Steve Mensing, Editor
♦ Over the past several years, legions of TV watchers greatly reduced their monthly television bills and ended their relationships with cable and satellite TV. These “cord cutters” ventured over to receiving their television from IPTV devices such as ROKU, Apple TV, XBMC G Box, smart TV’s, Blue Ray players, and gaming consoles like X Box and WII. ”Cord cutters” also employ indoor digital antennas, sometimes amplified, to receive dozens of free broadcast channels like ABC, NBC, FOX, CBS, and PBS. Here in Rowan County, digital indoor antennas can receive somewhere in the vicinity of 20 plus channels. To get a solid idea of some of the many Free Broadcast channels available in your area check out Digital TV Maps and Titan TV (Put in your zip code):
http://transition.fcc.gov/mb/engineering/dtvmaps/
If you want to DVR your free broadcast channels — you can. Use an antenna DVR device called Simple TV: https://www.simple.tv/
Digital indoor antennas are cheap and can run anywhere from $10 to $60 and can be acquired at Target, Wal-Mart, Amazon, and Best Buy. They are common “rabbit ear antennas” or “flat antennas”. All deliver state-of-the-art 1080P HD in pristine clarity. 1080P HD, the current height of industry TV performance, can’t be topped for picture clarity.
If you want to step up on your TV entertainment, investigate the current kings of the IPTV: ROKU 3, Apple TV, and newcomers XBMC TV and Amazon Fire TV. These small boxes, running around $99 each, stream an immense amount of TV and movie entertainment, much of it free. Both ROKU and Apple TV offer Netflix, Hulu Plus, Youtube, Amazon Prime, and countless excellent Free TV channels containing more streaming flicks, news, and sports, than you can imagine. Both ROKU and Apple TV will save you enormously on your bills.
For an idea of the available ROKU Channels go here: http://www.roku.com/roku-channel-store.
For Apple TV’s fare: http://www.apple.com/appletv/what-is/
For XBMC Matricom G Box: http://matricom.net/products/g-box-midnight-mx2/
For Amazon Fire TV: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CX5P8FC#whatson
To get an idea about cord cutting in general:
http://www.roku-channels.com/hulu-plus-vs-netflix-infographic
If you still desire to keep your cable or satellite TV for the array of sports and movies available then learn the art of renegotiating with your TV provider’s retention specialist:
