From the beginning, my plan was to have my Internet TV set up, separate from my "standard" TV which is connected to a DirecTV satellite receiver and DVR (digital video recorder). Installation of the DVR (a TIVO unit back in the days) changed our family's television watching habits.
Rather than surfing the available channels in search of the program that was showing at the exact time I wanted to watch it, I was finally able to collect and store the shows I wanted to watch at my convenience. Today I rarely watch television shows as they are being broadcast. Either I record them for watching days (sometimes weeks) later, or I record the first 20 minutes or so of an hour-long program I want to watch right away. Using this technique (giving the program a head start) I can fast-forward through the commercials and catch up just as the show is ending.
In retrospect, my DirecTV DVR experience was my first encounter with Television On Demand -- and it has been a game-changer. The question is whether Internet TV can deliver the same satisfying viewing experience.
With sufficient bandwidth (7Mbps), my Roku can deliver a good high-definition picture with minimal pauses and hiccups and jitters. My $8/month Hulu+ subscription provides me access to most every old or recently-aired TV show I care to watch (and some I've never heard of before). Besides free shipping, my annual $99 Amazon Prime membership includes a broad array of second-run full-length movies. When I want to watch a first-run show, paying $5 for 24-hour access to an HD movie is still cheap enough. Then there's all the obscure Roku channels that have tons of programming I don't have time to watch.
So you may ask, "Aren't you ready to cut the cord and send your $100/month DirecTV service packing?" That's a good question.
(To be continued...)
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