Plugging back in...

So some might think I'm a sell-out. But I was contacted by Comcast and offered $29.99/month for a year for their 68 channel package (the one I was paying $56/month). I'm still using Verizon for my DSL, which brings the grand total to $60/month for cable/internet for the next year. I was paying $90/month with Comcast before I canceled.

I must say that I'm glad I went through this experience. This was the first time in many years that I was forced to give up television. I found other things to spend my time on and it was somewhat refreshing. I am going to make an effort to continue spending my time in productive ways. However, it will sure be nice to be able to flip on the TV.

Step 1...

So I am starting to pick this project back up. My first order of business is getting the laptop video to play on my very old television.

My laptop has S-Video out which can be conveniently be turned into RCA through a very cheap adapter. I purchased the adapter from www.newegg.com for around $10.

However, they can't make it that easy. I've been messing around for over an hour trying to figure out how to activate the TV-Out on this stupid laptop. I've downloaded 3rd party drivers for the nVidia card that is in this thing but have had no luck. It doesn't recognized that the TV is connected, and since it doesn't detect the TV, it won't allow me to turn on the TV display.

It's time for bed methinks (it's just like me to start projects as I'm heading to bed) so I will attempt to pick this back up tomorrow.

We shall see where this goes...

Can't resist...

http://www.wimp.com/comcastsleeps/

Update

So it's been a while since I've posted anything but I haven't done anything on my project as anticipated. Life has been very busy and I haven't had the time or funds for the project. I did see that Boxee is going into alpha for Windows later in June. Depending how the rest of this month goes, I might just wait and do alpha testing on the Window version and skip Linux altogether.

More to follow...

The Shakes have Subsided...

This week has been insanely busy. Fortunately, it has allowed me not to miss cable (almost completely!). We have discovered that we severely miss cable at night after we go to bed. Fortunately, season 4 of The Office has helped us get through that rough patch. I also discovered that I miss waking up on Saturday and watching TV in bed for a couple of hours. This morning I just had to get up and mow the lawn.

I am also spending more time (and money) on my aquarium hobby. I am starting to develop it quite well.

I've decided that we're going ride through May without a TV solution (other than keeping up on our shows through streaming them on my laptop). Starting in June, I'm going to build a streaming video PC that will hook up to our television. I've decided I'm going to install Ubuntu on this machine and officially run Boxee.

Please stay tuned... I will continue to update our situation regularly and will definitely post my dive into Boxee...

New Ads

I am continually reminded of how I despise cable every time I look at my blog on the internet. Those ads at the bottom are for nothing but companies that tend to stiff their customers.

I have no idea how many people are reading this, but I hope I start to get a little interaction and people posting their thoughts and comments about what I write. Hopefully, we can water down the weighted ads to something I'd be a little more proud of on this blog.

The Shakes are Constant

We were officially disconnected from cable today. I canceled our service last week but they didn't come to the house until today to disconnect us. No TV the entire night! It made it easier that I got home from work late, we had practice at the church, and then I came home and played around with Linux some more.

However, there's that relentless truth that even if I wanted to watch TV, I wouldn't be able to.

I'm looking into Netflix to help us make the transition. They seem to have some pretty affordable packages (I remember the last time I looked into it being relatively expensive). For around $20 you can get 3 movies at a time, no rental limits. I think we will need something to help wean us off.

A little hair of the dog ought to do the trick...

Spec'ing Hardware

On my lunch break I decided to price some hardware for a decent Home Theater PC (HTPC). I was surprised at what I could build for the money. I could get a decent microATX computer for around $356 after shipping. This included an Intel Dual-Core CPU (clocked at 2.5 Ghz), motherboard, case, power supply, 640 GB hard drive (with 32 MB buffer), 4 GB of RAM, and a 256 MB video card that outputs to s-video (and composite). This computer wouldn't beat any speed records by any means, but it would be a relatively cheap jump into making my dream a reality. I would most likely eventually want a better video card, better CPU, wireless mouse/keyboard, and a Blu-Ray DVD player which would almost double the cost of the computer. But I can start out slow and work my way up to bigger and better.

Experimenting with Hardware

So over the weekend I acquired a computer that has dismal specs (at best). It is a 333 Mhz PII (w/ MMX Technology!!) and 384 MB of RAM (can anyone say SDRAM?).

I used a boot CD to load Puppy Linux on it over the weekend. I was amazed at how simple it was. I downloaded the ISO from the internet and burned it to a CD. Just boot from the CD and voila. It installed and started running very quickly. Puppy Linux ran pretty good but every time I attempted to stream video with Firefox the system crashed. I was really surprised how well the OS ran despite the old hardware. If I needed a simple box to check email and look up stuff on the internet, you could do it very easily with Puppy Linux despite the hardware.

