Adventures in Cord Cutting - Part six - a glitch.

Not a hitch. A glitch.
As a holiday present we were given a wireless Sennheiser headphone and transmitter. The connection to the back of the tv was simple. A snap. And these things work great. With my hearing, though, I can hear every little signal change from either the network transmitter or my own devices performing operations.
No matter.
These made watching The Dark Knight Blu-Ray trilogy a lot more immersive while everyone was asleep upstairs. I just crank it and enjoy.
Or music.
I can stream Spotify on the devices and walk all over the house. These babies are strong.

So, with them working and working well, we decided to get a matching one (you can connect up to 4) so Beth and I can watch together and she can have her volume (low) and I may have mine (ear crushingly loud. It's weird that I have this incredible superhearing and yet want everything to be as loud as humanly possible....)

Sunday night I grabbed a pair, completely mixing up which one was the new one and which was the original and settled in for some Sherlock.

Then the glitch happened.

About midway through the show everything froze. Figuring it was a signal issue (KOCE is in Costa Mesa and about 35 miles away) I jumped back to rewatch and figure out what I missed.

It froze again. In a different place.

I tried another show. Hollywood Game Night, which was surprisingly funny (Thanks TIVO suggestions!) and, all was great. Until the last 10 minutes. And everything froze again.

The next day I decided to put some music on while I was getting some work done. I opened Spotify and just as it was about to load, the entire TiVo crashed and rebooted.

When it came back I now had TWO Spotifys and TWO Pandoras. The latter being two different apps with different icons.

So, I called Tivo.

Historically, Tivo has the best customer service in the biz. And this was no exception.

And no one could figure out what was wrong. The only thing everyone could agree on is that it could be a faulty hard drive.

Somehow I have convinced myself that it has something to do with the new headphones. But, they plug into the TV, so how could THAT be?

Tivo has an excellent return policy and we are still under warranty. They are shipping out a new one and we will send them back this one.

Hopefully this was just a momentary set back.

I'm not sure it was even worth a blog post.

So, to include some real "cord cutting" info

I don't miss cable.

Maybe HBO a little. Since they were smart and put each of the first three new Girls episodes on YouTube I realize just how much I miss that stuff. On the other hand, YouTube kind of sucks because, if you are in the middle of a show and you have to do something else, YouTube doesn't remember where you were and you have to go through a whole fast forwarding mess.

Other than that I actually am looking forward to getting through a bunch of stuff and sitting down and buying the first season of "The Returned". Only, I am betting that, by the time we get to it, it will be available on Netflix.

Someone asked me what I would do without CNN or Cable news?

Are MSNBC or FOX or even CNN really news networks? The Big Three have news offices all over the world and their weekend counterparts are much more informative. And, truth be told, I'm just to freaking busy to catch up.

Adventures in Cord Cutting part 5 - 2 weeks in

Cutting the cord part 5. But it's really just an update. Or supplemental. Or aside. 

It's been a couple weeks since we got the tv in the media room and added the sectional. And last night was a milestone of sorts.

As you may have read before, the addition of Tivo and the digital antenna made it possible for us to have all of network programming without being attached to the satellite. 

Yesterday I searched for a show that my wife was really interested in. It's a french zombie show called The Returned. It ran on Sundance. And its not rerunning.

It's available for purchase on Amazon and on Vudu. I think the Vudu is cheaper.

We almost bought the season. What stopped us?

We have SO much other stuff to catch up on.

Downton Abbey. Sherlock. Network shows. Movies. And, as the new season ramps up there are stand bys like Amazing Race that will fill the queue. And, dammit, I wanna catch up on Doctor Who!

Then, last night, we found ourselves needing to watch the Sag Awards. I won't argue the merits of the broadcast because I have friends who were there, were part of the show and this article isn't the forum for that. But, the Saggies are on TNT. And that's on the tv downstairs.

The thing I noticed and am reporting is that, after deleting everything off the DirecTV DVR that we either already have upstairs, have already watched or can watch on Hulu, all that was left was a couple episodes of American Horror Story.

I'm paying a monthly satellite charge for this? Seems cray cray. Especially since we are parents of kids with busy schedules. By the time we get the kids down and settle in, it's after 8 and we are generally in bed before 10.

Suffice to say that I think this transition is going to be easier for us and people like us because we don't have an entire Prime Time block to devote to entertainment.

