Back to paying for cable

Back to paying for cable

Its been a while since I've written a post about our home media usage.  As a quick recap, we ditched DirecTV about 2 years ago and switched to 100% internet based TV.  We primarily used Boxee for Windows, HD OTA with Media Center, PlayON, Hulu, Netflix, and NHL GameCenter Live.  Sure, that means I'm paying for NHL and Netflix, but the total cost of those is way less than the $100+ I was paying DirecTV for service on 3 TV's.  Aside from saving money, the freedom and power of choice has been a great experience -- we can watch about 90-95% of what we want to watch, when and where we want to watch it.  At home, on the road, doesn't matter as long as we have internet (3G and WiFi included).

Why we liked it (aside from just saving money)

The kids don't just sit down and watch whatever Disney or Nickelodeon happens to be playing on TV at any given moment.  They look for interesting shows which usually are much more intellectually worthwhile than the latest pre-teen shenanigans of twins who's mom is a singer on a cruise ship.  They learn about history and science from shows like American Pickers and Mythbusters.  They learn about survival skills on Man vs Wild.  And they choose what they want to seek out and watch.  Sure Bart and Lisa show up on the TV sometimes, along with Jimmy Neutron and others, but as a choice because that's how they want to spend that 20 mins.

So why go back to cable? 

Reason #1 -- Boxee for Windows just doesn't work as well as it needs to. It doesn't have Hulu (or HuluPlus) or Netflix (boxee removed Netflix from the latest and final release) and the NHL app in Boxee doesn't work very well either.  It also doesn't always play network based shows corectly (History Channel is especially problematic).  If you download content to your PC, it works great.  Streaming with it just isn't as reliable as it needs to be, so we end up clicking around with the mouse going to different broadcasters websites, Hulu.com, and netflix.com to watch stuff.

Reason #2 -- PlayON and TubeCore (the software that lets PlayON work in Media Center on an XBox) don't play nicely together anymore.

Reason #3 -- My OTA antenna sometimes doesn't work as well as it needs to (yeah, that's lame on my part but I'm just tired of climbing the ladder to attempt readjusting the thing).

Reason #4 -- The biggest limitation has been live sports.  Even though we subscribe to NHL GameCenter Live, we can't watch games broadcast on NBC Sports (formerly Versus) or on the NHL Network.  Hank (our 6 year old) was at a local Buffalo Wing restaurant recently and (since he was wearing an NHL jersey i suppose) they sat us near a big screen playing the NHL network.  He was in awe that there was a channel on TV that was 100% hockey, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Mixed with his awe was a little bit of disbelief -- "how come we don't get this channel"?  With the Stanley Cup playoffs coming up, and with the summer Olympics this year, I really want the kids to be able to watch the sports they are interested in watching.

What's this going to cost me?

I wasn't about to spend $100+ per month again just for TV.  We gotta' have NBC Sports and NHL network.  AT&T U-Verse doesn't have NHL.  DirecTV and Dish both require a contract and I'm not convinced I'll stick with paying for TV again for 2 years, so those options are out.  This leaves Time Warner Cable as the only way to "try it out" again.  Unfortunately, to get the channels we want on all 3 TV's looks like its going to cost $73 plus tax just for TV.  Not gonna happen in my house -- just not worth it.

Cable Card to the rescue!

After digging around Time Warner's website and talking to them (and being escalated to supervisors more than once to get better information) I was able to determine that (contrary to a couple of representatives' initial responses), a Cable Card will give us access to all of the channels we want.  "But you won't have on-demand" (I don't want on-demand -- I can use Hulu or my own recorded shows).  "But you won't have our DVR service" (I don't need your DVR service using Cable Card on my computer).  Best of all, a Cable Card costs $2.00 per month instead of $27 per month to rent 3 cable boxes, meaning with my special $7.00 per month intro (6 month) discount, my cable TV will cost me about $40 per month (before taxes) and my internet (15 MB turbo road runner) will cost about $33 per month (instead of the $63 I had been paying for it) with a net increase per month of only about $10.00 -- not bad!

