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| Is it time to get uncabled? |
 Since I'm barely using my home desktop computer at all these days, opting instead to use my notebook for practically everything, I decided to bring the desktop out into the living room and hook it up to the television. I know a few friends that have totally gotten rid of cable or satellite, and watch their television fix entirely through the internet. Netflix, iTunes, Hulu, Youtube, and Bittorrent all combine to serve up the same content and more, after all.
Sometimes adapting to change is tough, though -- I stayed recently while on a trip at a residence that had done the same thing, and I was glad to have my Sling Box setup at home ready for me to log into to access my home cable and DVR. After all, such events as the 200th episode of South Park and the lead-up to the finale of 24 weren't things I wanted to miss, and watching kept me out of trouble at night and helped me unwind before sleep.
So now that I'm home, I just started really exploring the web, particularly Hulu, for watching shows.
The first con that's apparent is that not everything is up there, for one reason or another. For instance, the afforementioned 200th and 201st episodes of South Park haven't been posted amid contraversy regarding Islamic extremist terrorist threats - so much for not negotiating with terrorists.
However, there do seem to be a lot of pros that I'm finding.
First and foremost, the commercial format of most shows is very appealing. A total of four commercials in most shows that I've watched - a commercial before the show, after the show intro, midway, and before the credits - each lasting typically 30 seconds or less. Typical TV has 6-8 minutes of commercials with 22-24 minutes of show content in a half hour. It's like getting a few minutes of your life back with each program.
A definite plus, there's a ton of content that's not available on television. As a fan of Japanese Anime, I've found there's a ton of series posted on Hulu that are subtitled just days after airing in Japan. That's definitely wickedly awesome - official anime subtitle releases that quickly can only serve to help American importers make up revenues which might typically be lost to Fansubs. It's a great way for an ailing industry to embrace a new technology.
There's a collection of free movies on Hulu, though most of the movies are classic movies and the selection isn't huge. Still, it's cool to be able to on-demand watch one of my favorite movies, Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. I'm hoping the selection will improve. I'd even be willing to pay a small monthly fee if that'd help improve the selection, which I'm sure is on the horizon for Hulu anyway as a replacement to traditional TV delivery.
Most of the things I want to watch are either on Hulu or on standard over-the-air channels. I'm really considering cutting the cable - though that'll skyrocket my internet bill, with the damn bundling prices for everything. I bet I'll still save around $100 a month (Cox is the most price-gouging cable provider I've ever had to endure, I swear.)
So will I cancel cable? I don't know. But I can say that I'm fairly certain I could get by without it, if I had to. (Really, it's a shame that I'm so addicted to the television form of entertainment anyway.) |
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| 6 Jun 2010 - 11:49 by David Schwartzstein |
Television
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