And, by the time we get around to carving out some viewing time for The Returned, it'll probably be available on Netflix or Amazon.

This takes work, mind you. The transition isn't super simple. One reason is how to figure out where anything is.

For instance: My Roku box downstairs has a search field that scans ALL downloaded apps for a show. So, if I am looking for, say, The Returned, Roku will tell me which app it's available on and a quick scan tells me if it's part of "Prime" or free.

My Tivo does the same thing, except that it doesn't integrate with Amazon Prime or Vudu, or any other apps besides Hulu, YouTube and Netflix.
[UPDATE: Tivo included these apps in its service and now offers the opportunity to add them to your list via streaming. And you can stream directly from the wi-fi on the Tivo main screen. 1/2/1917]

So, in order to find The Returned, I kind of have to either go to each app and look for it, remember the cost and decide on the best value OR use some app on my phone like, CanIStreamIt, which is not totally comprehensive or trustworthy. (I'm on the lookout for another app to help with this)

But, once you get past the struggle to find the show you want, it's all relatively easy.

I am intrigued to see how the various channels and outlets will react to cord cutting. I'm not really missing a thing. Well, yes, I can only watch the first three episodes of Girls when HBO puts them on YouTube, but, save for the fact that the show is excellent and I'm not just saying that because friends of mine are working on it, I'm not really, truly the demo for that show. (However, since we will definitely keep cable through True Blood's season, I'll be able to watch. This year.)

In a strange twist I have found that I am more inclined to want to watch network programming ON the network than on Hulu. I can watch or fast forward through commercials, but that's not the reason. Somehow I just feel a bit more connected to the network that way. Odd.

As a footnote to this piece:
There has been discussion among other friends about which app to pay for: Netflix or Amazon. I think both have value, the latter being not just the programming but the ability to order a $6 package of picture hangers and have them delivered, for free, on a Sunday. (They are coming today)
But, as a reminder, Netflix has signed a deal with Disney and Disney has all the Star Wars stuff now. I imagine that there will be a big synergistic push from the two companies as we get closer to the nerdgasm that will be the JJ Abrams Star Wars VII.

Previous cost of just DirecTV with HBO and Showtime: $117+ per month.
Current cost of DirecTV without HBO/Showtime: Approx $80
Cost of premium apps + TiVo: $35 or so. This number will decrease over time, since the cost of the Tivo lifetime service will be prorated over 5 years and come down from about $12 p/m to $6 p/m

We are paying about $2 less per month for the experiment.

Adventures in Cord Cutting - Part 4 - Hello, Old Friend.

Adventures in Cord Cutting - Part 4 - Hello, Old Friend.

Where was I? 
Oh, yeah. 
Too busy was I watching 3D movies and making artists like Gordon Willis and Gregg Toland look bad via high definition that I didn't really pay attention to the over the air (OTA) status.
And then I ordered my Tivo.
Now, I'm first going to just tell you how freaking great it is to have this old friend back in my life.
I bought my first Tivo in 03. But I heard about it in 99 during a late late late night infomercial I saw in a hotel in NYC. I completely ignored my company that evening as I was mesmerized by this new technology.
"This is a game changer." I thought. And I was right.
Our first Tivo was a blessed addition to our lives. The familiar "Bloop bloop bloop!" was like a friendly call. I enjoyed how Tivo would try to guess what I wanted to watch and usually get it wrong. But when it got it right, it was oh, so right.
We got our series 2 a few years before the HD boom. And when we moved on to our HD plasma, Tivo was relegated to the bedroom. For the teeny TV. I got my money's worth, however. If you just use it for 4 years, it's comparable to any other DVR. And Tivo's service is just plain better. Better suggestions. Better and more cooperative interface. DirecTV just never really got it right.
And then I heard about Tivo's Roamio Basic. (https://www.tivo.com/shop/roamio) $199 from Tivo but knocked down to $150 at Amazon.
See, Tivo and DirecTV sort of got along, but never really. I had a couple DirecTVTivos and they were fine for the small tv in the old kitchen. But, when I had to switch to DirecTV completely, the DVR was sorely lacking.
Clunky. Difficult to maneuver. Just a pain in the ass. And then the remote went out. And that meant I had to fire up the iPad to use that as a remote and THAT would spend 30 seconds seeking out the DVR every time I switched out of the app.
Horrendous.
But the Roamio Basic was something different. Something that could make this whole endeavor work:
It was the only Tivo that worked with a digital Antenna. (And a cable card, but we aren't using that, remember?)
I could connect from a digital antenna directly to the Tivo and get HD quality broadcast channels. And that's what this is really all about, right?
The cable/satellite congloms sort of have people over a barrel. Unless you can get some after market DVR or want to manually program to watch OTA programming, you're gonna have to subscribe to them, right?
But, not with this.
I ordered it from Amazon. I love Amazon and they are fast and make returns a snap. My new Tivo came the next day.
But, that installation.
Geez! 5 whole minutes!

