We also do not have a cable subscription.
I have a 42" plasma connected to a passive antenna (~15 bucks at Fry's) to get local channels and an HP desktop computer (I think it's a home media pc or something like that) running Windows 7 connected via VGA cable; the computer is controlled via wireless mouse and keyboard. I also have a 5.1 DVD/audio combo thing (LG I believe) connected to the TV via HDMI and to the computer via the line out with an RCA splitter. At some point I wouldn't mind upgrading the cards in the computer to utilize DVI/optical for for the A/V connections, but it's just not a high enough priority for me to actually do it.
We have a netflix subscription to stream movies, and often will rent movies from the Redbox down the street.
I use Pandora a lot at home to play music through the sound system...that's actually probably the biggest use we get out of the system; I also have a pretty large digital music (and movie) collection stored on the computer's hard drive.
Gumby wrote:
I have a really dumb logistics question about this... but I assume you need a "cable" to access the internet, right? It's been a few months since I've looked into this, but don't cable companies price their internet access in a way (with bundles) to make the TV side more attractive?
We use
Clear for our internet service. It's wireless and utilizes 4G; I have the modem set up in the window sill in our kitchen, which is connected to a wireless modem. We have the Home Basic plan right now, which is $35 a month w/1.5dn/0.5up, and that seems to be fast enough. They also have an unlimited plan for $50 a month which will average around 5dn/1up.
We upgraded to the unlimited for a few months because we thought that our home internet connection was causing poor performance on my fiance's work computer when she would log in from home; we later discovered that there was a server issue on their side, so we downgraded again (although now she's expensing home internet so maybe we'll bump it back up if it's being slow).
We switched to Clear from AT&T DSL because I got fed up with the poor reliability and horrible customer service. I'm much more satisfied with Clear, although occasionally it will also act up. Most of the time cycling the power on the modem seems to resolve issues (that's the only option you have). They say that 4G service will deteriorate significantly during a storm, but we haven't had too many issues with it so far; I think we may be really close to one of their towers, though, so that may be the reason.
, so I've been watching movies on my Kindle. So TiVo is next, then I can turn off cable tv and landline phone.
