{"id":60,"date":"2013-11-24T03:49:32","date_gmt":"2013-11-24T03:49:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scienceman.com\/blog\/?p=60"},"modified":"2014-05-08T19:28:24","modified_gmt":"2014-05-09T01:28:24","slug":"cutting-the-cable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scienceman.com\/blog\/?p=60","title":{"rendered":"Cutting the Cable"},"content":{"rendered":"

You don’t have to do much research to learn that people are dropping their pay TV services in record numbers.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"cable_users_us\"<\/a>
Chart\/stats attributed to TDG.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It’s not hard to imagine why. Personally, I finally got sick of paying $100\/month cable bills for a bunch of junk channels that I never watch. It’s only due to laziness that I never cut my cable a long time ago – I was afraid of the hassle, but ironically, it’s been a lot of fun switching to alternate sources of entertainment. Here’s a few things that I’ve learned, and some recommendations.<\/p>\n

Netflix<\/strong><\/p>\n

Really a no-brainer. The number of Netflix<\/a> subscribers continues to grow, and for good reason. For only $8\/mo, you’re getting a huge, constantly growing library of entertainment. And then there’s the flexibility of viewing – if you’re like me, you’ve got a couple of iPads and computers in the house – my wife and I find ourselves watching Netflix all over the place. On the TV, we access Netflix via Apple TV<\/a>, which is very convenient and provides other entertainment options as well.<\/p>\n

Local TV<\/strong><\/p>\n

One thing that some people may find hard to give up with cutting cable is their fix of local news and weather. I’m kind of a local news junkie, so to fill this gap, I picked up this over-the-air RCA digital antenna<\/a> for only $70.<\/p>\n

Installation was simple – just fold open the antenna, attach the cable connector, and you\u2019re good to go. I chose to bolt it to the eave of my roof – the included rugged mount will accommodate other types of installations as well.<\/p>\n

\"antenna\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Once you\u2019ve got it installed, connected to your home’s cable, and pointed correctly (in Canada you visit the website tvfool.com<\/a> to find out where you need to point the antenna), that\u2019s it. Set your digital TV to antenna and you\u2019re ready for FREE TV.<\/p>\n

I was shocked by the quality – the uncompressed over-the-air digital signal provides a full HD signal that is absolutely crystal clear, much better than what you get with a paid cable connection. Of course, your results may vary – I\u2019m in central Alberta, pretty far away from the signal towers, but it still works great. The number of channels you\u2019ll get depends on your location – I get everything I need with CTV, CBC, GLOBAL, CITY TV, and OMNI (I also get CBC French and the Christian CTS channels). I suppose if you live in a place like Toronto, you\u2019ll probably get a lot more channels.<\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n

I don’t regret cutting cable for one second. Along with watching less garbage TV, I have found exploring the alternatives to cable TV to be an interesting adventure. Try it yourself, and put the $100+\/mo you save to much better use!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You don’t have to do much research to learn that people are dropping their pay TV services in record numbers. It’s not hard to imagine why. Personally, I finally got sick of paying $100\/month cable bills for a bunch of junk channels that I never watch. It’s only due to laziness that I never cut […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-container-style":"default","site-container-layout":"default","site-sidebar-layout":"default","disable-article-header":"default","disable-site-header":"default","disable-site-footer":"default","disable-content-area-spacing":"default","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scienceman.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scienceman.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scienceman.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scienceman.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scienceman.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=60"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/scienceman.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":166,"href":"https:\/\/scienceman.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60\/revisions\/166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scienceman.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=60"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scienceman.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=60"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scienceman.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=60"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}