Tivo immediately went to work. Yep. CBS is there. And NBC. And some other weird NBC 2. And the local channel, 5. And 5.2, which was showing reruns of WKRP and The Outer Limits. And another strange 5.something, which was running Capote in SD.
ABC, check.
Fox. Fox SD. Fox again. Okay. PBS. Yep.
All good.
Go to work Tivo.
I'll just scan.
And I did. Just like the old days. Around the local dials.
The game on CBS looked amazing.
NBC had some sports thing.
And ABC was showing....wait, what are they showing?
Why can't I get a signal? Is there a storm coming?
What's with all the pixellation, ABC?
Let's try FOX.
That signal's not even coming in!

Now, this is no good. The whole show hinges on the ability to do this very thing.

My location is fine. I live in the heart of Los Angeles. What's wrong?
Oh, yeah. It's that shitty amplified rabbit eared antenna, I bet.

I returned that and ordered a flat Amazon Digital Antenna (http://www.amazon.com/AmazonBasics-Performance-Ultra-Indoor-Antenna/dp/B00DIFIO8E/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1389325129&sr=8-4&keywords=digital+antenna)


So far, so good. The signal seems stronger, but It's only been a day.

In addition, as a holiday gift, mi madre shelled out for a Sennheiser wireless audio system. One base station and one headphone. (We'll have to get the other one on our own dime. Gotta check and see how that renter's account is doing...)

So, what's next?

Well, we need that sectional and the other headphone and then we need to start parking our carcasses upstairs. If Beth and I can get used to not having immediate access to 99% of stuff we don't watch so we can have access to the 1% we do, then we are good to go.

We can then cut the DirecTV cord and get a Tivo Mini.
What's that?
Oh, that's a little streaming device that turns another tv into a Tivo.

But for that I have to run a wire. Or a MoCa connection.

Or something.

For the time being, this is where we are.

The cord isn't cut. It's just on the chopping block.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Adventures in Cord Cutting - Part 3 - Santa Tenants

Adventures in Cord Cutting - Part 3 - Santa Tenants

Something happened this year that hasn't happened in a long, long time. And it coincided with a decision not to do something that we usually do and always want to:
First, we didn't have any major renovation bills or medical things this year. No In Vitro. No guest house demo. No new Kitchen. For a while it felt like if we weren't renovating something, we were buying a car or making babies in jars or having babies or something.
This year...nothing.
In addition, because of general exhaustion (mainly due to Zachary being, you know, almost 3) we decided to forego the annual LuluPalooza Holiday Spectacular. I don't think either of us had it in us this time.
What this meant was we had a little leftover in the family funds world. Our rental units are really just supposed to provide for the mortgage and repairs, etc. Without the latter, there was something extra in the kitty this year. And we decided to devote it to our own little oasis upstairs.

First off, we ordered that sectional. (It still hasn't arrived, btw). It would take time to deliver and that would give me the time I needed to figure out the gadgets that would make this endeavor work.

First off, the TV.

Let me say, 3D or no 3D, tvs are cheaper than they were when we bought our flat screen. I think we paid about $1400 for a Panasonic 1080i plasma. That's an 'i", not a "p". That was almost 7 years ago.
For about $800 we could get a 50" LG LED 3D. Same size TV, but with much of the apps we use our Roku for: Netflix, Vudu, Spotify, pandora, Amazon, Hulu, you get the idea.
But, I couldn't pull the trigger.
Life got in the way. In a great way, I mean. Holidays. Travel. Work. Volunteer stuff. Kids. Family. It just never was possible to get to the store to really make the decision. (I'm not really one for ordering anything bigger than my door online)
Then, when I was ready, guess what? No more 50" TVs. Wait, what?
Somehow, the majors decided that 47 or 55 inches were the standard. That's interesting because 47 inches would be too small for a media room that would seat 6-8 comfortably. Gravity would look like Carl Sagan's Cosmos on that. Man of Steel would look like Lois & Clark.
But 55 inches? That's 49 inches across. A full 5 inches wider than the dedicated wall space.
Would the door clear it? Would it swallow the room? Ugh.

