Can the Internet Replace Cable TV?

By Daniel Miessler on February 1st, 2009: Tagged as Technology

So I’m getting ready to move to another part of town and I’m considering some changes to my telephone and cable arrangements. Specifically, I’m thinking of not paying for either.

For telephone I’m switching to VOIP, and I’m wondering if I can make a similar switch with my cable. My question is this: is it possible to replace cable with the Internet yet?

This should be easier for me that it is for most, as I don’t really watch T.V. My girl watches Grey’s Anatomy, Dexter, Weeds and Californication when they’re on, but I think some of those have online versions available through the provider.

What I’m wondering is if I can get this kind of content through other means, e.g. Hulu, iTunes, Boxee, Torrents, etc.

Any thoughts would be appreciated. ::

  • Carlos

    Definitely, there's nothing more than torrents from mininova.org on my laptop's series folder ;)

  • Maxo

    We use Joost and Hulu for all of our TV desires. We watch very very little TV anyhow so it's no biggie. For the kids shows, we just buy the DVDs.and rip them to the their PC. I find commercials to be much more harmful to children than the content of the TV shows anyhow.
    If you look at your cable bill per month and then think about how many DVDs that could buy you, at least for me it saves me a lot of money.

  • http://slashback.org/ Zealot

    Some time ago I found a cute little app called TVShows (http://tvshows.sourceforge.net/)which allows you to “subscribe” to almost any show on tv and it automatically pulls torrents for you from tvrss.net (http://tvrss.net).

    Then of course there's the Roku box (http://www.roku.com/), which allows you to watch Netflix and Amazon on-demand stuff right on your TV. I hear they may add support for Hulu and youtube soon.

  • Jason Sares

    plenty of legal and not options for getting the content but think about how your going to watch it. i currently plug my tv into my notebook via hdmi and use dinovo mini keyboard. ive found its very gf friendly once you give them a quick demo.

  • http://dmiessler.com/ Daniel Miessler

    AppleTV to main television and stereo is one method, and the other is on our Macs.

  • Michael S Black

    We've done exactly this at home. We now just have Internet, all content is streamed to the PS3 from a dedicated PC setup w/ TVersity. I use mostly torrents (via RSS) to populate the directories and we watch everything one night delayed. The only thing I spend time/effort/money on is NFL Football (you can get an online subscription to NFL feeds if you do not live in the US….get some international friends :) The upside of DL'ing everything is that many times you can get better quality programs than offered in your area for viewing.

  • http://slashback.org/ Zealot

    Some time ago I found a cute little app called TVShows (http://tvshows.sourceforge.net/)which allows you to “subscribe” to almost any show on tv and it automatically pulls torrents for you from tvrss.net (http://tvrss.net).

    Then of course there's the Roku box (http://www.roku.com/), which allows you to watch Netflix and Amazon on-demand stuff right on your TV. I hear they may add support for Hulu and youtube soon.

  • Jason Sares

    plenty of legal and not options for getting the content but think about how your going to watch it. i currently plug my tv into my notebook via hdmi and use dinovo mini keyboard. ive found its very gf friendly once you give them a quick demo.

  • http://dmiessler.com/ Daniel Miessler

    AppleTV to main television and stereo is one method, and the other is on our Macs.

  • Michael S Black

    We've done exactly this at home. We now just have Internet, all content is streamed to the PS3 from a dedicated PC setup w/ TVersity. I use mostly torrents (via RSS) to populate the directories and we watch everything one night delayed. The only thing I spend time/effort/money on is NFL Football (you can get an online subscription to NFL feeds if you do not live in the US….get some international friends :) The upside of DL'ing everything is that many times you can get better quality programs than offered in your area for viewing.


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