TV/Movies frugally

[peanut]

How do you all do this frugally? I am a SAHW and I like to occasionally watch TV. Right now I don't because in order to do it I have to turn on a tuner and the TV. Two pieces of equipment to watch Oprah or whatever.

I also don't watch TV because we just have the basic 3 channels, 2 really. Cable is too expensive for my tastes, but I'd love some of the HGTV and Food network shows. Maybe Discovery and History channels. I am sickened that I have to buy a bunch of channels I don't want just to get the four or five I do. Is it possible to get these channels without the $75+/mth. cable bill?

We've been talking about replacing the TV, or just getting rid of it and using a computer (our daughter does this). But not sure how that would work. Can anyone enlighten me?

This is in the Canadian forum because I recognize options and opportunities are different than in the US.

I've settled on watching second run movies at the theatre for $4 for date night, or bringing DVDs home from the library (usually scratched and unwatchable). Sometimes we buy the $5 DVDs from Zellers/Walmart. Any other options that might be cheaper? We watch about 4 movies a month max. Often ones from our own collection as well.

[monkeywrangler71]

We're still paying for high end cable, although at this point I'm not sure why anymore, we almost never watch it.

Do you have high speed Internet? Lots of channels have videos available on their websites. But it wouldn't be watchable on dial-up. We have a cable to connect our computer to the tv so that we can watch stuff from the computer on the tv screen.

Nearly everything we watch comes off the computer rather than through cable.

[greekislandgirl]

I agree with going the internet route - it's completely free if you already have high speed internet, and even if you don't, if it's something you can find for a reasonable price, it would be more useful to have that, than to have cable - cable only does one thing (TV shows) but internet does a million things (you can also use high speed internet to make long distance and international phone calls for free, a la Skype, so you might be able to get rid of or reduce your phone service). Also, there are no (or extremely few and very short) commercials, and you can watch whatever you want, whenever you want. You can also put a TV card in your computer and watch thousands of TV channels all over the world for free.

We only have broadcast TV here (no cable) and we only get ONE channel and that doesn't come through very clearly. I know what you mean about not wanting to power the appliance for something so unappealing.

[peanut]

What's a TV card and where do you get them?

[greekislandgirl]

TV card = TV tuner card, I think I may have used the wrong term, sorry. [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV_tuner_card"]TV tuner card - Wikipedia, the free [email protected]@[email protected]@/wiki/File:Question_book-new.svg" class="image"><img alt="Question book-new.svg" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/9/99/Question_book-new.svg/50px-Question_book-new.svg.png"@@[email protected]@en/thumb/9/99/Question_book-new.svg/50px-Question_book-new.svg.png[/ame]

To watch channels from around the world, just google terms like "watch tv online" and the name of the channel or the program or the language or whatever you're interested in. I used to have bookmarked a page that linked to thousands of channels but I guess it was on a different computer, otherwise I'd post it! I never used it because I never had a fast enough connection - so you do need a good speed.

[MomToTwoBoys]

You can pretty much get a large majority of the tv shows via particular channel websites. I know Global TV has a lot of shows and you can even get the iPod Touch/iPhone app that allows you to stream these shows for you. CTV.ca also has tv shows that you can watch. I'd just check out all of the major networks' websites and see what you can and cannot watch. As for the channels from the US, I'm not certain but I do know alot of shows they show in the US can be streamed via Canadian channels.

[krbshappy71]

I haven't had any television access for about two years now and don't miss it. I'm all internet. Hulu.com for some shows, the actual channels for other shows such as aetv.com for my Intervention and used to watch Hoarders, etc.

My kids had iPods they would watch shows on using our wireless router. Now thanks to the bf we have wireless dvd player and a Netflix account so we can watch that on the television. Before we just used the tv for dvd's and vhs movies.

** oops sorry just noticed you posted this in Canadian and I'm not Canadian, sorry!*

[peanut]

That's okay krbs. I've checked out Hulu before. I'm after the crafting and quilting and sewing shows...and knitting ones.

[jmac]

I believe you can get hgtv and food network online. Go to the Canadian sites. They have some episodes

[anniecannie]

I am new to the forum.... just found it today... loved that I found it... but I noticed this question and I know for us we do not have cable and we really do not miss any shows... and not because we no longer watch them but because we can watch them on our tv... we purchased a unit called Boxee Box which is basically streams tv shows from the internet onto our tv.... for us this was the thing that worked best... easiest to use.

Currently here is a list of the channels that it streams: CBC, CityTV, Comedy Network, Crunchyroll, CTV, Discovery, Engadget, Food Network, Global, HGTV, History, MTV, Revision 3, Showcase, Slice, Space, Spike TV, TED, Tou TV, TVO, TvTropolis, VICE and YTV. It also comes with a lot of movies for free as well as many apps such as weather, youtube, vivo and more if you have a netflix account is streams that too. Like I said it was the best option for us... we spent $200 but that was it... we pay for nothing but our internet connection which we were already using anyway.

Hope that helps!

[thevillage]

Net Flix is a great alternative to cable. and its cheap $8 a month.