How does Cable Card work?

Cable Card is a technology that gives you an electronic "access card" that you can plug into some TV's, TiVo's, and computers that "descrambles" the channels you subscribe to and pay for.  In my case, I just ordered a SiliconDust HDHomeRun Prime (from Amazon.com) for about $200.00 (including shipping).  This device has 3 tuners built-in, plugs into the cable service, and plugs into your home network.  This effectively creates the equivalent of 3 shared cable boxes on your home network that can be shared by computers running Windows Media Center and XBox 360 consoles linked to a Media Center computer (Media Center is included with Windows Vista and Windows 7 so you probably already have it).  Media Center is like a cable-box on steroids -- it can record shows, play local content, has a beautiful user interface, plays your local music, and even lets you play photo slideshows.  In our case, we have the main computer attached to the main TV in the living room, plus we have 2 XBoxes attached to 2 other TV's, totaling 3 TV's all with access to the SiliconDust HD HomeRun's 3 tuners.  Since the tuners are dynamically allocated, this means we can record 3 different shows, watch 3 different shows, or any combination from any TV at any given time.  Pretty slick!

What about the Apple stuff in the house?

There are a few ways to get TV onto the apple computer and iOS devices.  Two ways come straight from Time Warner -- the TWC TV app works on iPods, iPhones, iPads (and some Android devices) and allows you to watch about 200 of the channels directly to your device while you're in your home.  Time Warner also provides a web page for computers allowing the same cahnnels (http://video.timewarnercable.com).  The other option is EyeTV for the mac.  Its a third-party software package that can used the SiliconDust HDHomeRun network tuners.  I may also dust-off my old "Orb Live" software that I tried ages ago which allows you to stream Media Center content from your PC to an iOS device.  More on that once I get everything installed and working.

So here's to a new adventure in our house -- wish us luck, and as always, I can guarantee you that I won't be bored (either making all this stuff work how I want it or being entertained with all of the new viewing options we will have)!

Super VPN Service

Every wish you had a more secure way to use wifi networks when you travel?  Ever need to access servers or watch MBL or NHL games that are blacked out because you're traveling and your hotel's internet address looks like its coming from another city?  There's a simple, affordable, and secure solution for all of your devices (iPhone, iPod Touch, mac OSX, Windows, Linux, etc).

Super VPN Service at www.supervpn.net may the the solution you need.  With plans as low as $4.00 per month YOU choose where in the world it looks like your computer is, and only YOU know what you're surfing.

Give it a try and post your results below in the comment section!

Boxee and PlayOn working MUCH better after my CPU upgrade

I've posted before about PlayOn being the source of video for my kids around the house on their iPod touch devices working "OK" as long as they stream MP4's (but transcoding got choppy), and many folks have commented about Boxee's NHL Gamecenter Live video stuttering.

Those issues are now a thing of the past at my house.

I upgraded my PC running Boxee and PlayOn for $169 to a much faster setup and its paying off.

I chose the AMD Athalon II X3 445 Rana 3.1 GHz processor because it has the best price to performance ratio I could find.  I then paired it with a low-end overclock and core unlock board from ASRock (the N68C-S UCC board) and 4 Gig of Geil DDR3-1066 RAM.

Unfortunately for me, I couldn't unlock the 4th core (but I haven't given up yet), but I did successfully overclock it by 20%.

Streaming and transcoding via PlayON are much smoother now, as is the NHL GameCenterLive (in Boxee and in the browser).

Boxee Hulu Hack

A magician over on the boxee forums has posted a simple and easy way to get Hulu shows working on Boxee again!

All you need to to is:
   1) Download the file from the post (or click here)
   2) Rename it to hulu.js
   3) Put in the following folder:
           mac: /Applications/Boxee.app/Contents/Resources/Boxee/system/players/flashplayer/hulu.js
              linux: [Boxeepath]/system/players/flashplayer/hulu.js
              windows: c:\program files\boxee\system\players\flashplayer\hulu.js


Its working great on my Windows 7 computer running the latest Boxee beta.

