We don't have cable - rant one!

First of all, we don't have cable, never have, we have "rabbit ears"(actually our Antennas look a bit more complex then that). My mom is always concerned that if we had cable we would spend too much time watching TV, instead we have computers and internet and spend too much time on them :). I personally am happy with the TV I get on my Terk anntanna. With the digtal TV format I get ~ 13 channels and all of them are HD. There a lots of great shows like "The Big Bang Theory", "The Rick Muser" report and "Dragons Den". I enjoy a lot of other TV serries as well like StarGate SG1 which I watched by borrowing the DVDs from our library.   Since I use the free and open source software media portal and TV tunner I also have PVR capabilities. I will be doing a serries of rants on the benefits of OTA TV vs cable here is the first one.

To prove my point I got a letter today from Bell offering there "Bell TV. Here is what it says and why it's not worth that much... at lest too me. "You'll enjoy breathtaking HD picuter quality up to 1080P" -- Most of the OTA(over the air) channels are 1080i or 720P and 1080P is possible but not done often. It's hard to tell the difference between 1080i and 1080P anyways, most HDTV have really good deinterlacing. Also you can't tell the difference between anything above 720P eaither. CBC lowered the resulation too 720P, I did not notice at all, by chance I pushed the "display" button on my remote and then found out they had made the switch.

"plus TV programming mad easy" -- how? 

"with major networks" -- who do you mean? CBC, CTV, TVO, Global, ONMI I, OMNI II and City-TV because those are all available OTA.

"and specialty channels" -- If I had a list I would "X" these guys out one though I don't think discovery is that bad and space(which you normally pay extra for) is always fun but there are a lot of good sci-fis and documentaries at our library.


 They go on to say that there is a free PVR(but you pay for the service monthly so how "free" is it?)  and you get the following fecutres:

"Create your own TV schedule - record and watch your favourite shows whenever you want" -- I can do this with my software which is also free. I can even rewind and fast-forward live TV and I there is a plugin that when I get working will allow my to watch TV in any browser. I can also watch anywhere I want for I have a client/server model(the client only runs on Windows though :(). Oh I normally don't use the recording capability, I normally stream the shows online the next day.  (from the official sources offcouse)

 "Set recordings form anware using our Remote PVR app on your smartphone"
Oh they got me there... but i think the browser  plugin allows for this, now to get it anywhere I would need a static IP address(there expensive) and I would have too foward the port in our router but it is possible. I don't miss shows often and when I do, most of them are available at SD online.

"Take advantage of this special offer" -- "$19.99/month" ... hmm... my TV costs me $0.00/month* and a onetime payment of $40 for the Attena and $30 for the tunner. 

* Ignoring the streaming which DOES cots me, since it uses the internet but the TV would be an addintal fee, so OTV is still worthwile.