The Fishpond

Ok, here is my story about how I saved $150 per month and still have all the HDTV I want.
We have 2 HDTV's in the house, an older 50" DLP downstairs for gaming and movies and a 37" in the bedroom.  When we purchased, each of them came with 1 year 'free' Cogeco DVR/HDTV box and high def channel package subscription. 
The TV's are older now, 3+ and 2 years respectively. We kept the 'free' PVR's but we were paying full costs of rental plus the cable bill costs.  Cable TV was costing us $100 per month tax included.  We didn't have any movie channels or anything extra, just what we needed to get the HD channels plus the two PVRs.
If you've talked to us about the PVR's you know both my wife and I have been LONG time evangelists for this technology.  We got our first one at least a year before the first HDTV... we liked it just for the recording function.  We haven't watched live TV in over 4 years.  We've hardly even seen a commecial in that time.
With two young kids and a busy life, it's nice to not be tied down to the TV networks' schedule. Watch what we want, when we want.  No more missing shows because a kid needs to be put back to bed etc.

Recently we have been looking at the household budget and that $200 per month bill to Cogeco was a big eye sore.  However there's very little you can do to minimize it by removing features etc.  We didnt' have any extra features to cut without losing HDTV and the PVR's.  (Our bill was for Cable, Home Phone/VOIP, and Internet)
Then I was talking to a friend in Ottawa, a couple who are really into the digital lifestyle, a lot like Bonnie and I.  They cancelled their cable years ago and use iTunes and the Apple TV for all their TV watching.
So, I looked into it...
For $209 I can buy one of these:
http://www.apple.com/appletv/
from the Apple Store's refurb department:
http://store.apple.com/ca/browse/home/specialdeals/ipod/apple_tv
This is a box that sits under your HDTV, connects via HDMI or component and allows you to view on your TV anything that you have in your iTunes application on your Mac/PC.  It syncs like an ipod (Music, photos, videos, podcasts etc) but can also stream from the computer what it can't fit on the small built in hard drive. Now it can also view YouTube directly and buy shows and movies from the Apple iTunes store directly on the device from your couch!

Another benefit to iTunes is we can now add our iMac as one of the 'TV's in the house, as shows can be watched on it. Also the kids both have small 3G ipods with video capability, so they can watch THEIR shows anywhere right on their own iPods.  Bonnie and I will hopefully get iPhones eventually, another great place to sync our shows for watching say on lunch etc.  No need to sit at the TV to catch up on a show!

iTunes USA has ALL THE SHOWS you might want.  However in Canada we are now getting more and more content in our iTunes store so no hoops need to be jumped to get good content here.

Doing the analysis, if we were to buy the 7 shows we normally record on the PVR plus 4 shows for the kids, we'd be paying $750 per year.  That beats the $1200 per year I pay Cogeco!  Plus the $540 for the phone we cancelled = huge savings.

Ok, that's on demand TV.  Buying shows from iTunes, or soon we'll be able to buy on our XBox 360 here in Canada too. But what about live TV?  What about sports, news etc.

Well we happen to live in the GTA, one of the densest areas of HDTV broadcasting anywhere.
You may have heard about the "Digital Transition" that's going on this month in the USA and next year here in Canada?  Much confusion about this, but it means that broadcasters are required to stop transmitting analog TV signals and switch to the new ATSC standard signal, which is a digital technology.  Most stations are already broadcasting in this format and are using the highest level of the standard, AKA High Def TV! (they can also broadcast Standard Def TV, SDTV which is 480p. Still better than analog :)
(FYI This digital transition only affects people who get their tv by antenna.  It does NOT affect cable or satellite subscribers at all, but the point I'm making is that it is worth ditching cable/satellite for this new tech :)

OTA stands for Off-The Air or Over The Air.  http://www.remotecentral.com/hdtv/index.html is a good list of the channels you can get in our area in crystal clear 720p or 1080i HDTV, many with 5.1 Dolby Digital sound too.
All you need is an HDTV with a built in hi-def tuner (Called an ATSC tuner) or an external ATSC tuner box (for under $100) plugged into your older HDTV.
You can buy all you need from http://overtheair.saveandreplay.com/ or other stores in the GTA.
We went with a 4 bay antenna like this:
http://overtheair.saveandreplay.com/channel_master_4221HD.asp
It's up on my roof, pointing between Buffalo and Toronto (we are west of Toronto and North of Buffalo)
With this I am able to get NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox, PBS, The CW, MyTV, CityTV, CTV, CHCH, Omni 1 and Omni 2.
I am currently NOT getting GlobalHDTV and Sun HDTV.  I'm getting analog only for these.  I think re-aiming or a signal booster will get these in perfectly. But these two channels aren't really that important to me.
You have to see the quality of the picture to believe what you can get over the air now.  It's actually better than you get over cable! (Cable and satellite compress the digital image much more than OTA broadcast needs to do)
My friend Melvin has been doing this for a few years now.  He gets similar results but is able to use an indoor antenna sa he lives closer to Toronto.  Your milage may vary :)