Open letter to Hulu re:Boxee

Dear Hulu,

I have been a loyal Hulu user on my Windows PC running Boxee for 3 months. I love the ad supported model - especially  when "the following program is brought to you on Hulu with limited commercial interruptions" Thanks to Chase slate card (triplets?!) and the campy StateFarm insurance guy who decides he's tired and ready to die. 

That is until today. 

Why would you block Hulu on a windows computer just because I use Boxee as my browser instead of Firefox or Chrome?

Are your advertisers asking you to reduce viewership? 

Do you really think this move on your part makes users want to pay for a Hulu plus subscription?  

I want to watch shows on Hulu with advertising. I want to do it on my Windows computer running Boxee. 

Please tell me this was a mistake and Hulu is going to allow Boxee users to view Hulu content and optionally subscribe to Hulu plus for additional content and fewer ads for those who desire those features. 

For those of us who are willing to watch ads so that you are compensated for the content and advertisers capture our consumer dollars, let us watch Hulu content and your advertisers' content on our computers that run Boxee. 

I'm posting this email on my Blog and will gladly post your reply as well. Http://techhomeblog.blogspot.com

Thank you, 

Craig L. Davis

BoxeeBox will have Netflix!

The good folks at Boxee held quite a launch event tonight in NYC for the new BoxeeBox by D-Link.  Those who pre-ordered from Amazon.com are reporting their devices started arriving this morning.  According to the launch event, it will also be at major U.S. retail stores by Nov 17 (and reports from the great white north say its already on the shelves at Best Buy stores in Canada).

Major announcements at the event:

A very nicely revised user interface which looks great and has an AMAZING new search function to find just about any video, show, or movie "on the interwebs" (to quote Avner Ronon).

Currently only available on the BoxeeBox but coming soon for Windows, Mac, etc.

NetFlix will be on the BoxeeBox by the end of the year and...

in HD!

  Hulu Plus will also be on the BoxeeBox (no date announced)


Other cool content sources on BoxeeBox:

NHL GameCenter Live (Up to 40 out of market games per week)

Vudu's 9,000+ titles in HD (starting at $2.00 for 2 nights)



I kept saying I was waiting until NetFlix is on it, but I may just get one anyway now that its officially announced that NetFlix will be available on the BoxeeBox!  I need a content source on a second TV (we fired DirecTV about 3 months ago and refuse to pay $100 per month for cable or satelitte).  BoxeeBox will work perfectly for the second TV.

I doubt that I'll be ditching the HTPC I'm running Boxee on in the living room, though.  That's working great, and as soon as the 1.0 software is available, it will actually have more than the boxee box (except the cool remote) since the computer version will run NetFlix today.  Plus, its the computer that has all of our DVD's, Music, and Pictures on it anyway so it may as well also be the Boxee computer for the living room while its at it.

Congratulations Avner and team!

Vudu HD Movies come to Boxee!

Thats right, Boxee does it again!  Today, the Boxee Blog announced that they are adding Vudu's huge collection of on-demand, new release movie titles to Boxee users on Mac, PC, and the forthcoming Boxee Box (amazon.com preorders set to ship Nov 10th)


New Vudu users who signup via Boxee will even get a free movie to try it out.  Count me in.

Movies are $2.00 each for a 2 night rental.  Combine this with the huge library of free content already available, and NetFlix streaming titles at $9.00 per month and you've got better-than-cable choices for a fraction of the cost.

Users of the free Boxee software on PC and Mac will only get SD, but with the Boxee Box, users can get up to 1080p in Dolby Digital 5.1 (depending on your bandwidth):

• SD (480p) requires 1 Mbps
• HD (720p) requires 2.25 Mbps
• HDX (1080p) requires 4.5 Mbps

I know what I'm doing this weekend -- signing up for Vudu and watching a free movie on Boxee!

New AppleTV Ships (Thanks, but no thanks)

I'm actually surprised at the small number of folks bragging and tweeting about their AppleTV's arriving late this week.

