Satellite and cable TV is dead to me.

Yes for the first time in my life I have no set top box in my daily life and it is a fantastic feeling.

I bought 2 new mac minis and attached them with mini-DVI to DVI to DVI to HDMI cable to my PANASONIC PT-AX100 projectors.  They are attached to my home network thru their WIFI 802.11N interface.  I was a little worried about the bandwidth but it works great.  There are some very infrequent occassional glitches when doing live hulu streaming but that is essentially free so I forgive it.  And the quality of the media I purchase and download from iTunes is fabulous.  You forget how good it can look.  Yes the cable companies do squeeze bandwidth in order to make more channels fit.

The cost when compared to Comcast TV is tiny.  I go on iTunes and pay at most $55 for a season of a show.  Considering that we watch at most 3 or 4 shows religiously.  In the last year it was Lost, 30 Rock, Glee (oh come on you love it too), Modern Family, Doll House (come on she was the evil slayer), and HIMYM.  $55*5 = $275 (approximately).  Some are cheaper and I actually watch 30 Rock on hulu and non current seasons are less (that same season of lost now costs $39.99)

Now you ask what about shows like the Today Show? Good thing you mentioned it, my wife loves the Today Show so I queued up a podcast for her.  And while I was there I queued up some other stuff that seemed interesting that she is now somewhat addicted to.

What content I am doing without: Regis and Kelly, Sports (am I sad… no)

But let’s run the numbers:

1st year: $275 (media) + $1600 (mini’s) + $60*12 (Comcast Internet) = $1995

versus: Comcast Bundle ($175*12) = $2100

Thus even with the hardware I am saving $150 just in the first year.

And I get a DVD player built in, so I even have the opportunity to play netflix dvds in both media areas.  And front row is a way better consumer experience than my dvd players ever were.

2nd year: $275 (media) + $60*12 = $395 so $2100 - $395 = $1705

Say I discover all of a sudden that the business and kids and occasional vacation leaves me with some free time, I could buy 31 seasons for that $1705.  

Beware here is the geek stuff - avert your eyes:

Also make sure that you set these iTunes settings:

iTunes->Preferences->Automatically download prepurchased content

iTunes->Preferences->Automatically check for available downloads.  

Click “OK”.  And Quit iTunes so it forces it to save. Of course, restart iTunes after.

create a user account that is only for your media playing (no email, no documents, no system administration)

Go into System Preferences->Accounts->(your new account)->Login Items->”+” and add iTunes (so that it starts up automatically on login)

make sure this is unchecked:

System Preferences->Security->Disable automatic login (automatically log in as the previous user account that you just created)

Install:

      http://code.google.com/p/understudy/ (which will add hulu to your front row interface )

      http://www.hulu.com/labs/hulu-desktop

Good Luck!

I’m going to take some pictures of the huge mound of stuff I no longer use: hdmi and audio switching box, set top boxes, programable remotes next to mac mini with the tiny apple remote.