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It has been about 2 years now that I have not had cable or dish TV. I cut the cable and dished the dish to save money. I thought it would be hard to get use to, but I was wrong, we never really missed it. The hard part was finding the right components to make up for the missing TV stations.
Over the past 2 years or so I have been trying out different combinations of digital converter boxes, antennas and laptops to augment my viewing selection. And now I do believe I have found the almost perfect solution.
I use the Leaf antenna, its paper thin and I have gotten the best reception yet, and it was cheep. I now have 2 antennas at home, 2 very costly and the Leaf… The other 2 are in the basement collecting dust! With the Leaf I receive all my local stations and there digital sister stations. So I think I am currently at like 12 stations. Not bad for free…
The digital converter box was also an issue, the first one I purchased worked, sort of, it seemed to lag behind the remote click by like 3 or 4 seconds. And it would “digitize” the image often, causing the picture to go crazy. I purchased a new converter box and all is good.
I have connected an older laptop to the TV, so now I can stream internet TV via my laptop. It works out fine, sure sometimes you get that buffering thing going on, but over all I have access to thousands of stations.
I have also connected my Wii system to the net and have download a program called PlayOn TV, this program allows me to download different stations, such as MLB or Netflix’s and if you have accounts with them, you can stream them to your TV via Wii. It also has links to many websites that stream video, such as syfi and FOX news. They are not live feeds, but links to there online videos. The best part is, other people can write scripts to add to the PlayOn system. So I have access to hundreds of TV stations now, more than I would with Dish or Cable. I also have a program called My Wii Center, it also streams TV stations. The My Wii Center is not as robust and PlayOn, yet. But they tell me it will be. But My Wii Center offers the ability to watch also on your PC, and more stations appear on the PC than on the Wii. I have also downloaded other programs for the Wii, that allows me to play music, FineTune.
No I must say the PlayOn does charge a yearly fee, it is a small fee and My Wii center is free. But the price of PlayOn is worth it, it’s a lot cheaper than cable or dish.
Life is not perfect, I do have issues from time to time with my little set up, but I am willing to deal with them and not have a $150 cable/inter net bill. I did have to upgrade my internet speed and get a new wireless router to help with the performance, but the increase in internet fee is still cheaper than cable and internet. So over all I am saving money, and I never have to worry about cable going out or price increases. The internet I would have to have anyway for my computer and phone, yes I have no Land Line, I use MagicJack, once again saving me money.
I will keep searching the net to find new and exciting programs to download on my Wii or laptop to add to my TV experience, so if you know of any, let me know.
God Bless
Paul
An American Point of View 
Hi Paul,
We cut the cable too. Here’s the detail of what we did (http://beyonddave.com/2011/05/cutting-the-cable/). Basically we use a Roku with Netflix streaming, Huluplus and MLB subscriptions. I would suggest using Clicker.com to find out how to get your favorite shows.
My antenna choice was poor, it is in the way unattractive and does not pick up very well. I may just give the leaf you suggest a try.
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I looked in to Roku and the other devices, but I alread had a Wii, and with Playon.tv I get all I want and need, along with my laptop hooked up to the TV, life is good. I am still looking to update and improve what I have, but it works, fo rhte most part. Now if I can just figure out how to cut my internet bill with out cutting my speed… I did learn that I need the higher speed to get a better quality playback, but I wish I could find a way to payless for more…
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