There was really no other choice. I had decided that I wanted an LG LED. I liked the colors and the vibrancy. And I also liked the price of the LG 3D blu-ray player. And everything accesses all the app platforms we use and should play well together. And, it was really just about $100 more.

So, home I headed with the toys in tow, including the rabbit ears for the digital signal and some movies to get our media room started. And a tv table. Simple one, with glass tables.

Btw, the ONLY thing that was broken upon unpacking was the bottom shelf of tempered glass for that table. I didn't even open the box containing it until I had put together the table. So, I had to return just that shattered glass and they replaced it immediately.

The TV was a simple set up. Plugging the antenna in was a snap. Five minutes later the scan was complete and there were all my local channels.
Bright.
Clear.
Exceptional.
In fact, after years of cable and then satellite I can report that the OTA signal is the best and clearest I've ever seen. Maybe its the tv, but, holy cow does this look good.

I spent the bulk of the first few days watching Betas and Alpha House on Amazon and Skyfall on Netflix and...something on Hulu. Only occasionally dropping into the networks. I still didn't have a DVR so why watch if I can't pause, man?

I also spent a LOT of time playing with the 3D settings. Watching the crisp conversion of Man of steel or getting caught up in Wreck It Ralph (again) or taking old movies, like Manhattan or Citizen Kane, and turning them into kinescope videos with bad lighting and terrible quality.

I didn't notice any trouble.

Until I moved on to Phase 3....

Next - Hello to an old friend and, wait, is there a snowstorm coming?

Adventures in Cord Cutting - Part Deux - The Room Reshuffle

Adventures in Cord Cutting - Part Deux - The Room Reshuffle

For a while Beth and I were thinking about creating some sort of "playroom". The kids each have a room of their own and Beth had her office, which she could retire to. I, on the other hand, just sort of floated with macbook or iPad or book in tow. 
The kids had completely come to dominate the "tv room" downstairs. Once Zoe figured out how to operate the Roku remote, all bets were off. Until they would go to sleep, that room was basically off limits to me unless I wanted to party down with Word Girl, travel to Word World or experience the surreal adventures that are The Magic School Bus.
A friend of ours redid their attic for a pittance ($10000 or so), adding value to their house and creating just that hideaway/game room/tv room that I would've loved. So, we asked his contractor to come and give us an estimate. We weren't looking to spend 10 grand or so, but, if it would add resale to the house.......
"About $36,000." The contractor said. turns out that our attic is larger and u-shaped and, well, I dunno. It was about $26,000 bigger. And we weren't about to spend that kind of dough.
I thought about converting the garage. it's pretty barebones and downtrodden, but a couple pieces of drywall, some carpeting, we could actually make something happen out there.
Of course, that would be consigning anyone who wanted to use it to Siberia, but, hey, it's an idea.
Until I started building furniture. And hanging tools. And storing wood.
Suddenly the playroom didn't seem practical when the workshop was acting as the shop it was supposed to be.
Then, Beth and I talked about just making the tv room more comfortable. She'd always wanted a sectional, after all. I thought mayyyyybe we could squeeze one into the tv room and make it more pleasurable. It's a small space, though....
And one day, it hit me:
Beth's office! This was an entire bedroom being used for that purpose. The purpose of running the house. Now, this is a big job and I appreciate what she does, cuz, lord knows, I don't wanna do it. But, it's not like we are running a company. Maybe we could...just move....her office.....lemme check.
Wow. Her desk, filing cabinet and all the acoutrements from printer to router to storage, would all fit in the sun room. This is a little 8 x 5 room where would always put guests on a single bed. It was cute, but small.
But, her stuff fit there PERFECTLY.
Let's move the office in there and make the office the media room!
She agreed to think about it but there was always the concern that, since it's next to Zoe's room and across the hall from Zack's, noise would be a problem.
And she would be right about that. it's an old house. The walls are made of paper.
We live in the hood so it's actually made of rolling papers, but, that's even thinner.

