Sascha Segan


I love TV. After about 10 o'clock at night, I just want to kick back and watch some stories: Law & Order, Top Chef, Heroes, 30 Rock. The soothing rhythm of police procedurals lulls me, and the intricate loops of serial dramas draw me in. I would not want to live without TV, but given the financial crisis my consumer confidence is low right now. And I am very aware that my Time Warner Cable bill (for both TV and Internet) has crept up from about $100 to $132 over the past two years. Worse yet, I am paying for a lot of TV I never watch, channels with mysterious names like Speed, Fuel, and Here!. Fortunately, I found a way to get my TV fix and save money doing it.

In the past two years, three revolutions have hit television that could finally loosen the cable and satellite companies' grip. One of them is the geekly beloved Internet streaming. On Web sites like, you can watch quite a lot of TV, though it isn't in HD, and it can be a pain getting it onto your TV rather than onto your PC. I don't want to watch my TV hunched over a little screen; I want it on the big one in my living room.

The second revolution is downloadable TV. That does come in HD and is much easier to get onto your TV via media extenders like Apple TV and TiVo. But if you want to do it legally, you have to pay for it. You can get almost anything you want free through BitTorrent, but our legal department advises that is a Very Bad Thing To Do.

The final revolution is free, over-the-air HD. It's less sexy than Internet distribution, but actually more useful. It even has a higher bit rate and thus higher-quality video than you get on cable. (I compared them side by side.)

Too much press about the "DTV transition" assumes that over-the-air TV owners are mentally impaired shut-ins To the contrary, techies should be flocking to OTA. It's free, high-quality HD that doesn't clog up your Internet connection. It's totally legal, and it has no DRM or copy protection. And, let's face it, most of the programs the majority of Americans watch are still on network TV.