Cabling My Life

We’ve decided to drop the land line completey and switch to VoIP too. My Vonage package should arrive tomorrow. I’ll be certain to write up my thoughts about it soon.

In the meantime, we’ve got cable TV too. I haven’t had cable TV or satellite TV in over three years now. I’ve got a nice large high def TV and use it only for my PS2 and my DVD system. For the next three months at least we’ll have digital cable and I’m not sure if we’ll keep it. Here’s why:

One night last week I decided to watch some TV. After searching for a few minutes I noticed that a movie I had been wanting to watch was already playing. It was half over (1 hour of a 2 hour movie), but I figured I’d watch it anyway. That’s strike one. See, when I rent DVD’s (Jenny and I watch lots of DVD’s), I get to choose when I’ll watch the movie and I don’t have to worry about missing part of it. The DVD fits into my schedule. Anyway, as I was watching there were quite a few times when I missed what someone said or wanted to see a part again. Strike two. With DVD’s I can easily pause, rewind, or turn on the subtitles to review part of the movie I didn’t catch the first time. Not so with cable TV. And then of course came the ads. Strike three. It really bothers me that I could be paying $40.00 to $50.00 a month (minimum) for digital cable and still have to watch ads. Why would I pay for advertisement that interrupt my enterainment and that I can’t skip by? I guess I’m too used to the internet or plain old books where I don’t have to put up with such marketing nonsense.

Now, I could buy a tivo or similar device and I could get all those features I miss about DVD’s, but why bother? What am I really getting out of it? It would cost a whole lot more for that service than just subscribing to Netflix or Blockbuster’s similar offer in which case I get unlimited movies a month. I just don’t see the value in cable television.

Anyone care to enlighten me?