So, we treaded off to Living Spaces. Some of you might recall my outreach for furniture store ideas on facebook.
We listed about 5 places to go to and the first one was LS. Well, that place has certainly changed!
We didn't need to go anywhere else. Because what we were looking for was right there.
And so was Paul's TV.
As Beth was picking out styles and colors I ventured into Paul's. This was on Zack's first day of day care. We felt free. We'd already had breakfast together for the first time, alone, in months.
Now, we could shop for furniture with ease and time.
Beth came in to the TV room and I showed her the 3D televisions. I'm a sucker for tech. And these guys are smart. They know how to hook ya. Beth isn't as much of an easy mark for stuff like new TVs, so they tossed on the 3D Blu-Ray of Tangled and her eyes widened. Glorious.
Still, we didn't need a new tv. That wasn't what we were doing. We were just replacing a sofa with a sectional.
A small sectional.
Somehow we got on the conversation about noise. Surround sound, etc.
"Well, you can plug in to these tvs." The salesman said. Something I'd never thought about.
"And run a wire?" I asked, cuz I'm, you know, dumb."
"Nah. Get some wireless headphones."
Wait. What?
"Well," Beth said, "If we did that, then we could really turn that room into the media room and make the downstairs room the guest room when people come to visit. That bed is a sleeper, anyway."

Boom.

No $36,000 retrofit of an attic. No exiled garage conversion.

This might work after all.

Next time - The Santa Claus Incursion (or, How I learned to stop complaining and love my tenants)

Adventures in Cord Cutting. Part 1 - Just thinking 'bout it.

I love TV. I think it should go without saying that it wasn't my love of Broadway or film that drove me to wanting to be in this business. No. I wanted to be on TV. That was the dream. It's always been the dream.
I love the boob tube.
A few months ago I did some number crunching and compared the amount of outlay to usage. What I first learned was that, just by dropping HBO and Showtime we could save $360 a year. But, would we miss all great quality programming? Yes. And No. Sure there are terrific things there for us to watch. Girls. Game of Thrones. Homeland. The Newsroom. True Blood. Nurse Jackie. But we weren't watching much of the rest. Now. A season pass to all of those shows on iTunes or Amazon or Vudu would cost about $200. So, we would be saving $160 by just cutting those nets out.
But, what about the rest of cable?
Mad Men. American Horror Story. Walking Dead. There really aren't that many other shows we can't live without. And, truth be told. If we just want to wait a year, they are all available on Netflix. But, let's say we want them now. To be current.
That's about another $110 a year. Let's just add another show and round up. So, by dropping HBO and Showtime, forgoing the shows we don't watch and buying the ones we do, we can buy 10 shows and those premiums will just pay for that.
If we cut the cord and dump DirecTV in toto, that would be an additional $80+ a month.
Well, certainly we can't just drop everything, right?
We subscribe to Amazon Prime already, $6.60 a month. $80 a year.
Netflix, despite the mediocre content, (although they get a lot of the shows we would be watching) is, what? $8 a month? $96 a year.
Hulu would give us the cache of a full Criterion Collection movie library, but, more importantly for me, NBC, ABC, FOX and Comedy Central. $8, $96.
But, damn that CBS. How can I get my Chuck Lorre comedy fix? Or A repetitive procedural? Or that Race which is Amazing???
More importantly, what about Football, Baseball, The Super Bowl, the Oscars, The Tonys, The Emmys, The Olympics?
Tivo Roamio + a $35 digital antenna. The Roamio basic can record over the air in high def for $13 a month. But, since we were lifetime subscribers with our last Tivo Box, we get a discount on the lifetime. $400. Over 5 years that comes to about $6.70 a month or $80 a year.
$30 a month or $350 a year. That's a $970 annual savings on the basic plus premium package.
If the average cost of a subscription to those above shows is $37, that's another 26 season passes on TOP of the ones I named above.
35 season passes. That's just not gonna happen. Who has the time???

And the video quality is supposed to be better than the compression on satellite or cable.

Since I wasn't sure we were going to even think about trying this, I never posted this even though this has been in the planning stages for about 4 months.

Phase 1 was consideration.
Phase 2 was early implementation without complete cutting.

I'll let you know how that goes.