It’s been said of cable TV, “A thousand channels and 90% of it is crap.” The same is now true of streaming services. My wife and I wanted to watch something tonight. Amazon had seemingly millions of cop, detective, and period dramas. They were all variations on the same theme. Go over to Netflix where … Continue reading Streaming is a cultural wasteland →

A follow-up on our undertaking of cutting the cord and using an OTA antenna... Prodded by friends, we decided to have a roof antenna installed. Some channels weren't coming in reliably with our in-the-closet setup, and some channels (notably KING5) didn't come in at all. It's not easy finding an OTA antenna installation company. Many … Continue reading We’ve switched to a roof OTA antenna →

We've been happy about our OTA antenna setup, with ChannelMaster equipment.  We're watching more Netflix and movies.  We watch KOMO and KIRO for the very few (like one or two) broadcast network shows we watch; for some reason, KING doesn't come in at all. Not receiving a DISH monthly bill has been wonderful! Our antenna is … Continue reading Upgrading our TV antenna →

A few changes since my last post on this topic... With the antenna in the equipment closet, we received 35 channels. After hiding channels we have no interest in (a children's cartoon channel, Home Shopping Network, etc.), we were down to 19 channels. I wanted to see if we could increase that without resorting to … Continue reading The final tally on our Dish cord-cutting →

Here's an update to my plans to cut the cord from our satellite (cable) TV habit. The Channel Master equipment arrived a week after I ordered it. The installation was easy. The connection instructions for the antenna and DVR+ weren't like Apple's "It just works," but they weren't bad. (For example, I needing a Phillips … Continue reading Satellite TV cord-cutting savings: $2.4K! →

I ordered the hardware for our attempt at satellite-TV cord-cutting. I couldn't find any deals on Channel Master equipment, nor good online coupon codes. So, I bought it all from their store.

We have DISH for "cable" (satellite) television. It's a reliable service with good equipment, and we've been happy with it. But in the last year, DISH's price started gnawing at us. After some online research and talking to friends, we agreed to consider giving up satellite/cable broadcast TV altogether. We researched our alternatives. Here's what we plan … Continue reading Cutting the cord from satellite TV and saving $2.2K over three years →

Yesterday on ReadWriteWeb, Mike Berkley penned an article about Comcast's impending battle with Hulu. He also gave a succinct description of the TV Everywhere ecosystem. There have been other articles about TV Everywhere, but in the spirit of less is more, Berkley's well-chosen few words nicely summarized it. Without defending the specific plans of Comcast and … Continue reading TV Everywhere →