Ditch Cable and Satellite for Free Internet TV

Between Internet video and over-the-air broadcasts, you can save big bucks on TV entertainment.

You pay a hefty cable or satellite TV bill each month— but what do you get for that motley? A lot of stations you don't watch, interspersed with a few you like, containing entertainment that you can also find on the Internet. In fact, between the Net and old-fashioned, over-the-air broadcasts, you may have little reason to keep spending money on extra stations.

Of course, dumping your cable or satellite TV setup has some potential drawbacks. For one thing, you might not get good over-the-air signals in your area. If your cable company also supplies your Internet access, dropping the cable means losing the discount for two services from one provider. And you'll have to make some up-front investments in your new setup before you can start saving money. But for a lot of people, those investments will be more profitable than stocks bought two years ago.

To approximate your cable or satellite experience, you'll need a digital video recorder that can receive over-the-air broadcasts (in the world of digital broadcasts, you can't time-shift with a VCR), and a device for sending Internet video to your TV set. In the pages that follow, I'll describe three strategies for acquiring these capabilities.

Getting Entertainment Into the Room

First, however, you'll need to have an Internet signal in the same room as your television: and you'll need a TV antenna as well. See find.pcworld.com/63458 for antenna purchasing suggestions.

Now, about the Internet connection: if you're thinking "No problem, I have Wi-Fi," think again. Most Internet-capable entertainment devices use ethernet, not Wi-Fi, and for a good reason: Wi-Fi isn't always reliable enough for video, especially in high definition, and especially if your TV is located far from the router. That's why I recommend Powerline AV, a standard for sending network signals over your home's existing AC power wires. I tried Belkin's Powerline AV+ Starter Kit, and found it ridiculously easy to set up. It really is plug-and-play. You can find the Starter Kit for about $140 if you go bargain hunting. See find.pcworld.com/63460 for more information.

First Strategy: A DVR With Internet Access

Here's the simplest solution: You buy a set-top DVR box, plug the device into your antenna, Internet, TV, and power outlet, and it's ready.

Your choices are limited, however. Only two companies make DVRs that can receive over-the-air broadcasts, and only one of those, TiVo, produces DVRs that can use the Internet for more than updating firmware.

I looked at the TiVo HD (find.pcworld.com/63161), the lowest-cost DVR that meets the requirements. You can find one for about $250, but that price comes with a big caveat: The device won't work without a $ 13-per-month subscription fee. Though that amount is a lot less than what cable costs, it still seems counterintuitive to pay a monthly fee to avoid paying a monthly fee. TiVo offers other payment options, including $400 for a lifetime subscription.

The TiVo HD is a fine recorder that provides an easy-to-use interface and powerful search capabilities. It also serves up an impressive selection of Internet-based entertainment. If you subscribe to Netflix (yes, another subscription), you can choose TV shows and movies from the Watch Instantly collection. Pay-per-view options include choices from Amazon Video On Demand, Walt Disney Studios, and the arthouse-oriented Jaman. The free fare includes You-Tube, which TiVo unfortunately displays full screen. (YouTube on a 50-inch HDTV is an ugly sight.)

For good or for ill, you can't get your daily dose of Keith Olbermann or Bill O'Reilly, because TiVo does not stream MSNBC or Fox News. No matter how many video services TiVo supports, it can't support all of them.

Second Strategy: A PC

On a Windows PC, you can watch video streaming on the Internet. And if you install a TV tuner on that computer and connect your antenna to the tuner, you have a DVR.

Three different versions of Windows—XP Media Center Edition, Vista Home Premium, and Vista Ultimate—carry acceptable DVR software.

In fact, a system with Vista's Media Center rivals a TiVo as a self-contained entertainment box. In addition to the DVR functions, a Media Center PC gives you Netflix, lots of radio stations, sports, and news from (of course) Microsoft subsidiary MSNBC. But unlike with a TiVo, you can close Media Center and watch unsupported video in your Web browser—even video that requires Java, Flash, or Silverlight.

Of course, if you don't have a sufficiently powerful spare PC hanging around, you'll have to purchase one (although you won't need a monitor). And properly setting up the PC is more difficult than plugging in a TiVo.

First, you have to hook the computer up to the TV. Second, you need a tuner. If you want to record two shows at a time, you'll need to have two tuners. I like Hauppauge's WinTV-HVR 950Q, a simple USB-based tuner that works. USB tuners have a couple of advantages: You don't have to worry about whether your motherboard has PCI or PCI-e slots, and you don't have to open the PC's case. If you shop around, you can find the 950Q for about $70.

The 950Q comes with a remote, but it's a chintzy little thing—I hated it. Better remotes are available: Hauppauge sells a large, comfortable, Microsoft-certified Media Center remote for $30, and you can find others easily on the Web. In fact, Hauppauge used to bundle the 950Q with that better remote as the WinTV-HVR-950Q Windows Media Center Kit. The company no longer makes the kit; but as I write this, you can still find it at Hauppauge's site (find.pcworld.com/63462) for $100.

Third Strategy: A PC and a DVR

What if you don't have a spare computer to use as a DVR, and you don't want to spend $500 for a new one? You can buy a DVR for time-shifting broadcast TV, and plug your PC into the TV set— and into the closest ethernet outlet—to watch video from the Internet. (This is easier to do with a laptop than with a desktop, obviously.)

Since in this setup you won't need the Internet features that T1V0 offers, you can save money and instead buy the only other DVR capable of receiving over-the-air broadcasts, the DTVPal DVR (www.dtvpal.com). Like the TiVo HD, the DTVPal costs about $250 if you do some hunting, but it imposes no subscription fee—buy it, and it's yours.

If you're currently a Dish Network subscriber, the DTVPal will feel familiar (Dish Network owns it). The remote, behavior, and menus are nearly identical.

Rut there's a price to having no subscription. The unit's electronic program guide is limited to the information that stations broadcast with their digital signals, and that means you can see only what will be playing for the next 12 hours or so. That imposes a pretty serious limit on searches.

As for the other half of this two-part setup—your PC— the only potential difficulty is getting the computer's signal to the TV. Read on.

Connecting Your PC to Your TV

Depending on what ports are present on both your PC and your TV, connecting them can be difficult or impossible. Check the back of the devices, and keep your fingers crossed. If you have any of the following matches, you may be in luck.

Both have HDMI: You should be all set. A single cable will carry a great, high-definition image and powerful sound from the PC to the TV set. You may have to change Windows' audio-output device setting to HDMI.

Both have VGA: Of course your PC has this standard video port, and your HDTV probably has it, too. But just because an HDTV has a VGA port, that doesn't mean the set can produce a decent-looking image from it. Try it out, and check your TV's manual for instructions.

Even if the picture looks good (and with a newer HDTV, it probably will), you'll still have an audio problem, VGA is a video-only signal, and I have yet to see a TV with audio inputs matched to the VGA port. The solution: Find another set of speakers to plug into the PC, or connect the PC to your stereo system. Doing so may require attaching a Y-adapter audio cable with a Vs-inch stereo miniplug (like the one on your headphones) at one end, and two standard RCA audio connectors at the other.

Computer has DVI, TV has HDMI: You can purchase a DVI-HDMI adapter at any electronics store for only $10 to $ 20. The resulting output will look terrific, since the video portion of an HDMI signal is identical to a DVI signal. You'll have the same audio problem as with VGA—but fortunately, the same solutions will work.

Both have S-Video: The result won't be HD quality, or even DVD quality. But it will work; and unlike the connections above, even your pre-HD set probably has an S-Video input.

Anything else: Outside of upgrading your PC's video card, you likely don't have an option. You can buy adapters to convert VGA to common television inputs, but the expensive ones look lousy and the cheap ones simply don't work.

You have additional alternatives for bringing the internet to your television. Some HDTV sets and Blu-ray players come with Internet connectivity and support Netflix, You Tube, and other entertainment providers. See find.pcworld.com/63463 to learn about them.

 

Source: Lincoln Spector - PC World

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