Comcasticly Craptacular

I recently had an irritating clash with Comcast. I’m not going to get into it, but it wasn’t cool. It has given me rise to examine other options for television entertainment.

We currently have the high-end cable package with the optional DVR. This costs us between $70 and $75 per month. I want to give none (or at least much less) of my money to Comcast from here on out. I decided that I should make a list of the shows Bridget and I watch regularly. I also made a list that contains the shows we wouldn’t mind missing. Of the shows that we watch regularly, none of them are outside the realm of network television. This means that we could potentially pick up all these shows via antenna.

I have a few TV tuner cards at home so I am planning on putting together a home-brew DVR. There are numerous guides on the internets that detail the construction of such a box, so I need to settle on a linux flavor and get the cat5 pulled to the TV area. We have found that the DVR is a vital cog in the wheels of our sanity.

With the advent of iTunes offering downloadable shows at $2 apiece and now Google diving in with more options, I wanted to research what it would cost to get rid of Comcast Cable. Downloads are likely to be more cost effective in the long term since I can get them bundled and cheaper on iTunes, Google, or Netflix. I’ve added the price of getting a NetFlix subscription into my calculations as well.

We watch approximately 4 shows that we don’t want to miss. Assuming (quite liberally) that each show has 24 new episodes per season I calculate that our cost for a year should be $192.00. Our yearly cable bill right now is almost $900.00. A savings of $700.00 would be a very nice thing. Even if we downloaded the shows that we wouldn’t mind missing, we would still save around $375.00 per year. Add a 2 disc unlimited NetFlix susbription on top of that and we still end up paying less.

CURRENT: $900.00 (12 months of Comcast)
DOWNLOADS: $192.00 (4 shows at 24 episodes apiece)
DOWNLOADS: $528.00 (11 shows at 24 episodes apiece)
NetFlix: +$180.00 to the above totals

Of course, there is the argument that the quality of TV shows on download services are too poor to make such a commitment. You are underestimating exactly how cheap I am and what I’m willing to sacrifice to save a buck and say “screw you” to Comcast. I’m sure though, that watching shows at a tiny resolution on a laptop will become irritating. The fuzziness of an antenna will surely drive me to the brink of madness if I have to constantly adjust it. So I looked into the most basic offerings of Comcast.

Comcast offers a basic package that covers all the network channels and about 15 other stations. This costs $10.00 a month. That’s a savings of $780.00 per year to see all 11 of the shows we like to watch. We could add NetFlix on top of that (if we felt we weren’t getting enough mindless tube time) and still be coming out better than we are now. I like how this is going so far.

Before I do anything though, I need to get that homebrew DVR working. I shall report again on how things are proceeeding.

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4 Responses to Comcasticly Craptacular

  1. Jerky says:

    Have you checked out Dish Network at all? (don’t know if it’s an option where you live) With local channels and one of their pretty basic packages, we pay about $50/month and have been quite happy with them. I got fed up with Charter (now Atlantic) in our area, so we made the switch and haven’t looked back.

    However, I’ve thought several times of switching to just IPTV with Netflix & DVR and will be looking for your results with interest. I don’t know if it would work for us yet because of the kids though.

  2. Dan says:

    Hehe screw Comcast! I’ve got there 10$ a month package for the basic channels and a Netflix subscription. And this works out much better than giving Comcast all that cash for basicly 200 channels of junk that I don’t watch. Netflix is great, i get all the movies that I want to see and get to see the TV shows from channels that I don’t get an entire season at a time, once they are out on DVD. I say go for it. Tell Comcast where they can stick they’re lousy service.

  3. Susan says:

    What about CSI and Law & Order Criminal Intent? can you get those on Netflix?….I know they’re on network channels but the old Criminal Intents reruns several times a week on USA and I like to watch those over and over? I HATE Comcast and am just about to give up cable forever

  4. AxsDeny says:

    CSI is on netflix. I’m not sure about L&O:CI though. I’m willing to bet that their seasons will show up there sooner or later.

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