I realized recently that, besides the fact that we’ve now lived in Iowa for the last year, it also means we’ve lived without cable television. After all that time, what have we missed?
Not a whole lot, it turns out.
Sure, there are some things that I would like to have. Some deficiencies I figured we would see in this newfound lack of endless channels, but there are others I didn’t expect. For one thing, I knew we’d miss having the ability to record a program on a DVR, as we’d gotten used to having one for the previous 4 years. I thought that we’d be fine without it, however, as most of the shows we watch were on some kind of digital service, a la Hulu, etc. And for most shows, we were right.
Unfortunately, a select few of my shows (e.g. Stargate Universe and Sanctuary) have some silly deal with SyFy that makes them show up on Hulu 30 days after premiering. That, my friends, is an eternity. Those shows, however, are the only ones that seem to have this problem. Many of the others, in fact, show up the day after premiering on television, while others show up a week later. These are time-frames we can deal with.
One thing I didn’t think I’d miss, however, was baseball. I don’t really watch baseball religiously, but I do like catching the occasional game on a rainy Saturday or Sunday afternoon. For the most part, many Cardinals games are actually televised up here in Iowa, using KDSK‘s feed. This isn’t always the case, however, and sometimes, because we’re in Iowa, we get enough wind that the TV station’s antenna is cutting in and out, making my viewing of a game troublesome. I have considered getting MLB.tv service, which would allow us to watch any baseball game throughout the season in HD through the PS3, but at $90 per season, I just don’t watch enough to make it worth it.
Other than that? I don’t think we miss all that much. We watch quite a bit of Netflix, streamed through the PS3 or Wii, and we have a few “standby” shows in our Instant Queue at all times when we get that “we just want to veg out in front of the TV and watch nothing specific” feeling, such as No Reservations, Man v. Food, Mythbusters and Dirty Jobs. The best part being that we can choose which episodes we want to watch, rather than being at the mercy of whatever theme that particular station is running on that day. And, no commercials.
We are still watching Hulu through the computer, but it seems to work alright. I’d prefer to have it on the TV, but I don’t want to run a cable that far, and the 19″ monitor we’re using is “big enough” for our purposes.
In the end, I don’t think we miss cable all that much. We can find little things here and there that would be nice to see live, but more often than not, we’re living without it.
Not something my parents could have believed they’d ever say, methinks…