Cutting The Cable

While I’ve wanted to do this for a long time now, it was a slow process. Little by little over the last 2 years or so, we’ve been changing our TV viewing habits. In large part because life with 3 young kids leaves very little time to watch TV. But also because TV content is being made available in more ways all the time.

I remember what it was like to get cable for the first time in the 80’s and how exciting it was. Going from 5-10 basic channels to over 50, with channels like MTV was pretty exciting. It was hard to imagine going back to life before cable.

But over the years things have changed in the broadcast industry. No longer is broadcast/cable/satellite the only way to get content. In fact, having to be home at a certain time to watch your favorite program on TV seems archaic now. We’ve had a Tivo almost since it came out in 1999, and that was a huge change in the way we watched TV. But now we have so many other ways to receive content (and a lot less time to view it) that watching any kind of TV at all is pretty rare. We either have the TV on for the kids to watch something, or for an hour or two a week for ourselves. So why pay $40-$100 a month for tons of channels that we never get to watch.

In some ways the most difficult thing about cutting the cable was just breaking the habit. When I first mentioned it to Brenda a few years ago her eyes went wide and she wanted to know what channels we would be losing. I was a bit apprehensive as well after so many years of having it. Could we really do it?

So we took it slow. First we dropped all of the premium channels, HD channels and went to their most basic package. That is, the one that they don’t even tell you about unless you ask. They’re required by law to offer it, but not to tell you about it. That got us down to $40 per month, but the quality of the picture looked like hell. We have a 52” LCD TV, and everything we were getting was 4×3 VHS quality. Even channels that are broadcasting HD are downgraded and sent as NTSC. It was a pretty big downgrade.

After a year of that I decided to look into getting a HD antenna. Not one of those rabbit ears, but an old school – on the roof – antenna. I had it on my project list for awhile to get this done myself, but after several months made peace with the fact that I just didn’t have the time and probably never would.

So like most project I can’t do, I turned it over to ServiceMagic.com to find an expert in my area that could just get it done.

Thirty minutes after entering my request on the website, I had talked to Brian Fogel of Net 1 and had an appointment setup to do the install. Between the reviews of his company on the website and talking to him on the phone, I was sure I had the right person on the job.

A few weeks later the Antenna was installed and the next morning I called Comcast to cancel our cable service, leaving just the high-speed internet. One unexpected benefit that I had not planned on was having the antenna installed inside the attic. This obviously protects it from the elements but also keeps me from having to try to clear it off in the winter if we get a ton of snow. And, I don’t have to chase it down the street during any summer storms!

The result? The best broadcast picture we’ve had yet on the TV. Much better than what we had even when we had HD cable. That’s because the picture gets so compressed through Comcast that you get all kinds of big compression blocks. We get all of the big network channels plus PBS, WGNTV, and several others that we’ll never watch – a total of around 50 in all. And it works great with our HD Tivo, so we still have the ability to time-shift like we’re used to.

For other content, we have a Bluray player (that we hardly use), Apple TV, NetFlix Streaming and about 500+ movies and TV shows saved on the media center computer. So it’s safe to say that without cable, we are covered if and when we do have time to watch TV.

The other change is that I find that most of the TV I watch now, is on my iPad when I travel. I don’t really watch much TV when I’m home, but when I travel I have more down time and tend to just lay in bed and watch TV series or movies on my iPad. I’ve watched the first 2 seasons of Mad Men between my last 2 trips, and I eagerly await the next season whenever my next trip is!

So, are you ready to cut the cable? If you’re in the Chicago area, I highly recommend calling or emailing Brian directly (see his contact info in one of the earlier images). He’s very knowledgeable and was able to quickly assess my situation and make the right choices. He certainly did the job better and faster than I would have. Now with the antenna hooked up it’s like we have a brand new TV!