Shouldn't you be watching 'em at a bar then? :)

I'm glad someone finally mentioned TMC. I'm addicted to that channel. Half of the movies they air aren't available on DVD.

I really wish I could see that I would have the strength to dump cable and not look back. But I just can't do it! There's no way I could do it! I grew up with cable, have always had it; I just can't imagine NOT having it. It just seems so wrong, so unnatural. Hats off to you guys, but this couch potato needs something to watch!

Yeah, being 1000 miles away from the team I love and being in the Miami Dolphins home market, I need Sunday Ticket to live.

I've been OTA-only since I went to DSL two years ago. I purchased an HDTivo a year ago w/ the money I saved.

$25 gets you in the door, but then there's the fees: $6 DVR fee, $5 no phoneline fee, $5 locals fee, etc etc

until they get music videos, cnbc, bloomberg, 24 hours news channels, food network and the science channels on free tv i have to stay with cable.

the news on the big 3 networks is a bigger joke than the 24 hour news channels and prime time TV usually sucks donkey balls

Yeah but presumably if you are considering dumping cable/sat, you're already set antenna-wise so you wouldn't need the locals on DISH and are willing to forego a DVR (or just hook a standalone one up for OTA).

I thought Svideo only did 480i?

Yup. Summed up perfectly.

If I didn't like sports, I would probably seriously think about it with a TivoHD and Roku. Saving $70+ a month would be nice

I dumped cable and got an HD antenna when I got my HDTV a year ago. A few of the channels leave a bit to be desired in terms of signal reliability, but otherwise it was a much easier transition than I thought it'd be. I miss Comedy Central and Adult Swim, but I'm a big fan of the $50/month I'm saving.

If true "a la carte" cable subscriptions ever become a reality, I might consider going back. But until then, $50/month for 80 channels I don't watch and 5 that I do just doesn't make sense.

I recently dumped premium cable, but I will never dump cable.

Some of the best programs are on ESPN, History Channel, Discovery and Travel/Learning channels.

That's exactly what I am about to subscribe to.

I have had some sort of HD service since the days of Voom but finally got tire of paying over $100 a month for tons of channels I never watched. At the first of the year I cancelled everything but the local channels for $15 a month (an antenna in my area doesn't pick up worth a shit). They couldn't block the bottom 75 cable channels without blocking the lower 12 as well, so they let us have the 75 channels for $15 a month which made my wife easier to deal with since she still had her TLC and HGTV.

But as college football season approaches, this would be my first year to not watch my games in HD since watching the very few that were broadcast way back in 2002. Saw the ad for Dish Turbo thing and I can get 40 HD channels (mainly ESPNHD1 &2) and the wife can have her HGTV and TLC in HD as well. We even get Cartoon Network HD and for $5 more get the locals in HD.

So I am checking into that this week. I don't watch much TV and all TV shows I watch are on DVD now...but I can't bear to have this years SEC games in standard def. Once you get used to football in HD, it is hard to go back.

Yes, I heard about that, and experienced it. Glad those bastards got in trouble.

I wish cable was deregulated so we had more choices. I should be able to choose between Comcast, Time Warner, and Cox in my area if I want to.

The shows I watch on cable:

South Park
Reno 911
Mad Men
Burn Notice
Doctor Who
Torchwood
Eureka
Battlestar Galactica
Top Chef
Project Runway
Graham Norton Show
In Plain Sight
The Closer
Saving Grace
The Shield
Damages
Entourage
Curb You Enthusiasm

So essentially I've watched ZERO network TV all summer. While most of those shows could be watched over the internet, none of the BBCAmerica or HBO shows are available.

I thought Cable was deregulated, but that very few cable companies overlap areas. Wouldn't they have to either lease their competitor's lines, or spend money to build their own?

Every cable company is supposed to have a dirt cheap, basic tier, which they often don't advertise. As my area gets very spotty antenna reception, I'm forced to pay for this just to get the basic channels.

Perhaps I used the wrong word? By deregulated, I meant that consumers should be able to choose from multiple providers. And, sorry, but satellite providers are not the same. I am talking about regular cable.

Yeah...and?

They do. But, man, do they gouge on the more advanced services.

I only even watch about four current series, and I'm at the point where I'd rather wait for a TV season to hit DVD and watch it in a few sittings, with no commercials, than to tune in week after week. Holding a degree in history, you'd think I'd get into The History Channel, but every time I go to tune in, it seems like they're showing a movie or running something on UFO's; I don't even pretend to understand how the hell that got to be subject material for THC. Unfortunately for me, though, to continue following my Cincinnati Reds, I can't go with just over-the-air channels anymore. You football fans have it easy; your team only plays one game a week for a couple of months. My team plays six times a week from April through September, and that's not even counting the postseason. And now, half of the postseason is on TBS, so again; not able to get by with just over-the-air channels.

