Television Technology, Tivo, and More

Image by Lyn Millett via Flickr

Technology Thursday

I need some advice on television and/or watching things on a big screen in my house. That is, watching video that is not on a laptop or teensy-weensy iPod or iPhone screen. Jason Cross at PC World recently asserted that Tivo Premiere is still the best way to watch tv. Now, I am a huge, huge fan of Tivo. My husband and I got a first-generation Tivo, for free back in 2000 or 2001 when he wrote a poem for a give-away contest they were doing (as a way to get their product into consumer hands.) We bought a second-generation Tivo a little later, although never actually set up any networking on it. We even have a little Tivo stuffed doll that I bought as a cute gift for my husband one Valentine's Day. (Yes, we are even geeks about Valentine's Day - that's a whole 'nother post.) But, as I think I mentioned in this space before, we've cancelled cable. We simply cannot justify the cost given our schedules since my son was born. So it's made our very old Tivo and are only-somewhat-old Tivo useless bricks. I think we've disconnected them entirely, in fact.

But this new Tivo apparently also interfaces with Netflix streaming and Amazon on Demand.

The only way my husband I watch tv these days is by using Netflix DVDs in the little red envelopes, which now seems hopelessly old-fashioned and dated. Some have recommended Roku as another way to get streaming contact. And I think Roku also streams Major League Baseball, which we like to watch if we have a chance. I'm sure there must be other options as well.

And setting aside which 'box' we might get to mediate the various streams, there's also the question of which kind of television set to get to watch it all on. The one tv we have left in the house is old and heavy and definitely not high-definition anything. Every year or so we peek in to a Best Buy catalog to try to see what the state of the art in televisions is. Plasma? LCD? Projection? I have no idea. And while it doesn't change as fast as computers and software technology do, I still can't keep up. John Scalzi recently upgraded his television -- the one he chose looks pretty cool to me, and I'm happy to be all LazyWeb about it and have someone else do the research. But by the time we get around to actually upgrading the television -- it will be a surprise to me if it's this calendar year -- I'm sure that model will be obsolete.

For now I'm just going to keep occasionally scanning the news for what new gadgets (both DVRs and TV sets) become available and someday I'm sure we'll decide to jump and upgrade. We might even turn cable back on then, who knows?

Comments

[TheRumTrader]

Roku is the best thing going today. Netflix streaming, Pandora, Facebook and Major League Baseball are fantastic on the tiny box. Now if they could add HULU I'd be all set.

[INeedMoreCoffee]

I think the answer to your question is, "How much money do you want to spend?"

We got a Roku because it's cheap (ours was $99) and it offers Netflix ($9 a month) and Pandora (free). Amazon on Demand could get expensive at $4 a movie, but some shows are free, usually pilots or season premiers of new series. Most of the other channels, though, aren't worth watching (although sometimes I watch things on Revision 3, and we aren't big baseball fans).

The Roku is also really easy to set up.

Unless you find a great deal on a Blu-ray player that can stream Netflix, I think the Roku may be the least-expensive way to watch good-quality streaming video on your big screen.