Nay, we are but men. Rock!

A while ago I wrote about my quandary about what to do with regards to television, keeping cable or over-the-air or no TV at all.  A couple of weeks ago I started the “implementation” process of my chosen solution, and I have to say that freely available, over-the-air TV is nice!

A year or so ago we replaced our old, tube TV with an HD LCD TV.  While we’ve had the ability to display HD content, we’ve been rocking the standard definition (SD) cable signal.  I’ve been craving an HD signal ever since we got the TV, but I had just couldn’t justify the added expense that cable and satellite providers charge for an HD signal.

Well, now I have an antenna on my roof pulling down the over-the-air signal, and we have 5 HD channels, plus some SD channels.  There are two national channels that we’re not currently getting, so I have some tuning yet to do, but all I can say is “Wow!”

I watched some of the Wimbledon Men’s Final in HD, and was just awestruck by the clairity of the picture.  The color of the tennis balls just jumped off of the screen.  Yesterday I had the pleasure of watching my first baseball game in HD.  Granted it was the Phillies/D-Backs, but it was glorious.

This week, Tuesday night, is the MLB All Star Game.  Guess where I’ll be?

This has been a discussion going on in our house recently.  Do we continue with our current cable plan, jump up to the next level for some channels we would definitely watch, ditch cable and hope we can get the free, over-the-air signal (we live in an area with lots of hills), or just not “do” TV.  Could we cut the cable, and save ourselves a little scratch?  The arguments are as follows:

For the more channels, as I said, we’d watch the additional channels we’d be paying for.  On the flip side, do we really want to spend more time in front of the TV?  Are we going to watch it enough to justify the additional expense?  I dunno.

For the over-the-air broadcast, it’s free save for the equipment.  I’d probably need to get an external antenna for the house, since the rabbit-ears don’t seem to want to work.  But since I don’t know for certain that the antenna would work I hesitate to shell out for one.

For the no TV option, most shows of interest are available through the various network websites for online streaming.  I had a coworker say last week that they watch CSI on TV, because it’s better to watch The Office online than CSI.  That’s totally a growing trend.  DVRs are great, but with the online streaming you don’t have to do anything but push play.  The major blow for this option is the lack of ability to watch sports.  My friends would probably get tired of having me over every Saturday and Sunday in the fall.

If I can get OTA to work that’ll probably be the direction I lean.  With gas prices on the rise, and in tow food prices, cost of living, etc. the savings from cable could be a nice little offset to the rising cost of pretty much everything.  I would miss me some Discovery Channel, but that’s a sacrifice I think I’m willing to make.

Do you think you could drop cable?  Could you go TV-less?