Does anyone not have a television and/or cable?

[Anonymous]

We've been using a plain old indoor antenna with our tv, but have found that when we switch to digital, we are going to be able to tune in even less channels (right now we have fuzzy reception on some channels - when we do the switch, we will have either no reception or the station will just keep tuning in and out -- no more fuzzy - you either have it or you don't).

We didn't really want to purchase basic cable at $20/mo - but it is looking like our best option. We only watch it a few hours in the evenings and mostly we just watch what we rent from Netflix (because programming on local stations is horrible). Our kids watch a bit of cartoons on PBS for about an hour a day. I wonder if we could get by with either no TV or just DVD's. Anyone else doing this? How is it going for you?

[Anonymous]

I would quite literally die without CNN all day, every day, but I have friends who are TV-less. They can watch a lot of shows and newscasts on the internet.

[Anonymous]

Are you really far out in the burbs? Are you certain the switch will limit the number of channels you get?

I ask because we just bought my grandmother a new digital ready TV and she just has the plain rabbit ears and she got a bunch of extra channels. She's in Houston proper but she went on for days about how great the picture was and how many new channels she got. Before the switch she only got 8 channels and 3 were in spanish.

As for our house, I only wish we didn't have cable...but my husband can't live without ESPN and Comedy Central.

[Anonymous]

Me!

I'm too cheap/crunchy/perpetually broke to pay for TV, so we've never had cable. Also, my 12" TV with the clothes hanger antenna will not work very well come February. We have a DVD player and watch movies and whatnot, but sometimes I tell my son to "see what's on broadcast." I may eventually change my mind or maybe the tooth fairy will leave me a new TV, but for the time being, I'm doing nothing about this.

[Anonymous]

We don't have cable, either, and get all our channels from a rooftop antenna, but we do have digital tuners are able to get the major networks, two PBS channels, 20, and 50. We LOVE to watch tv, which is exactly why we don't have cable or satellite.

[Anonymous]

We recently got a digital antenna (sorry not exactly sure how it works or the proper lingo). Anyway, upstairs we now get fewer channels than we did before when we got regular reception. And you're right: It's either a clear picture or none at all. I've never liked the idea of cable and I converted my husband when we got married. We get no reception at all in the den. Just DVDs and video games for the kids.

[Anonymous]

Thank you, thank you, thank you. I thought my household was the only one. We haven't had cable in 6 years. We do Netflix and video games also. The kids started doing the happy dance when they heard about all the d-tv conversion stuff. I refuse to get cable. We LOVED it so much never could get anything else done. I'd walk into a room and find my kids eyes glued to whatever they were watching. No thanks.

[Anonymous]

We get more channels with the digital box than we did with our old rabbit ears. Every major station apparently has its own weather channel, any many seem to have kids channels (NBC kids, ABC kids, etc). We also get a 70s channel with retro ads which my DH is loving!

We still rarely watch, but our reception is much better now.

[Anonymous]

The digital "antenna" is called a digital converter box. You can get one for about $40 if you get a coupon from the government - Google it. You should be getting more channels, because most networks will expand the number of channels (e.g. the local NBC channel will have channel 1, 2, 3, and 4). Some of those will be weather and traffic, some kids programs - it depends on the network. It may be that some of you are experiencing fewer channels now because not all stations have cut over to digital, so they may be just converting their regular channel to digital rather than providing a full range of digital channels. Also, when the government did testing of the digital conversion they discovered that more people had problems with reception than expected. It may be a big mess for some areas, as not all stations are ready to go.

I guess this is a long way of saying that you should get a converter box and wait until February (9th is it? don't recall offhand), and see what you get before deciding on cable.

[Anonymous]

You might find this factsheet helpful.

http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/dtvantennas.html

[Anonymous]

We also have no cable (and a very old TV) and find that we hardly ever watch what's on TV. The reception is bad and there is never anything good to watch anyways. We are very big users of Netflix for movies and TV (good shows on HBO.) I like that when we sit down to watch TV, we are watching really great shows or movies that we picked out on Netflix and not just flipping through stations. I also tend to think watching lots of TV is not a good use of time, so I'd rather not pay lots of money for cable and tempt myself with more TV options.

We're also thinking of moving the TV to the basement, which would likely mean that we would watch it even less.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We also have no cable (and a very old TV) and find that we hardly ever watch what's on TV. The reception is bad and there is never anything good to watch anyways. We are very big users of Netflix for movies and TV (good shows on HBO.) I like that when we sit down to watch TV, we are watching really great shows or movies that we picked out on Netflix and not just flipping through stations. I also tend to think watching lots of TV is not a good use of time, so I'd rather not pay lots of money for cable and tempt myself with more TV options.

We're also thinking of moving the TV to the basement, which would likely mean that we would watch it even less.

Ditto, and our tv is in the basement. I get caught up on the tv shows I want to watch through netflix.

[Anonymous]

I wish we could ditch the cable, but just get ESPN and the Sunday Ticket. I could never watch TV again, but DH is hooked to sports.

[Anonymous]

We have the very basic cable (that 2 years ago cost $13.99 and is now closer to $20) that allows us good reception. We only get the basic channels - 4, 5, 7, 9 and pbs. We refuse to pay a huge amount of money to watch tv all day all the time like most people we know. We watch a lot of Netflix and have a few must-see shows on tv, but that's about it. Cable is such a monopoly and it pisses me off! Grrrr...

[Anonymous]

OP here. Great responses! I'm beginning to be encouraged to just stick with Netflix and DVD's for the kids from the library and such. One thing we'd really miss is the PBS programming (we don't get it with digital tv at the moment).

I should mention that we do have a converter box and when I say we get less chanels with DTV than with broadcast - I mean WITH the converter and an indoor antenna. Last weekend we purchased a rooftop antenna and hooked it up without installing it just to see if our reception would improve -- it didn't. We got a quote for a minimum of $400 ($500 if we need an "amplifier") to have professionals install an antenna (better quality than the ones they sell at Best Buy, apparently) - that's almost 2 years of cable. He said there was no guarantee that the reception would be good - if not, they'd have to charge $100 for coming out either way.