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eephour wrote:I would look into getting an HD antenna for your TV if you want the basics like sports and news and shit. They're less then a bill and supposedly pull in a decent picture depending on your locale.I built my own antenna and it works great. Only part I had to buy was the coax-uhf adapter thingy and it was less then $2. I skipped the reflector thing since it sits on my fire escape and I dont want it blowing around.

no, I totally fucking blew it. . .

Forgot to mention wifi. We do a collective thing on our block. Two neighbor engineers set it up, and charge 40 bucks a year per house. Most of the twenty-five houses have bought in. I'm guessing most who have it also do wifi from their service too. Works great, rarely slow.If you're in a cool apartment complex or cool with neighbors, might be something to look into.

I would look into getting an HD antenna for your TV if you want the basics like sports and news and shit. They're less then a bill and supposedly pull in a decent picture depending on your locale.

caset wrote:eephour wrote:I would look into getting an HD antenna for your TV if you want the basics like sports and news and shit. They're less then a bill and supposedly pull in a decent picture depending on your locale.I built my own antenna and it works great. Only part I had to buy was the coax-uhf adapter thingy and it was less then $2. I skipped the reflector thing since it sits on my fire escape and I dont want it blowing around.Thats awesome, had no idea you could do that.Hey, did you check out UOA last night at death by audio?

I have an iPhone with AT&T and live in the greater metropolitan Los Angeles area so of course I don't get a signal at my house. Therefore, since I need to be able to use a phone at home, I have a landline from Verizon with DSL service, a PS3 connected to it to stream Netflix, watch DVDs and Blu Rays. I get my TV from the free digital broadcasts which, if you have a good signal and an HDTV, looks and sounds just as good as cable. They also have more channels than analog broadcasts did so it's kind of almost like the cheapest cable packages except it's free.To summarize :Start up costs -PS3 (used) - $225 + tax Monthly charges -Phone & DSL - $51.01/monthNetflix 5 DVDs at a time plus unlimited streaming - $32.91/monthPS3 online service - FREEDigital Antenna HD Quality Broadcasts - FREEIt's more expensive to buy the PS3 then the Xbox or AppleTV but the Xbox has the online service costs which the last time I had it was at least $12/month, maybe more. The PS3 has no monthly online charges. What if you go a month or two without using it online? You still pay those fees.The AppleTV lets you buy and rent from iTunes and watch your Netflix and is only $99 to buy but you can't play DVD's or Blu Rays or video games with it like the PS3. So you get more entertainment options with the PS3, which to me provides the maximum home entertainment value aside from my music collection.

Take a look at the Boxee Box by dlink and the upcoming Iomega box that will use Boxee as the platform. The Boxee system is really cool. If you know how to download you can do everything for free. No subs with netfllix or itunes charges. You can probably pull this off with the Roku as long as you can attach an external HD or a computer via usb.You can download boxee to your pc just to see how it works with your computer first and decide if you like the interface and it's functionality. I really like the way it deals with all of my video files, super easy to access everything and will play any format you throw at it. The other thing that is nice is the audio offset sync control to fix out of sync movies. It sucks when you pull something down that takes a long time to find/download and then it's out of sync.

I guess that doesn't bother me because I don't use netflix. If you don't like boxee you can use XBMC instead or one of the other platforms. There are a bunch of them nowadays. I second the monoprice recommendation, I got the dvi to hdmi cable for my laptop from them and it works really well, cheap too.

This thread is great. We recently bought an $11 antenna that has a substantially better HD picture than cable. With that, tivo and netflix, we have plenty of options and we're paying a lot less than we were with comcast.

Holy shit, I had no idea about all this jazz with the tvs and videos and games and such. I have not had cable for 16 years, and was pretty happy to get a couple additional PBS channels went the digital standard kicked in. I rent dvds from my neighborhood shop (not a chain, and has lots of indie/foreign stuff) to watch on my small screen.I have to get a job soon; when I do maybe I'll get into this Apple/Roku/Netflix bzns. Though I guess I'll need a newer tv, first.What's a nice tv cost? I want it thin but I will place it on a table or something -- I think wall-mounted flat-screens are gross, especially centered above a fireplace as my neighbors all have done. That's where art goes!