hulu

As I detailed in this post, we had been thinking of ditching cable TV for a while and finally reached the tipping point about a week ago.

We have both had cable TV almost our entire lives and had the ability to time-shift programs for at least six years using Tivo. Don’t get me wrong, we love Tivo and would still have the service if we intended to keep cable TV. I can’t remember the last time we watched a show live or even looked at a TV guide and it has been wonderful. We just told Tivo the shows we liked and watched whatever it had recorded the previous day. We even chose to delay watching football games about 45 minutes just to be able to fast forward though the commercials.

When it came time to find a cable alternative we knew we wanted the time-shifting ability. Now there are so many shows and movies available on demand for a flat monthly fee we thought that just maybe we didn’t need to worry about a DVR anymore.

Our Goals
1. Watch TV within a day of broadcast
2. Watch movies within a year of broadcast
3. Have access to all of our favorite shows
4. Be able to time shift anything we are watching

This would be incredibly simple if Hulu Plus had deals with all of the TV content providers. You’d need a relatively high-speed internet connection. Then you’d just use hardware to stream media from your computer to your TV. Content would come from Hulu Plus for current TV and movies would come from Netflix. In fact, for many people this solution would be great right now. They could cut their cable bill significantly and receive all the same TV plus a lot more movies. For other folks with very basic cable, they would be able to receive many times more high quality content than they currently get for about the same cost.

The killer for us is that we apparently don’t like the same shows that most Americans do. So to get the programs we look forward to the most we are going to have to do some extra work.

Below is a chart comparing our existing system to what we are in the process of assembling right now. Once we’ve had some time to test it out, I’ll report back with what works and what doesn’t.

This system is going to have some drawbacks for us:
1. We are going to be paying about the same amount. Yes, we will get A LOT more stuff to watch but that isn’t a priority. We already have more to watch than we ever do.
2. We are going to have to put up with commercials on Hulu Plus.
3. We may not have access to all the shows we want to watch.
4. Live sports may be a real problem.

If you are interested in the options we looked into before deciding to try this plan, please read this post. Check back later to see how this system worked out. Better yet, subscribe to this blog through your favorite social media site so you’ll know exactly when we update.