Cut the cord

I cancelled Time Warner Digital cable a few months ago and now use ClearQAM for broadcast. You can read Fred Wilson’s post on what ClearQAM is— basically if you cancel cable and plug it into your TV it still works.

With a Samsung TV and Apple TV ($99) I get Netflix, Hulu and iTunes all on my TV in higher quality than cable. With ClearQAM I can watch Obama speeches, Football (except for ESPN) and PBS for free. As it turns out, that’s about all I used cable for anyway and haven’t missed it much. Like “real” cable, there’s about a hundred other useless channels too. I do miss the DVR, but guess what? Apple just added AirPlay mirroring to OSX Mountain Lion. That means with an EyeTV ($89) and an HDTV antenna ($35) you can DVR TV on your computer and play it back on your TV anytime. If you live in NYC and can get an antenna near a window, you’ll get a lot of HDTV (it’s broadcast from the top of the Empire State Building, old school!) You can also do things like send Hulu and Amazon Prime movies (which aren’t on the Apple TV) to any screen.

To recap: for the price of 2 months of digital cable you can get unlimited and legal broadcast TV at higher quality than cable on your TV. If you want more content, pay for Netflix, Hulu or Amazon. It’s still less than cable.