Doing The "Cable Math"

Although we've toyed with the idea before, my wife and I are considering our options for ditching cable and watching our shows in alternative ways that will save us tons of money.

Currently, getting a basic Netflix and Hulu Plus subscription would cost WAAY less every month than keeping cable. Between those services and the free online options, we'd be doing pretty well except for a few things.

First, even if we get an additional cable to easily run a laptop to our TVs, we'll still lose the ease of using a remote and will have to hook it up anytime we want to watch TV. My 360 might be an option, but its an older model with the risk of heat damage, so I don't want to use it for common TV watching. (Although replacing my 360 every six months would STILL cost less than keeping cable.) So a casual "flip on, surf, slip off" will not be likely.

Second, even with a great connection speed, minor stuttering and buffering is going to be a factor on a semi-regular basis while watching online content.

Third, my wife watches basically two channels: HGTV, whose programming CAN be found online somewhere. And TLC, whose programming is NOWHERE to be found online. Nowhere! Not Hulu, not on the TLC website, not on i-tunes...NOWHERE! Seasons also haven't been released on video for four years, so that's not an option either. So giving up cable, despite the savings, would cost half of what my wife watches TV for.

So we can't quite bring ourselves to do it yet (unless we can get my parents to regularly DVR some shows for us), but I'd imagine it's only a matter of time before we're all singing the death mass for cable TV.