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sterlingice · 09-22-2013, 01:17 PM

Ok- I think I'm mostly decided. I'll take AT&T's promotional rate for one year and explore other options during that time. Rather than hook up all 3 TVs to Uverse, just go with two tvs and take the $10 per month for that tv as "found money" to experiment with (yes, I will exceed the $120 savings but at least I can use it as some justification).

I just keep going back to the recurring costs as being killer. Honestly, if it were just $75 a month or whatever, that wouldn't be so bad. But it always jumps to over $100-$120 and then there's the stupid $20 per month for their PROPRIETARY DVR and $10 for their PROPRIETARY modem, and $10 per month for each additional tv on their PROPRIETARY receiver. So suddenly a $75 bill is $150-$200. And even calling them up and doing the "threatening to leave" thing costs you time and money for less than $50 a month return.

Experiment 1: Antenna
Let's give the over the air thing a try and see how it goes. The cost is fairly minimal ($40 one time investment) and Houston is a great place to try this out with quite a few OTA stations and flat ground makes it easy for signals to carry.
Amazon.com: Terk HDTVa Indoor Amplified High-Definition Antenna for Off-Air HDTV Reception: Electronics
I only looked for about a half hour but this seemed to be a pretty well reviewed indoor antenna. If anyone with a better one in a similar price range, I'm open to it. I am looking to keep it to indoors instead of outdoors, tho.

Experiment 2: DVR
I would love to use Tivo but it's just as bad as a cable company: $12 a month or the one time $500 a year cost. I guess if I'm certain they will still be around and compatible in 5 years without adding on some additional bullsh*t fee (hey! it's free and unlimited... except for some new technology that carries an additional fee or whatnot) and there's no paradigm shift in the industry... so, yeah.

That brings us to this guy:
Amazon.com: Magnavox MDR533H/F7 HDD/DVD Recorder: Electronics
So, Magnavox makes a DVR to record things to hard drive and can burn to DVD. However, they make it just luddite enough to sidestep some possible legal problems. One: no HD- that's fine for me. Two: it doesn't have a tuner so you need to manually set the station and time- but if it's recurring weekly, that's fine with me. Those seem to be the major downsides but otherwise, works great as a DVR. You can pretty much run anything into the box as it has a lot of inputs (but no HDMI- see above), you can burn anything you want to DVD, and you can easily install a larger HDD if 320GB isn't enough.
And there's a pretty active user community at AVS Forum to help with any questions: http://www.avsforum.com/t/940657/mag...lips-3576-3575

The other option would be a PC-based DVR but the cost will be substantially higher as I don't have a desktop sitting around that I could retrofit as I've been using laptops for a few years now (and my last desktop was a server-desktop frankenbox with loud fans and heat sinks due to the size so it's just not conducive to quiet theater watching).

SI

09-22-2013, 01:17 PM	#29
sterlingice Hall Of Famer Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Back in Houston!	Ok- I think I'm mostly decided. I'll take AT&T's promotional rate for one year and explore other options during that time. Rather than hook up all 3 TVs to Uverse, just go with two tvs and take the $10 per month for that tv as "found money" to experiment with (yes, I will exceed the $120 savings but at least I can use it as some justification). I just keep going back to the recurring costs as being killer. Honestly, if it were just $75 a month or whatever, that wouldn't be so bad. But it always jumps to over $100-$120 and then there's the stupid $20 per month for their PROPRIETARY DVR and $10 for their PROPRIETARY modem, and $10 per month for each additional tv on their PROPRIETARY receiver. So suddenly a $75 bill is $150-$200. And even calling them up and doing the "threatening to leave" thing costs you time and money for less than $50 a month return. Experiment 1: Antenna Let's give the over the air thing a try and see how it goes. The cost is fairly minimal ($40 one time investment) and Houston is a great place to try this out with quite a few OTA stations and flat ground makes it easy for signals to carry. Amazon.com: Terk HDTVa Indoor Amplified High-Definition Antenna for Off-Air HDTV Reception: Electronics I only looked for about a half hour but this seemed to be a pretty well reviewed indoor antenna. If anyone with a better one in a similar price range, I'm open to it. I am looking to keep it to indoors instead of outdoors, tho. Experiment 2: DVR I would love to use Tivo but it's just as bad as a cable company: $12 a month or the one time $500 a year cost. I guess if I'm certain they will still be around and compatible in 5 years without adding on some additional bullsht fee (hey! it's free and unlimited... except for some new technology that carries an additional fee or whatnot) and there's no paradigm shift in the industry... so, yeah. That brings us to this guy: Amazon.com: Magnavox MDR533H/F7 HDD/DVD Recorder: Electronics So, Magnavox makes a DVR to record things to hard drive and can burn to DVD. However, they make it just luddite enough to sidestep some possible legal problems. One: no HD- that's fine for me. Two: it doesn't have a tuner so you need to manually set the station and time- but if it's recurring weekly, that's fine with me. Those seem to be the major downsides but otherwise, works great as a DVR. You can pretty much run anything into the box as it has a lot of inputs (but no HDMI- see above), you can burn anything you want to DVD, and you can easily install a larger HDD if 320GB isn't enough. And there's a pretty active user community at AVS Forum to help with any questions: http://www.avsforum.com/t/940657/mag...lips-3576-3575 The other option would be a PC-based DVR but the cost will be substantially higher as I don't have a desktop sitting around that I could retrofit as I've been using laptops for a few years now (and my last desktop was a server-desktop frankenbox with loud fans and heat sinks due to the size so it's just not conducive to quiet theater watching). SI __________________ Houston Hippopotami, III.3: 20th Anniversary Thread - All former HT players are encouraged to check it out! Janos:* "Only America could produce an imbecile of your caliber!" Freakazoid: "That's because we make lots of things better than other people!" Last edited by sterlingice : 09-22-2013 at 01:19 PM.