It has started shipping and folks have started unwrapping them, but the most exciting news seems to be that you can backup the Apple SHSH with TinyUmbrella (the tool that allows you to revert back to an older iOS firmware after Apple stops officially allowing you to do so).  This probably means the device will eventually be jailbroken, and at that point, it may have some interesting and useful purpose to me.

Why "Thanks, but no thanks"?  For starters, the closed ecosystem of the device.  You can stream your local content to it, however, the only other source of content is Netflix and the iTunes store (for $0.99 per show or $3.99 per movie).

Sure, $99 is cheap, but it I had to pay a buck every time my kids watched a SpongeBob episode I'd be broke!  Why would I do that, when the content I want to stream is already available for free (as advertiser supported content) over at Hulu and other similar sites.  No streaming of NHL GameCenter Live + no MBL.com + no Hulu = no thanks (for me).

Maybe as a jailbroken device it will have a better justification for a place in my entertainment system.

Let us know what you think:

Can AppleTV do anything that we can't already do?
Does it do any of it better?

PlayON iPhone App in the App Store

PlayON.tv now has their app available in the Apple iPhone App Store! (app store link) (itunes link)

Starting today iPhone, iPad and iPod touch users can download the free PlayON Mobile app to their device.  This allows you to have nearly any streaming web content available in the palm of your hand from sources such as Hulu, MLB, NHL, Netflix, Amazon VOD, CBS, Comedy Central, TV.com, ESPN.com, ESPN3, CNN, PBS, PBS Kids, Fox News, SpikeTV, MTV and Vevo.  

Thats right, Hulu.com on your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch without having to subscribe to HuluPlus.

The software requires the PlayON software for Windows running on a PC on your network (tdownload a free trial from PlayOn.tv -- after the trial users can subscribe to PlayON for $39 for the first year and $19 for each year thereafter).  Well worth it for giving us all this content on our iDevices, XBox360's, PS3's, Wii's, and any other DLNA compliant playback device.

So far the app looks good and is quite speedy (even compared to the previous HTML5 web interface on iDevices) and best of all, it works over WiFi or 3G.

Way to go PlayON!  Keep up the good work!

NHL GameCenter App Coming to the iPad!

I recently wrote an article about how you can get NHL, Hulu, and many other video sources on your iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad (plus your XBox360, PS3, and Wii) using PlayOn.  

Now, it looks like the NHL GameCenter folks have big plans of their own.  Many have noticed and asked about the "New: Connected Devices" feature shown on the NHL GameCenter sign-up screen.  While the NHL folks have been silent on this issue, I recently learned first-hand from the good folks at NHL GameCenter that they are in fact planning GameCenter Live support for the following "Connected Devices":

Playstation 3, iPad, Boxee, Roku, and Sony Bravia web-enabled HDTVs and Blu-Ray players. 

VLC now on iPad, Napster on iPad/iPod/iPhone

2 great headlines for iPad, iPod, and iPhone media hounds.

In the video department, the renowned VLC video player is available on the iPad for free from the Apple App Store!  This release was made possible by Applidium (and the newly published App Store Rules).  I don't have an iPad to test this one out, but maybe an avid reader of the blog can try it out for us and tell us all about it (@Samboni!?).  My first question: Will it play VOB files with menus?  It does look like it relies upon features currently specific to the iPad allowing it to get files from your computer during the sync process.  It also looks like HP is using a similar file sync method on its iPod and iPhone printer tool under iOS 4 so we may see VLC on our other iDevices soon.

In the music department, the infamous Napster released their app for iPod, iPhone and iPad today at the Apple App Store.  Users get a free trial (with the condition of signing up with a credit card -- beware, if you don't cancel you automatically start your $10 per month subscription).  I'll take the plunge on this during the free trial, but once you add up all of the recurring fee subscriptions I want (NHL GameCenter, Netflix, and now Napster), I need to start deciding which ones are worth it.  I'll update this post with my experience during my trial period.

