Barry’s World

The cost for Cable TV for me was 73 dollars a month. While it’s not a grand for me it sure is close.  I’m not just a casual TV watcher. I watch way more TV then I should but I enjoy every second of my 3 hours a day.   The reason for ditching cable TV was yes to save money but for me the 876 bucks a year is well worth the entertainment I get. There is not one regular TV show that I can think of that you can not watch online after it airs on TV.  Providing you have high speed internet access  that is.

I’m not talking about illegal file downloading sites or pirate sites that are filled with trojans and the like. I am not talking about those crummy satellite to PC tv programs.  Simple places like Hulu and Fancast are all ad supported video outlets that allow you to watch hundreds of TV shows and Movies at will.  They normally air every TV the next day after it played live.

You have many different options that are legit for watching TV shows online and even almost every TV staion has the full and current series online on thier website. Often times wathcing it on the TV networks site is better because you can get it in HD, how sweet is that.  As stated you still need to ensure you have enough bandwidth.  DSL will work but for most people you need to make sure you have around 6 Mbps download speeds.  Look here for a list of local high speed internet providers.  They break down each provider by state.

Not only are the commercials only about 15 – 30 seconds but I can watch the show when I want and pause it at any time, I can even watch the show over and over if I’m that into it. Don’t cut that cable cord just yet, here are some things for you to check out first.  The first is to ensure your computer is going to be able to take advantage of higher internet speeds.   If it has under 1 Gig of ram then you will most likely need to upgrade to take advantage of higher internet speeds and to ensure your video play back is good.
You can even stream the TV shows via the internet onto your TV set with a modern Tv and by using a media center PC. This is how I roll and it suits my needs just fine. If you have an extra computer you can always place it there, this gives you the added benefit of being able to surf the internet on Tv or play video games online with your big screen.

I do suggest you ensure you have the latest hp video drivers for your computer as well. One isseu I did have at first was.