Thread: The price of TV

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We live in an area that does not have cable. Microwave towers and such block all but 1 station on our antenna. This block occured when the country switched to digital.
We have "Direct TV" and the prices are skyrocketing. I just got my bill and like the frog in the pot of boiling water, I never felt the heat. It's now over $98.00 a month and we don't even have premium channels. I've watched the charges go up and it's almost a monthly thing. I keep saying to myself that I have to do something about this. What we pay for is HD and the HD DVR. We also have the extra charges for the upgrade to the 210 channels and the added cost for local programming.
We also have Netflix and I'm tremendiously happy with their service. We are retired and watch 1-2 movies a week in the afternoon and drop them in the mail before it goes out at 4:30. We rarely lack for a good movie.
Believe it or not, we're not big TV watchers but since I like to watch WPT, Speed channel, All car stuff, Pawn starts, Pickers, etc. and my wife likes the gardening shows and HGTV along with old movies. To keep us happy, we think we need the 210 channels. The DVR is our lifes blood. All of the stuff we like gets recorded so we can zip through all the BS and probably watch an average of 4 hours of programming in 2 hours or less. Once you have a DVR you'll never want to watch TV without one again.
Anyway, here's where I'm going with this.....I think I'm going to drop the local programming (I read all of the local and national news every day on the net anyway) and all we do at 5:30 is watch local headlines and skip to the weather. I also think I'm going to drop the HD stuffif if it's an extra. And the big question is I'm thinking about buying a Tivo.You can buy a Tivo HD receiver for $100.00 on EBay.
I'm sure that with the economic times, several of you have made some changes and learned to live with them. Like a wise man once said "good times make for bad habits."
Any suggestions?

thank goodness we live in a area where we pick up alot of hd channels with a antenna. we dropped cable last year to save money. i hooked up my pc to the tv so if there is any shows that i want to watch i just get them off the net. we went from over $100.00 a month down to $30 for the internet and netflix through our xbox. could not see paying $100 for stuff that i do not watch anyway.

Barb, I didn't think anywhere still had TV antennas...........they went away down here a while back, now you have to be hooked up to cable or no signal.

Like you guys we only use 1/10 of the channels they force us to buy. Ours runs around $ 98 a month too and we don't get any of the premium channels like HBO, etc. Mostly we watch stuff like the Speed Channel, History Channel, True TV, Discovery, The Game Channel (Dan and I love the models on Deal or No Deal ) and sometimes the local channels for regular programming. That's about it.

A guy I worked with has one of those scrambler boxes on a dish and gets something like 700 channels, even ones from overseas. He swears by it, or at least will until they catch up with him.

Don

when they switched to hd the channels came back. i have 19 local channels now including a station called antenna tv that shows all the older shows. my kids get a kick out of all in the family and hazel. all you need is a hd ready tv and a antenna.

we use the antena too.and watch the old one a lot.i dont care to much about tv but theres one or more on here 24-7!i havent seen a good new movie in a long time.i guess there too many special effects and too much action for me to keep up with.

i agree geezer. when they made the special effects better they did away with a decent script. I rather watch the older movies.

Can we get an AMEN

20 years ago some of these comericials today would be "R" rated

Originally Posted by cffisher

20 years ago some of these commercials today would be "R" rated

...if not pushing the envelope towards X

i totally agree. even the G rated movies are not as G as they were when i was a kid. Now every movie i watch has in it somewhere a topless women or a groin joke. I am sick of it.

I concur - The commercials are really bad these days and it's often times during what would be considered "family time" broadcast. We turn the TV off or pop in a "Veggie Tails"when the grand kids are over as I don't want them to see (or have to "explain") a Victoria's Secret commercial or some woman having an orgasm because she found a new kind of mop..

OCT.....you got me going so here it is:

I have two TIVO units with the lifetime FREE subscription. If you dont have the lifetime subscription, you have to pay something like $13 a month.

HOWEVER, the %#*$&@))$ cable jerks screwed up the system (on purpose) when they went to the digital scheme......you cannot use many (most) of the TIVO features since their digital "converter box" and the TIVO both have tuners in them. Only the first tuner in line can work.....if the primary (first) tuner tunes to channel 11, the downstream feed only gets channel 11......and their digital box has to be first since the signal is encrypted upstream and TIVO cannot decode it.

There is a way to rig the TIVO so that it changes the channel in the digital cable scam box but I have not done it yet....it takes and IR Blaster to simulate the remote control signal.

In any event the cable #$*)@)*% people eliminated the dual screen mode from TIVO's features. OF course, the @#$)@*%)* cable jerks sell their version of TIVO at some highway robbery price....with a crummy remote and fewer features. CABLE SUCKS.

Do you want my opinion of cable? I have two TIVO boxes that are useless in our area.

mike in tucson

Glenn, my wife wants to know what brand of mop that was.....thanks

mike

mike i would like to know too

I just use 'over the air' Antenne TV. box was $10 after the govt rebate thing. Cable is not an option yet as it's unavailable here still. and altho DirecTV works ( and used to have it ). it can be very sketchy in the rain due to the trees next to my house..

I'v thought about FTA satellite. but once you drop a few hundred on the setup. Then you gotta find a single satallite you will be happy with otherwise drop a couple hundred more on a rotater. Then calculate azmuth ect, which isn't hard ( did it with the direct equip ). but english channels are dropping from the FTA list