On the phone front, we decided to join the ever growing percentage of people in North America who don't have a 'land line'.  Why pay $60 per month each for 2 cell phones PLUS $45 per month for VOIP or any other 'land line' when we're hardly ever home. 
More and more of our friends and family are getting on Skype, so we can use that for some long distance
Get yours at Skype
Then there is this free alternative real PHONE line you can get... Free Phone Line Canada
This installs a little application on your pc (no Mac client :( and you use a headset on your PC to make and receive normal phone calls.  For free!  Free long distance to many major Canadian metro areas too. 
Quality seems ok for a free product.  Interesting to try anyways :)

Internet: well for now, Cogeco is still getting some money from us.  Our $200 bill is now $55 per month.  If we start downloading a lot of shows from iTunes, we might get up near the 60gb monthly cap they put on 'standard' internet accounts at Cogeco (Which is a conflict of interest, as it prevents me from sourcing my TV from elsewhere, and it's been proven that it makes little difference to the ISP if you use a lot or a little data per month, but i digress)
If we go over too often, I might try to find another ISP, many of the 3rd party DSL carriers are slower but advertise that they have no monthly caps.  So we'll see how it goes in the fall.

I hope that all is clear and hopefully gives you some food for thought about how to take advantage of the new technologies out there to improve your digital lifestyle and save you money!

Check out this Star article for more info: http://www.thestar.com/printArticle/640344

We're just a week away from race season here on Lake Ontario.  I wonder if sailing popularity will increase in these green but lean times? 

• Sailing ISN'T expensive.  I do it for free by volunteering to crew on other people's boats.  Owner/Skippers need crew.  They can't race without us!
• Owning isn't that expensive either.  You can buy a decent 26' Tanzer for less than C$10,000 and race it in your local fleet.  Annual costs are less than $2,000 to keep it going. (unless you need new sails etc)
  
• The original GREEN tech!  Even larger sailboats only have small engines.  Most of the time we're wind powered, the oldest 'green' tech on Earth!

Beats golfing ANY day :)

Bronte Race Fleet July 2008 2008-07-10 010 (Large)

Where does the time go?  Current blogging technology makes it so easy to post, yet I haven't managed to put anything up here in almost a year!  That's crazy. 
I blame Microblogging.  It's just so easy to pop up a thought or two on Twitter and Facebook that it leaves very little need for much else. 
I also blame life... work, kids, family, other interests...these things take up so much time!  I am not complaining, I just need to find a better system of time management.
So dear blog, lets try to get together more often, sound good?

If your Vox Neighborhood had a potluck dinner tonight, what dish, drink or dessert would you bring?

: I'd bring a nice bottle of Red Wine.  Probably JP Chernet.  I'd also bring my wife's AWESOME chili.  Blair's Death Sauce hotsauce on the side ;)

Ok, so we're at The Police concert at the ACC in Toronto last night.  Our seats looked down at the 'Bowl' stage from the side.  It wasn't bad...but it wasn't $108.00 seats IMHO. 
Generally speaking, the show was great.  Sting's son's band opened up (FictionPlane), they were pretty good, even tho' the sound was bad.
The Police were amazing.  They played all the hits, just like they sounded back in the day.  Our seats were HIGH up in the 300's.  Almost beside the stage as you can see....but with the screen and the open stage, we could see just as well as anybody I guess.  Until the dancing fools came...

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This video poorly shows the girls in front of us.  Dancing like they just took a hit of speed and E.  They danced the same way to every song.  Bopping up and down and side to side quickly even to slower songs, nowhere near the beat of the song.  Really distracted us from the enjoyment of the show.  Even when most of the arena was sitting down, they were still up... Later in the show, we politely asked if they would mind sitting like EVERYBODY else so we could see and they told us to go buy the DVD if we wanted to sit. 

I <3 Dido ;)

IMHO the "Wii" should and easily could be called the 'xbox 360'.

either way, enjoy: