Chronicles of a Cord Cutter
Chronicles of a Cord Cutter
Settling into Life Without Cable Television
Hulu, Crackle, Netflix, Xbox live, streaming sports and news
have currently completely replaced my cable television package.
House, Lie to Me, Law and Order SVU and the old chick flick “Only You”, a special request from my wife for Valentines Day, have all been easily captured online.
It was only three days before I purchased a small adaptor (Mini-display Port to HDMI) from Best Buy for $24.99 ($6 on Amazon) to connect my 13” laptop directly to my HD television. This was absolutely necessary to be able to take advantage of all the streaming movies, news and sports available online that I was not able to access through my Xbox.
I strongly considered purchasing Apple TV and/or Google TV, but was disappointed with their limitations. I’ve since found streaming websites that I would not have been able to access through Apple TV or Google TV due to their plug-in restrictions. Add to that a price tag between $100 and $300, and it made much more sense for me to purchase the adaptor.
Surprisingly, I have been able to find most of the professional sports I was interested in watching without purchasing any subscriptions, or giving out my email address. The one draw back thus far has been the video quality of live television events. I ended up watching the Super Bowl at a friend’ s house to compensate and when there is a game of significance, I visit Buffalo Wild Wings or our local sports bar The Esquire.
Thus far I’ve saved myself the frustration that comes with paying a significant amount of money for a service that seemed to provide everything except what I wanted to watch, which would of course have cost just a little bit more than what I was paying.
There are short Sports Center clips available on Xbox Live. They are topical, which is great, but they only last 3 minutes. I found myself staring at the screen not doing anything because it required the action of choosing the next clip to watch. The process of cable cutting has turned watching television from a default thing to do, to a deliberate act.
What else have I been doing? READING!!! Yes, I’ve found myself reading and playing guitar more. Television has a way of sucking you in to watching whatever is on next, or maybe what’s on in half an hour. No more! It’s quite liberating, but is taking some adjustment.
Comments
Well said. Geek. I can
Well said. Geek. I can still beat you up.
"Best" Buy
Sounds about right. Best Buy will fleece you for tiny things like that to make up for the steep discounts on big-ticket items. Anytime you find yourself in a situation of needing some small computer or electronics accessory like that and are considering going to Best Buy, head to Amazon and check how much it would be to overnight it to you. You'll probably save money. If you can wait a few days but the item is too cheap for free shipping, there are sites out there that list filler items to bring your order up to $25.
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