I won't argue that there is a TON of shit on cable that I will never watch, but a lot of the things I do enjoy don't come out on DVD (and even if they do, I don't want to buy stuff I'm only going to watch once) and having a DVR means I always have something to watch.

I do wish there was a way to pay for channels a la carte though. $2 or $3 bucks a channel would be ideal.

You don't need to worry about the postseason if you are a Reds fan. Before you get mad, I'm a fan as well.

I'm thinking about doing this as well. The only programs I watch on TV are the Simpsons and the Venture Brothers, and both of those can be seen legitimately on the network websites. Most of the stuff my wife watches can be seen on their websites too. I don't care about sports, so that's not an issue to me, though for sports fans, I can definitely see the pull.
Ironically, as little "live TV" as my son watches, he's the reason I'm a little bit on the fence. We DVR a few programs for him, and it's convenient to always have access to them. And this may be nostalgia, but there are shows/events that we wouldn't have access to if we cancelled cable (I don't know anything about OTA, plus, I guess now's not the right time to look into that.) I recall being a kid and making events out of things like the Thanksgiving day parade, the Grinch, Charlie Brown specials, even the weekly NBC sitcoms/Dr Who marathon my family had. But I think the quality of TV has gone down, and with timeshifting, it's not really an "event" anymore, when I could make it happen. Plus many of those are on DVD (he just watched the Grinch last week, for instance.)
Cancelling cable and DVR would free up ~60/month, which could definitely be used elsewhere, and even if we wanted to buy some of those DVDs, they're generally 5-15/each, so we'd still "save" money and own the content we wanted to. And we've got plenty of DVDs, movie and TVonDVD, for anyone in the family to watch. The TV would definitely still be in use, with DVDs and games.
It's sort of hard to cut it off, except for one year when we had satellite, I've always had cable, since I was 10 or so and had the cablebox you had to walk over and push the big clicking channel changer on (remember trying to "watch" Playboy TV through the scramble? good times.)
Reviewing our cable company's pricelist, they have "basic" cable (truly basic, 23 channels, mostly networks, which includes 2 TVGuides and Univision, none of which are useful to me) for $10.50-$12.95/mo (not sure about the variability). 'Standard' which includes basic is $50.60-$53.45/mo, and has about 75 channels. Their lowest Digital tier is 68, and you get probably 160 channels (some are repeats, HD versions of Analog, etc.) The cost-per-channel definitely drops the higher you go, so if you're going to get it, it's worth getting at least a middle package. But that's if you use it. Cable internet would go up 10 bucks (you get a discount for bundling with TV), but we'd obviously save the programming tier cost, box rental, and DVR fee. I'm torn between two driving impulses, "too cheap not to buy" and "why buy it if you don't use it". Of course then my wife mentioned "we should look into basic cable and see how much it would cost to turn it on in the craft room" (where the upstairs TV is). The outlet is on the other side of the room, and it might require new wiring, so that's another install fee. And when she's up there crafting, she usually watches tv over the internet. I'm thinking all or nothing; keep what we have, because it makes sense to spend a little more and have lots more available choices; or just cancel it all.

Actually, the more I think on it, I think my vote is toward cancelling. The only trick is to make sure that money gets redirected someplace else it "needs" to go. Of course, when we call to cancel, even money says they'll offer us a retention deal. Last time the deal was a massive upgrade in channels; the deal now would have to be a lower price.

I actually don't think cable is all that expensive at certain tiers, given the amount and range of content/networks. I will admit many of the programs are pure crap, and I just don't like many others, but saying "For 60 bucks a month I can choose from 100-200 or more providers, and choose among 75k-100,000 hours of content" is actually pretty good. (Granted, 40k of that is stuff you couldn't pay me to watch, but still.) I just think that for many people, especially more tuned-in people like us, there are better, more direct, legal venues for accessing some of that same content for a cheaper cost.

How do you connect your laptop to the TV? I need to figure out how to do that, though she watches the programs on the laptop, sometimes it would be nice to watch them on a "real" tv.

I have a cable package mainly so I can watch the Boston sports teams. Other than that, I really only watch the local stations and DVR stuff occasionally on other channels.

How old is he? Before I dumped cable I loaded up the DVR with shows my girls watch off Disney. They're SD so they barely take up any space. As for you and the wife, Netflix is the way to go to catch the few shows you miss.

He'll be 6 in October. As it is TV isn't a huge part of his peer group's conversations, but that will change in the next few years. Our DVR is the cable box, which has been great (one unit, no purchase price, cheaper DVR fee) but of course that means we turn it back in. He actually doesn't watch that much, and he stays with his grandmother after school 2x a week and they watch TV, and the few shows he does watch, he's seen a million times. So I guess most of it is like someone from page 1, cable TV has so long been a default part of my life that it's odd to think about not having it, even though I don't really use it much.
I am definitely considering going back with Netflix in a bit. I have a free month from the settlement, and I'll activate that when the Netflix/Xbox 360 thing starts, so I can use both.