This evening I tried a different distribution of Linux called Damn Small Linux (DSL for short). Again, I'm very surprised how responsive the OS despite the hardware specs. I am having difficult loading flash on the computer. Linux appears to have a little different way of installing software. A novice computer user would have a little difficulty switching from Windows to Linux. I'm starting to get the hang of it, but it's still somewhat foreign to me.

I do realize that even if I do get streaming video to work with this hardware, the results will be abysmal at best. For now, I am simply trying to test the theory before sinking a bunch of money into this project.

Streaming Video PC

I was doing some research on computer hardware for a streaming video PC. I can make a pretty good computer for around $500. That included a TV tuner card (somewhat worthless at the moment) and a Blu-ray DVD drive (which I can always upgrade to later). If I drop those two components, I can get it down to around $375. Not ready to pull the trigger on tat yet, but I'm considering it.

Looks like streaming video on the laptop and a movie are on the entertainment docket tonight. I think I'm officially in denial.

It's Official

I am fully functioning on DSL today. We had worship team practice at the church, coupled with a long day at work means no time to miss TV today.

So far I am pleased, although it's barely day 1. The bandwidth test showed 1.8 mbps on the DSL download speed.

The shakes still come and go...

Am I Going to Survive This?

I came home from work today to a box on my front doorstep. My DSL modem came today along with the activation instructions and a notice that explained my service starts tomorrow (yay!). My internet has officially been disconnected. My wife and I plan on watching a movie this evening to help pass the time. We even plan on going to bed early!

Today has been too busy to suffer from shakes.

Hello DSL

In the midst of the melee, I signed up for 3.0 mbps DSL from a national local/wireless phone company. They told me my service would start on Friday, May 1st. I still have no solution for TV.

The shakes are coming regularly now...

Cutting the Cord

I called the cable company about my billing issue and the very unpleasant lady on the phone told me that I had to deal with it. I was apparently on a promotion (that lasted 2 years) and there was no way to lower the price or put me on another promotion for the service I had subscribed to. She was sure to offer me slower internet for $30 and proceeded to bash DSL in the process. What she didn't realize is that the DSL I looked into was twice as fast for about the same price. I asked her to give me a good reason to stay with her company and she kept repeating the $30 "deal." I was extremely frustrated. I told her to cancel everything. She asked me the date to cancel and I told her that I didn't care what date it was but that they shouldn't expect next month's bill.

When I got home from work, I took my cable box to the local office. I was hoping they would ask why I terminated my service. I had this grand vision in my head that I would tell them what happened and they would beg and please for my subscription back, laying the world at my feet. They didn't. The lady was very nice but to the point. I walked out of the office a free man.

And that's when the shakes started...

I have Options

I didn't get around to calling Com... the cable company today but did have a little bit of time to research some options. Internet is easy: DSL. I went to Ver... I mean a DSL provider's website and found out that they do provide service to my house. I don't have a phone line so need to find out if this will be a problem and what the price points will be. It does look like I can get 3.0 mbps service or 7.1 mbps. I have a feeling that a dedicated 3.0 mbps line will be more than enough (especially since I know I wasn't getting 10.0 service with cable even though it was advertised as that).

As far as TV goes, my wife and I talked and I think we're going to attempt to ride it out for a while. There are many video options on the internet. I'm looking into running Boxee on an old laptop hooked to the TV as well as simple streaming video sites. I visited Hulu.com today and was pretty amazed at their video selections and the quality. Before and after the visit I did a CNET bandwidth test on my cable and it said I was barely getting 1.5 mpbs download. With 3.0 DSL service, streaming video as a replacement for TV could very well be viable. And if it's not, an upgrade to 7.1 service might be a very good substitute to cable or satelite service.

Too Expensive to Justify

In the last 6 months, my cable bill has gone up twice. Once about 6 months ago. I was paying a very respectable $78 per month for high-speed internet and "advanced" cable. I was happy then. About 6 months ago, I got a bill for a little more than I expected (around $99). That was quite a bit more than I was expecting. I called ready to cancel my cable as I really could not afford a cable bill that high. I talked to a very nice lady who was able to get my bill down to $90 ($12 more than I was used to, but manageable).

I was expecting my cable bill to arrive soon but I was not expecting what awaited me. I opened the bill to find that I was expected to pay $120 for next month's service (both TV and internet). The internet portion of my bill has risen by $30 (to $60 from $30). This is unacceptable in my opinion. I know I will not pay the bill in full as I don't think TV and internet are worth that dollar amount. At the moment, I am planning on calling the cable company first thing in the morning to try to get this straightend out.

Some Background Information

I am a former cable subscriber. I used to receive high-speed internet and TV service from a provider which shall remain nameless (however, you might have seen their quirky commercials in which "happy" customers traverse a dream world of peppy music and bright colors). Com... I mean, the cable company in question is the only cable provider in my area. I have been a subscriber of this company for over 2 years. I used to be a happy customer, when prices were lower and I had more channels. This is before Insight was bought by Com... I mean the cable company in question.