Boxee Box about the size of a Coke Can!

Wow -- I've seen people posting concerns about the odd shape of the Boxee Box, then I saw how big it really is.

According to the Boxee Blog:


“Rest assured the Boxee Box will fit into your entertainment center. If the look doesn’t quite fit with your decor, not to worry. The RF remote means you can place the box out of sight and still control it. Of course, the Boxee Box prefers being on top.”


You could fit this thing anywhere!  And it really only needs 2 wires -- the power and the HDMI (since it has WiFi the network can be wireless or wired although clearly in this photo they show it with a wired network connection and all of the audio connectors in use).  Even fully loaded with all of its connections, you've got lots of options on where to put it.  And since it comes with an RF remote, you can choose to hide it or show it off (and make the SD slot even easier to access).


Read more about the Boxee Box and its new features (vs the beta) in my other articles or pre-order one from Amazon.com today!  I can't wait to get mine!

Streaming Video Anywhere with TVersity or PlayON

We've cut the cord on the cable/satellite and using Boxee on the main TV to watch Hulu, Netflix, MLB baseball games, NHL hockey games, and just about anything else available online, on the big-screen TV.  So what about the other 3 TV's?  Sure, free over-the-air HD is fine for network shows, but what if we want to watch Psych in the Den (there's no computer attached there but there is an XBox360).  What if the kids want to watch the newest Deadliest Catch on their iPod Touch?

In the near future, all the TV's in my house will have their own Boxee Box but until then how do we get more than 3-4 "local" networks?

There is a solution (actually a few, but, this article will focus on the option I chose to solve everything for multiple devices in my house).

How Will This Work?

It all hinges upon getting the content into your home from the internet either via Hulu, Netflix, or a download from uTorrent; then getting it to your PS3, XBox360 or iOS devices like iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch.  So how does one accomplish this?

Boxee Box's New Features

In my excitement about the Boxee Box pre-orders starting yesterday, I overlooked 4 great new features mentioned in the Product Description on Amazon that are quite noteworthy (and not in the free beta version)

1) When users of the free beta get their Boxee Box and sign-in... "the Boxee Box by D-Link will automatically import your account – making your favorite TV shows, movies apps, and shortcuts instantly available. Booyah."  That "Booyah" is a direct quote from the Boxee Box marketing team, but I second it -- "Booyah!"

2) It's an RF remote!  Double-Booyah! (ok that "booyah" was mine).

3) Looks like there's some new premium pay-per-view services that will be available based on the following quote: "If we can’t find it for free, the Boxee Box will connect you with premium options who can, instantly." 

4) Facebook/Twitter feeds (and it implies to me that you will even be able to post to facebook and  tweet using the QWERTY remote on your big screen but I am reading between the lines on that one...)

Boxee Box Pre-Orders

This Just In... (and first on my list of "What It Does" items from my welcome article)...

Pre-order the Boxee Box from Amazon.com!

At $199 this network based media playback device has great promise for the living room media portal.  And it even comes with a fantastic remote control with a built-in keyboard for easy searching of shows and movies!

Click here for the Amazon.com pre-order page: Boxee Box Pre-Order

Its got a great user interface for browsing  thousands of television episodes available for online viewing via Hulu, PBS, Discovery Channel, NHL Game Center, MLB, ESPN, and many more.  You're sure to find enough content for the entire family, and its super easy to search and navigate.  According to the Boxee staff,   they also plan to have Netflix integrated -- expect a press release on that soon!

Welcome

Welcome to my blog -- http://techhomeblog.blogspot.com

My goal is to provide you with useful information about every day technology applications for your home, especially digital media.

Topics and reviews will mostly focus on digital audio and video distribution throughout the home and the underlying technology.

Imagine sitting on the deck or the back yard with your iPod touch or iPhone, with wireless control of the music being played on the deck and in the kitchen.  Then, using the same device, starting a movie in the basement for the kids to watch.  All wireless, from anywhere in your home (and even away from home).