In Ontario we are celebrating the strangely observed Family Day. Strangely celebrated since most folks have the day off, except Federal Government Employees and some companies, so we do have mail delivery, but the Loblaws is closed? Going to make for an interesting day of figuring out whether I want to skate around the neighbourhood (yet another Freezing Rain storm in Ottawa) or sit at home with my Family and do Family things like:
- Paint the Family room (no, not likely to happen, Home Depot is closed too)
- Work on our Genealogy (I got a program for Christmas to work on that, so I may actually do that one)
- Ask my Children how their lives are going. That one is easy and it takes 3 minutes, because the answer is “Fine!” (with a very annoyed tone).
Enjoy Family Day, get into it.
How Much Do You Pay For Cable (revisited)
From time to time I talk about how much home entertainment costs. I view my home as not very extravagant in this area (I haven’t upgraded my stereo in years, and we still have standard definition TV’s for now). We do have “Digital Cable” but that ended up costing $1.50 more a month (for this year at least), that is our only major step so far. We also have High Speed Internet access, but I view that as a necessity now (for my work, and for life in general).
More and more I talk to my co-workers and they have extravagant home theater and entertainment systems and are spending a big chunk of money on subscription fees or buying media for these systems (i.e. Cable TV monthly charges and DVD (High Definition) purchases).
There is a very small group of folks who have gone completely in the other direction, and have turned OFF their Cable TV access (they still have high speed Internet access).
Their reasoning is actually quite good:
- They are rarely at home and thus will rarely sit down in front of a TV to watch a show at a specific time, so most of the shows they watch are “recorded”. Some have actual antennas (not the old rabbit ears, better than that) and they can get some digital broadcast TV over the air for Free.
- When they do have time to watch “TV” they actually watch a fair amount on their PC (DVDs sometimes or recorded shows), either where they are (traveling) or their PC’s connect into their home entertainment HDTVs.
- They are cheap and don’t want to pay Comcast or Rogers Cable $80 a month for the privilege to watch TV, or fork out $25-$30 for High Def DVDs.
So what do they do? They simply find content on the Internet. Most shows are now available in their entirety from their original broadcasters. Those that aren’t are available from Bittorrent sites where you can download content (illegal in the U.S., might be illegal in Canada, not sure of the copyright laws).
So they save about $1000 a year and get to watch what they want, when they want? Sounds like a good idea to me.
I have a large collection of my favourite shows on DVD, as I can’t stand the ads anymore (too busy for that I guess). I do foresee a day, though, when I’ll want to have easier access to those DVD shows, similar to the way that I ripped my CD collection to mp3 and listen to them on my computer.
I used to download a lot of shows, but decided to get honest, so I don’t watch downloaded shows anymore unless I can stream them from the original producers of the show. Unfortunately, most of this content is blocked to Canadians. For example, Yahoo sports streams NHL games, but only to Americans… the very people that don’t want to watch them.
I also take a guilty pleasure out of watching “Cops”, but Fox streams episodes only to Americans. Sometimes I find the Canada-US border infuriating.
never watch tv anymore. Ted.com, surfthechannel etc — I still pay for cable (maybe I subconsciously follow George’s comments) but I watch less than 3 hours a month now, I bet.
(and thanks for the link love. I do what I can to spice of the pf world…)
Traciatim writes: “Yes, downloading copyrighted content in Canada is just as illegal as it is in the USA.”
Problem is, how is it “illegal” to download a show if you’re already paying for Cable or Satellite service, and that show is on a network that you’re paying for?
Put another way, let’s say you watch Lost. Unfortunately, you didn’t see last week’s episode. So, you ask at work and a coworker happens to have taped the show. You borrow the tape from the coworker, and watch the show from the taped copy. Is this illegal? Most people would say no. But it’s exactly what you do if you download a show from the Internet – you’ve already paid for that content, you’re just choosing to access it via a different method.
Of course, if you’re not paying for cable or satellite in the first place, downloading content becomes a little more questionable, in my book.
Yes, downloading copyrighted content in Canada is just as illegal as it is in the USA. Bittorrent is not illegal, just to clarify; It’s the downloading of illegal content that’s the problem.
I use rabbit ears where we are, and we receive 2 clear channels and one fuzzy channel. I have high speed internet through DSL, I have a Wii and a descent home theatre (CRT, 2 Large Speakers, DVD/VCR etc . . . nothing spectacular).
We moved to a house from an apartment last April. When we moved we just didn’t bother hooking up the cable TV. I haven’t looked back since due to me being a computer junkie. My spouse however isn’t as pleased. I just like the lack of the ads, but she needed some of the shows so went out and picked up some rabbit ears.
I really like the way we have it now, and having no bill rocks. We get out more, talk more, and are just generally happier. People seem really surprised when I tell them we don’t have cable, but it works out the best for us in my book.