How to save money watching TV

We were spending $50 every month on cable TV!  And that was just to get "Enhanced Basic". If you are using cable TV you're probably spending lots of money each month also. If you are interested in reducing your monthly expenses you should consider getting rid of cable TV and using an antenna instead. There will be an initial expense but there will be NO more monthly cable TV bill!

In the Chicago area there are 22 English non-religious non-marketing TV channels. Besides the regular networks, there are many PBS channels and channels showing old movies & TV shows.

Here is what I did:

• Upgraded my antenna

I had an old UHF/VHF antenna in my attic which had trouble receiving all the channels in the Chicago area.

Most all digital TV channels moved to the UHF band so I bought a specialized UHF antenna - the DB4 Multi-directional HDTV antenna by Antennas Direct for $50.  It has a 55 mile range and can be used either outdoors or in the attic. It is fastened to a pipe that is hanging down from a roof rafter.

Then I hooked the 2 antennas together by using a Channel Master 7777 Titan 2 which is a TV antenna preamplifier with separate UHF and VHF inputs ($52). It consists of 2 components. This part is in the attic near the antennas. The UHF gain 26 dB & VHF gain 23dB. The FM trap is turned off for best reception of channel 2 (still broadcasting in the VHF band although it moved to the upper VHF band). The metal box is grounded to electrical conduit.

Then in the family room the antenna cable goes into the second component of the Channel Master.  This unit (shown on the far right) plugs into an electrical output to power the pre-amplifier in the attic (via DC current over the antenna cable). Then I use a splitter to send the TV signal to ultimately 5 TV throughout the house!  

For more information on what channels are available and what type of antenna you need see the AntennaWeb.

• Record shows with a VCR

If  you want to record a TV show to watch later, you can use your old VCR tape recorders, but there is a problem.  Most VCR recorders do not receive digital TV channels so you must use a digital TV converter box to convert the digital TV channel into analog before going into the VCR. I use a Magnavox digital converter box (seen on the left). The output from this box goes into the cable input in the Panasonic VCR. Then the output from the VCR goes into my little TV sitting on top.

However, there is another problem. You must select the TV channel to be recorded in the digital converter box. The VCR always records channel 3 which is the default TV channel outputted from the digital converter box. So you can only set up to record one channel at a time!

• Record shows with a computer

There are probably digital TV recorders available now but when I put this together in the Spring of 2010 I did not see any. In any case, I wanted to use a computer so that I could watch stuff off the internet using Hulu, Boxee or the internet browser. Also wanted to be able to show pictures from my picture album to everyone in the family room.

So I bought a Mac Mini (about $600). It is 6.5 inches square by 2 inches tall with two 2.26Ghz processors, 2GB ram, 160GB disk, DVD reader/writer, 1 Firewire port, 5 USB ports, etc. It is connected to my Sharp LCD HDTV via a DVI cable.  It is connected to the internet via my house ethernet.

For more storage space I added a terabyte disk drive. That is 1024 gigabytes or 1,099,511,627,776 bytes! It is about 6" x 7" x 2" in size. This is a nice drive supporting 4 different connection types, having no fan (little noise), faster drive (7200 rpm) and 3 year warranty. Cost me $150. Can get cheaper ones around $100.

To control my Mac Mini remotely I loaded the "TouchPad" app in my iPod Touch. This communicates wirelessly with the Mac Mini.  So now I can sit back on my sofa and move the mouse and type things into my computer programs.  

Finally I bought the Elgato EyeTV hybrid TV tuner stick ($130).  It is the item on the left in the picture below.  The TV signal coming out of the TV antenna preamplifier is feed into it.  Out of it going left is a USB cable that hooks into the Mac Mini.

Included software provides a full featured digital video recorder.  You get a program guide from which you can easily select channels to record.  It is easy to set it up to automatically record weekly or daily shows.  You can find upcoming programs via different search methods and then store your recorded shows into albums.   For example, I have a search method to find upcoming mystery movies and those that I record go into my Mystery album.

You can watch a show while it is recording a different show or even the same show.  You can easily skip over advertisements.  It comes with a remote so that you can operate the software from your sofa.

The Elgato also includes a video editor so you can edit out the commercials in a movie for example that you recorded and then using iDVD put it on a DVD!

For more information see the Elgato web site.