In this video, Verizon tells us the future of home video will be a wireless LAN connecting our TV sets and other devices to a Verizon FiOS server:
I agree that we will be distributing video around our homes on LANs, but don't expect mine to be connected to a FiOS server. For a start, Verizon does not offer FiOS in my neighborhood and from what I hear and read, they have no plans to do so.
Moreover, if they eventually do offer me FiOS, I suspect that it will be expensive and I will have to purchase a bundle of video "service" -- forcing me to pay for a lot of channels that I will never watch.
But, I don't want video service from Verizon, I just want bits.
I want my home LAN to be connected to the Internet (by Verizon or any other ISP), allowing me to watch ala carte IP video.
I've taken my first step in that direction. I “cut the cord" -- dropping our cable TV service and connecting our TV sets to our home LAN using Roku boxes. We (just barely) get local channels over the air using rabbit-ear antennas.
This set up and the available content is far from perfect, but it is my first step toward unbundled IP video.
Have you cut the cord? How do you like it?
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
I cut the cord -- no more cable TV
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I also cut the cord to cable tv.
ReplyDeleteWe had FIOS at our old location, but at our new place it wasn't available.
So we decided to go without for awhile.
We use rabbit ears to get our local channels and use my PS3 to connect to Netflix.
One thing that I do miss is the sporting events - No Laker home games and no Monday Night Football.
Other than that - I don't miss that much more
My family is planing to cut the cord. I rarely watch tv and the channels that my parents watched can easily be seen with an antenna. I use to have netflix on my ps3 but than I cancelled my account because movies/shows were not that intresting. Now I just use justin.tv or youtube for entertainment tv. Would have no complains if my cable tv was cut tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteI actually recently did the opposite. For the past 4+ years, I was watching local channels using a roof top antenna. Most of the TV that I watched was on the major networks so I saw no need to get a pay TV service. I loved getting HD for free. Well, I recently discovered a couple "cable" shows that I liked. My only way to watch these shows was to purchase episodes a la carte from Amazon (I wanted to watch HD on my TV, not on my computer). Well, this was not cheap. I realized after a month, it was time to go back to pay TV (as much as I didn't want to). We already had phone and internet through Verizon FiOS, and adding TV only increased our monthly bill by less than $20 (no equipment rental, just cable cards for TiVos). I was paying more for 8 episodes a month on Amazon. I found truly free content on the internet to be limited in all aspects. For me, pay TV ended being the better deal.
ReplyDeleteWe cannot get FIOS in our neighborhood and don't watch all that much TV, so Roku plus over-the-air is good enough for us. My only worry is the Tour de France this summer.
ReplyDelete