IT Professionals

Going Beyond TV

Posted by on Jan 9, 2009 | 10 Comments

For the better part of the last two years, I have been looking for a viable alternative to paying out tremendous rates in the interest of enjoying some of my favorite TV programming. After looking into about a half dozen possibilities, I have lately found myself opting to connect my existing Ubuntu notebook into my TV via a VGA cable. Being it is a HI-Def TV, setting up Hulu.com to run full screen in Hi-Def mode does not look bad at all. I would say about DVD/S-Cable quality.

This is what led me to giving serious consideration to a little box called Popcorn Hour. The device comes in a multitude of models, ranging in price. And even can be bundled with a wireless N adapter as to make networking easier. Here is where it gets interesting. It turns out that a user can install something called PlayOn which is compatible with the Popcorn Hour. This apparently brings the user Netflix and Hulu functionality to the Popcorn Hour device itself.

Is it worth it? I think so, while I still cannot get my wife to part with our existing Satellite setup unfortunately. I believe being able to pay once for TV shows I enjoy using Hulu, bundled with the ability to use Netflix as well translates into a pretty good value. HDMI, nice picture, decent audio – yeah, I would rather take the monthly fees I am dumping on monthly TV service and apply it elsewhere myself.

Should everyone be willing to take this route over standard TV? Might be worth considering. Hit the comments and share your experiences using this product or Hulu on your Tv set.

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  • http://worldtv.com/blog Alx Klive

    I think 2009 will be the year when we start to hear a lot more about watching online video on our TV’s. Have blogged about this and some of the issues… http://worldtv.com/blog/technology/watch_online_video_on_your_tv.php

  • Tommy

    Since computers digital anyway.And monitors are cheaper and bigger.Why not watch free TV via computer?

  • http://geeks.pirillo.com/profile/Kissa Kissa

    My husband uses Playon through his xBox360 and loves it.
    I too did a blog post on it: http://geeks.pirillo.com/profiles/blogs/2300301:BlogPost:788919

    The only problem is that there is still a couple shows that are not on the web at all so we have to keep our able to watch them. I would rather get rid of it my self and save like$1080 a year.

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  • Philip

    I have connected a computer up to the HDTV and watched Hulu movies. I was very happy with the quality of the picture as I did not expect the picture to be very good at all. It was not a great picture but it was better than most broadcast quality shows. That did impress me.
    The only thing that concerns me is the constant background noise I keep hearing about some ISP’s charging “unlimited” internet plan users for “excessive” bandwidth. In some cases, they are limiting the speed in order to clamp down on “high” bandwidth users. This is going to put a serious damper on the ability of these media server services to provide quality content. It may eventually render them obsolete if all of the ISP’s begin to implement these sort of policies.

  • Peat Moss

    I think the best way to watch streaming tv at least on a Mac or Apple TV is Boxee. It supports Hulu, Netflix, Joost, as well as practically all other non-porno tv/movie streams available. It can be extended using RSS feeds. http://boxee.tv

  • DreamingFox

    Matt,
    You are on satellite service and you watch TV? My husband and I gave up our cable TV service a couple of years ago, and have been happily watching “TV” on the computer until recently. This may be going slightly off subject, but we moved recently and satellite was the only game in town for us (except Verizon, which didn’t meet our needs), so we signed up. (Long, ugly story omitted) We have been thoroughly unhappy with the mid-range service due to slow speed and an undisclosed (at time of signing) cap on monthly use, which we managed to exceed in about half a month – with minimal downloading by our standards (I never thought I’d say this, but boy do I miss Comcast!). I wonder how you manage to download TV shows and keep in line with the service’s fair access policy…

  • http://www.matthartley.com Matt Hartley

    DreamingFox: Sorry, I should clarify. I am speaking of satellite TV as in Directv. I receive Internet via Verizon FiOS. I was interested in utilizing my existing 20/20 up/down package with FiOS to its fullest, then canceling my Directv service.

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