We shut off the cable TV at my apartment for the summer since less people would be there. It was mildly sad having to drive the cable box over to the Time Warner service center and drop it off since it meant no live TV for a couple of months. Luckily the internet exists and with it comes a variety of ways to keep up with my favorite shows, both new and old.
My adorable little media player.
Last year, I purchased a nifty little media player from Western Digital called the WD TV Live. It hooks up to my TV and to the internet, with built-in access to YouTube, Pandora, and Flickr. It can also hook up to networked devices, so I can stream my iTunes library through it too. I thought it was the best purchase I’d ever made, until WD came out with the TV Live Plus. It’s exactly the same device, but with built-in Netflix support. Then I realized, my little box should be capable of so much more.
I did some googling and discovered a piece of software called PlayOn that would stream premium internet content through pretty much any networked media player. So I gave it a shot, and lo and behold I can now watch Hulu, Netflix, and a myriad of other sites on my TV. So now I can keep up to date with all my shows airing new episodes just by accessing my Hulu queue, and also have access to episodes of old favorites (like Buffy the Vampire Slayer) any time I want to thanks to Netflix.
I’ve been using this setup for almost a week and I am definitely loving every second of it. It’s made my Netflix subscription worth so much more and also saved me from having to shell out an additional $150 for a new media player. In fact, when I move out of my current apartment to a place of my own, I may just keep this setup and not sign up for a cable subscription. I mean seriously, $8 a month for Netflix + free, ad-supported Hulu is definitely a better deal than $60 a month for cable.