just an asterisk

In my last post, I described how one could ditch cable and rely on a mixture of online programming and an Apple TV for entertainment.  Fun stuff!  However, a helpful commenter mentioned using an HD Antenna to capture the live and free television channels that may be floating around your metro area. I thought it might be nice to explain how this can be done (so that you can watch the Oscars, the super bowl, or any other live event on your standard channels).

Buy an antenna and connect it.

To pick up the free TV signals in your area, you’ll need an antenna.  Often today’s TVs forget their antenna bearing forefathers and mine was no exception.  You should validate that your TV has a connector like the one below.

This is the same connection that I used for my cable television (it’s called Coaxial Cable, if you’re interested).  Once you’ve located this point on the TV, you need an antenna. For those living near a RadioShack, I found this model on sale for $20.

Notice that it says “HDTV” – this means I’ll be able to pickup any free HD (High Definition) channels, as well as the standard definition ones. In most big cities, NBC, ABC, CBS and FOX have free HD channels.

The setup is very easy – just plug it in to the connector in the first picture.

Scan for channels

Your television, if it was purchased in the last 10 years, has a scanning function. Try your settings menu – heck, try any menu. You are looking for “Auto-Program” or “Channel Search” or anything to do with an antenna.  For me, in my settings menu, there was a button that said “Auto-Program”.  With the antenna connected, I let this feature rip and found 52 channels available to the greater NYC area. 52!!!

Bask in your independence!

You’ve done it! You followed 2 insanely easy steps and now you have free LIVE television. Well done you! Enjoy the Olympics!

~ab

Cable TV and I have had a pretty rocky relationship. I live in NYC, where “outages reported in your area” is seemly the permanent recording on the cable company phone line. What kills me about these events is that it’s always my responsibility to call out the cable company for time lost. I never see a credit on my bill for the time when service was out, unless I call and complain.  Moreover, my wife and I just don’t watch that much TV.  It’s hard to justify the $150 price for HBO twice a week and the real housewives series a few times a week. Oh and did I mention the service stinks?

My counter attack!

So what did I do to stick it to the man? I cancelled cable. This may sound brash but it’s not as crazy as you might think. Here is a breakdown of my thought process:

• Hulu and Netflix came with my TV – I have a Samsung TV that has “apps” and an internet connection.  It wasn’t that much more expensive and I have access to my Hulu and Netflix content (which is 99% of what I watch).  Both Hulu and Netflix require a paid account, but each is less than $10 per month.
• Apple TV streams all my media from my home computer – The Apple TV was a one time $100.  I can use it to rent movies and TV shows, like pay-per-view on steroids.
• I don’t watch sports – I think this is worth mentioning, as my solution would be hard on a sports fanatic.  Sports are a bit harder to find via the web, but not impossible.  I’d be curious to hear solutions for this in the comments…

Thoughts so far…

It has been 2 days and everything is great! I feel like I pick what I want to watch and I only see a commercial or two on Hulu.  All in all, the conversion went without a hitch.  When I want to watch a TV show, I use Hulu on my TV or the Apple TV to rent/buy the episode.  For older movies, I use Netflix and for more recent titles, I can use Apple TV as a pay-per-view outlet. Finally, I stream pictures, music and movies from my home computer over my wireless network to the Apple TV.  A – MAZING.

Here are some pointers if you plan on doing this yourself:

1. Use wires when possible: When you can, keep everything wired together.  Wireless is great, but the speed is much faster via cables.  If you can’t use wires, try to minimize the distance between your TV and your WIFI router.
2. Invest a few extra bucks in faster internet: You can pay a little more (an extra $10 in my case) and get 50% faster internet.  That burst of speed could be the difference between HD quality streaming and blurry junk, so investigate your options.
3. Learn how to use iTunes Home Sharing: Maybe this will be the topic of a future post, but you can share your iTunes libraries between computers and to your Apple TV. It’s fairly simple to set up, but can get a bit finicky. Try out this link to get you started.

I’ll try to put another post together in the future describing my whole setup, but hopefully this gives you a glimpse of what is possible.  The kicker here is that it’s all pretty easy!  I didn’t code or fiddle with complicated hardware. For the most part, it was as simple as plugging things in.

Good luck!

~ab

PS: I’m aware that the large cable company isn’t going to care much about my rebellion… but just wait comrades – the revolution is coming…

Sometimes, I forget how powerful a phone can be… The truth is this: my phone may be able to do 1 million things, but I’ll be darned if I can remember 5% of this magic when I’m under pressure. It’s like a Swiss-army knife with 100 tools – I only use the the bottle opener and the knife (incorrectly, as a screwdriver).  I don’t believe that I’m the only one in this state.  Feature overload is pretty much the norm these days.

As a result, I like to practice using features when I find them.  Some stick, becoming part of my daily routine and ritual, others fade away as simple novelty.  Knowing what your iPhone or Android phone can do is good.  Learning which features are right for you is better.

Just to give you an example, I was waiting for the wifie at the wine store and remembered Google’s photo search called “Goggles” that is part of the iPhone Google App.  Not really needing an excuse to buy wine (“google told me to”), I tried it out on a nice bottle of cabernet.

Googles Goggles (a tongue twister ain’t it?) went to work on my cab, using the image as the search query.  The result was pretty spectacular – even by the standards of the ever impressive Google.

In less than a minute, I was reading a great review of my selection and soon after SOLD.  It was a great shopping experience.  I was selected a bottle that looked about right (2 minutes), Googled it (30 seconds), learned about it (1 minute) and finished my purchase.  Not bad!  The process was fast enough that I would have happily continued to photograph bottles for a while, but the results rich enough to help me make an educated decision.  Sweet.

In closing for this rather short post, remember that the point isn’t Google’s Goggles.  The point is that my phone had a feature that was worth exploring and that a little practice was enough for me to see how I could use it in future.  That’s the key – use it and see if it’s useful to you.  If not, no sweat.  There are another 999,999 features to look into.

For the record, the wine was excellent.

~ab