At least in my area, cable TV from Comcast is entirely too expensive…. To get the basic digital package it costs $63.45 per month plus taxes, fees, etc. That’s ridiculous! Heck, if you want to add the HBO multiplex or any other premium channels, the packages are $75.99/$85.99/$95.99 for 1, 2 and 3 groups of premiums, respectively. Granted, I’m not that much of a TV watcher myself but I just can’t really justify that kind of money just to watch TV. By the time I add cable internet it’s going to be well over $110 a month at the very least. Add $10 for the “gold” internet tier, which is considerably faster (which I have) and it gets even more out of hand. I’d really like to see cable providers offer a more customized approach to TV packages. In order for me to get some of the stations I like (National Geographic, the specialized “Discovery” channels, Military Channel, etc) I have to upgrade from the $51.99 preferred basic package to the $63.45 Digital Plus package, which includes a ton of crap I could care less about (then again, so does the preferred basic). I think between my girlfriend and I we watch like 10-15 channels, yet we pay for something like 150.
In all honesty, the one thing I don’t quite understand is why exactly there’s a difference between watching digital cable tv through your cable tv converter box and watching a tv show streamed over the internet. They’re both digital data, after all. Why the distinction between the two? Why can’t I buy cable internet and purchase some sort of add-on to my cable internet package and watch shows on my computer? As it stands, I have my cable TV box hooked up through my TV tuner card on my PC because I don’t own an actual TV. I’d really rather just watch shows on-demand on the internet on my PC instead of having to go through all the crap that I’m having to go through now. Either I do that or I go download the shows via bittorrent after the fact. However, that’s every bit as much of a pain in the butt, if not moreso. Plus it’s “illegal”. Bah, cable companies suck.. that’s all there is to it. Then again, so do the movie studios but we won’t get into that right now.