instead of home bandwidth), otherwise I would go over my allotted bandwidth.  I could "buy" or "upgrade" my service so I get more bandwidth, but I can't justify the cost.

For the record, the new rules regarding overages on bandwidth have been thrown out...for now.

[W7RE]

I have 8 or 9 shows that I watch. I watch what I can on Hulu, and torrent the rest. If for some reason I couldn't do this, I would just not watch anything.

There's too much shit and not enough good stuff on TV to pay the prices cable/satellite companies are asking. No single station has more than 2 shows I care about, so even subscribing on a station by station basis would seem like a waste. The only subscription method I can think of that I would be happy with would be to subscribe on a show by show basis, and it would have to be a reasonable price (which it wouldn't be).

I don't even like watching DVDs much anymore. The previews and commercials are too much of an annoyance.





I guess I've been watching downloaded stuff and just not much for a while now, and I notice commercials even more. I'm really REALLY starting to hate commercials. If they were at least relevant to me I wouldn't be bothered, but 99% of the time they're not.