I am perpetually ready to get rid of cable but have, as of yet, been unable to convince myself to wave goodbye to it. It’s fifty bucks a month for something I barely use. My best bet would be the summer months, when I convince myself I will watch Rockies games starting any day now, but never do. In the winter I want it to watch the NBA. I don’t really watch that many Nuggets games, to be honest, but I really like to be able to and find it worth paying for the all the other channels I’ll never turn to. But I’ve felt like I should ditch it, because I barely watch TV, and almost all the shows I do watch (House, The Office, etc.) are on networks anyway.
The problem with cable (or satellite or whatever) is that everything that people try to use to convince me to like it more just costs me more. Like, oh, HD: you have to get HD, it’s so much better. I’m sure that’s true, and I already have an HDTV (albeit one of the cheapest ever made), but I don’t quite see how spending more is a solution. Or I could buy some extra sports package, and then I could watch all of CU’s football games, even the ones that take place a few miles from my apartment. No thanks.
The biggest gotta-have-it TV supplement, of course, is the DVR. Everyone who has a TiVo or one of its competitors will die before they stop trying to convince you to get one. Why, I don’t know. Yes, it’s cool technology. Yes, it frees you up to watch a show you love at a more convenient time. And yes, it turns you into a whiny fool who’s terrified of spoilers and always wants to talk about shows you love, just not the last three episodes, which you haven’t seen yet. (This was particularly annoying when I started watching 24 again last year, which a bunch of my friends watch, but never keep up on. Why did they want me to watch it in the first place?) Anyway, DVRs are pretty awesome, but are they worth the hype?
I had to find out for myself, which was easier and possibly cheaper than you’d expect. One of the coolest but least-known new features of Windows 7 (named for John Elway) is that almost every version comes with software for recording TV. The software, called Windows Media Center, has been around for a while, but it comes with every version of Windows 7 from Home Premium on up, including business editions (which means it's on almost every PC but netbooks now). It’s a totally killer feature.
You also need hardware to record TV, in the form of a TV tuner. I bought an ASUS card that I had to install in my computer, but you can also buy a USB tuner. Putting the card in was the hardest part, and even that was pretty easy. After that I opened Windows Media Center. It found the tuner, asked for my zip code and cable company, and spent a few minutes configuring itself. That was it. Crazy easy.
So now I record, pause, and all that other stuff you’d do with a DVR on my computer. I love it, and I highly recommend it.
There’s just one problem. If you’re recording TV on your computer, you have to watch TV on your computer, right? Not exactly. You’ve got a few options.
1. Yes, watching it on your PC is one of them. My TV’s only two inches bigger than my monitor so this ain’t bad at all. What’s also nice is that I can watch it in a window on my PC while I do other stuff, which is great for blogging about sports.
2. You can plug your computer into your TV.
3. You can stream Media Center stuff from your computer over a network to what’s called a Media Center Extender, which plugs into your TV. I probably never would’ve considered buying one of these, except that one of them plays Halo: the Xbox 360. What’s cool about Extenders is that they replicate the PC experience on your TV, which means they have the exact same menus, so it’s easy to switch between the two. Once you know one, you know them both, and the Media Center menus are simple and designed to be used with a remote anyway. Also, if I start something on my computer and pause it, and resume it later on my Xbox, it’ll pick up right where I left off, and vice versa.
4. You can also stream Media Center TV recordings to a PlayStation 3. This is less optimal because the PS3 can read and play the file, but isn’t going to stay in sync with your computer. On the other hand, with built-in WiFi, which the 360 lacks, you can put a PS3 wherever you have a TV and still get stuff to it if you have a wireless network.
5. The Zune software will transcode TV recordings and let you put them on a Zune. If I was taking the bullet train every day I think I’d be watching my TV almost exclusively on a Zune. (It’s probably possible to convert the videos for an iPod, but I haven’t really looked into this.)
I’ve tried 1, 3, and 4, and they all work great. Actually, number three is surprisingly awesome. Cable has always looked kinda bad on my Insignia-brand TV, which apparently has a really low-quality tuner. Now if I record TV on my PC and stream it through network cables and a router to my Xbox 360, which then sends it to my TV, it looks way better than a cable line straight into my TV ever did. Seriously. The colors, etc., have always looked okay, but things like the score display during a game have always been fuzzy. Now it’s a lot more sharp. Weird, I know.
Recording TV on my computer works great. It’s made my PC, my Xbox, my TV, and my cable subscription all better. The funny thing is, Microsoft doesn’t get a dime from me (other than what I paid for Windows). Whoever’s providing the program guide for Windows Media Center is doing it for free, so while I had to pay a bit upfront for the tuner, I’ll never have to pay for it again. Pretty sweet deal if you ask me.
