I have over 200 channels on cable and there is about 2 hours of good stuff on per week. the channel I “watch” the most is not a channel at all but a digital cable music channel that only plays metal music, no videos. Remind me why again I have cable? besides the wife.
BBC America and OLN.
Nothing more creative to do with the 40 bucks per month, maybe?
Time to get the ol’ library card renewed;-)
“57 channels and nothing’s on, 57 channels and nothing’s on…”
Brett
Ride it like you stole it!
ironically I watch OLN, BBC, history channel and one or two others the rest is just crap. If the wife didn’t watch the tube I’d shitcan it.
Remind me why again I have cable?
Well, having cable does make the internet connection cheaper. I’m with ya on the music though. No commercials!
Ryan
The answer is Tivo, or better yet, ReplayTV. TV time is relaxation time, and there is nothing more frustrating that idiotic content and constant commercial interuptions.
With these you can skip all the commercials (automatically with ReplayTV older models), and easily have it record some decent content, which is out there if you have 24/7 to wait for it. I make it through both the national and local news in about 30 minutes, skipping commercials and stuff I don’t care about, and watch it anytime I want. I watch football games in about 45 minutes by skipping all the commercials, challenges, and using the 30 second skip feature after each tackle to take me immediately to the next snap. I set it up to record anything with “triathlon” or “bicycle race” and get a lot of good races I would have otherwise missed.
Try one for a week and you will never go back to live tv. Note that there are computer programs and satellite recievers that perform similar functions.
Note that there are computer programs and satellite recievers that perform similar functions.
Could you please expand on that statement, I am currently pondering getting a Tivo but I am not very informed on the topic.
I’m watching Malibu’s Most Wanted, well worth the 80.00 a month I pay for Direct TV . . . and I aint’ frontin’ . . .
“I have over 200 channels on cable and there is about 2 hours of good stuff on per week.”
Precisely why I don’t get cable. Over the last 10 years or so I find myself watching less TV all the time. Life is too valuable to waste it watching the crap that’s on about 98% of the time.
Don
I think I’m going to subscribe to the porn channel. It will help me polish the bishop more often
Note that there are computer programs and satellite recievers that perform similar functions.
Could you please expand on that statement, I am currently pondering getting a Tivo but I am not very informed on the topic.
Tivo/ReplayTV are nothing more than a cheap computer with a TV tuner card and massive hard disk. You can set your PC up to do the same functions if you don’t mind dedicating your much more expensive PC to the task. SnapStream is an example software package (http://www.snapstream.com/Products/Products_PVS3.asp) . My expectation is that it would be very much less convenient than a dedicated box like Tivo, to the point where you wouldn’t take advantage of it much (ie, a VCR can really do the same job if you went through the trouble). If you are considering DirectTV (possibly others), they offer receivers that have Tivo, or something very similar, built in, and that is probably the best route to go, at least until home entertainment PC’s become available.
Another very happy Tivo customer here. We’re actually spending less time watching tv than we used to because we can zip through commercials and dull bits, and there’s less general channel surfing because we figure if it’s worth watching, we would have already season-passed the show.
Also nice to have five or so hours of Farscape (which is insanely expensive to buy on DVD) and/or Stargate saved up on the hard drive to watch of weather forces me inside and on the trainer.
And the Olympics are going to be great- set up my little personal digital recording friend to grab the shows while I’m at work, and since I’ve got the Directivo box, I can record two different channels at once so if they’re showing, say, swimming prelims on CNBC and gymnastics on MSNBC it can still grab both.
For about 90 minutes a week the Outdoor “Death” Network has cycling and triathlon. Most of the rest of cable TV is home shopping, home religion, some jackass yapping about sports, and “Junkyard Wars.”
I also have Tivo, and we love it. Although, even with 200 channels and Tivo, it’s hard to find stuff we want to watch. We’ve had the unit since October, and are still hunting for shows to record.
I bought Tivo instead of Replay because Tivo is considered to be (generally) more user friendly, while Replay TV has more functionality built in, but can be complicated for non-technical people(this is based on talking to lots of people who have used either or both machines).
There are tons of Tivo hacks available on such sites as tivocommunity.com, such as commercial skip, which programs a button on the remote to skip forward 30 seconds. I have found the scan forward feature to be sufficient.
Regarding the computer program alternatives, most of what I have read on the topic indicates that these systems are difficult to set up, configure, and use, which makes them less than desirable for many people.
Back to cable, I would love it if they unbundled the channels so that I could dump all the channels that cost a crapload of money but I never watch, such as ALL the sports channels, MTV, and a bunch of other junk. Has anyone figured out why it is legal for the cable companies to charge you “federal transfer tax” when there is no such tax?