Hulu Follow-Up

A few days ago I decided to really give Hulu a chance.  I haven't really used it at all for a couple of reasons.  First of all, it has commercials, and that's the whole thing for me -- I'm trying to avoid commercials!  And secondly, I haven't struggled for things to watch so I haven't had to use it as new avenue of content.

I browsed a little bit the other day -- I pretty much just approached it the same way I would approach Netflix.  I kind of thought to myself if I was in the mood for something new or something familiar, and then browsed the categories to find what I wanted.  It operates pretty much the same as Netflix.  I'm curious to try the cue -- can I cue individual episodes, or just whole shows (which is a drawback for Netflix)?

I felt like I could handle 15-30 second commercials.  My only other thought going into it was that I can handle commercials when I'm watching something that I'm not really watching -- something that's on in the background.

So I thought I would give Master Chef a shot -- I had enjoyed a couple of seasons of Project Runway -- and started with the first episode of Season 3.  Of course it started with a commercial.  Then after about 20 minutes another commercial.  They were only 15-30 seconds long, so they were tolerable.  Then they started coming every 7 or 8 minutes.  And one of the commercial breaks was like a minute and a half.  Ugh!  Now here's the thing.  They show you how many seconds are left in the commercial.  Research shows that this approach makes it more tolerable for the viewer, and I have to agree.  But it seems like each episode has a 90 second ad in the middle, with the second half of the show peppered with commercials every 7 minutes.

I gave it a shot, and it wasn't a show I was going to sit up and stare at for 45 minutes, so I could handle the commercials.  And the commercials weren't 25% louder than the show, like they often are on Comcast.  Cable TV commercials all have music and yelling and explosions, my God, and sometimes you're watching a soft program, and the commercials just blast in so loudly and make it entirely unwatchable.  So anyway, I was handling the commercials ok.  I watched the whole season over a few days -- I really enjoyed the show -- which is how I like to watch a show like that.  Start it, roll through it, and knock it out quickly.

I haven't used it since then, but I will definitely go back and give Hulu another shot. I still need to try to cue and see if it works like a playlist.

Finally Investigating Hulu

So, my anti-cable stance is mostly predicated on my anti-commercial lifestyle.  It's pretty much all about the commercials.  I wouldn't mind paying 100$ a month for all the programming on cable TV, but then I have to "pay" again by having commercials.  About 20-25% of the time is commercials.  What other activity do you participate in that you concede 25% of the time to not doing that activity?  It's like if you went to the grocery store and at the end of every aisle you had to read an advertisement before continuing. What I am "doing" supposedly is spending 30 minutes watching this show, but in actuality I am spending 22 minutes watching the show and 8 minutes doing something I despise.  So anyway, as you know from the introduction, the point of this weblog is to follow my move away from cable TV and away from commercials.  

I've never really used Hulu because they have commercials.  But really I don't know what the Hulu experience is like, so I'm going to find out.  I can deal with about 30 seconds of commercials every 15 minutes or so.  Or I can handle a longer commercial break before/after an entire episode of a show. 

So I'm going to hop on my exercise bike and watch something on Hulu.  And I'll continue using it for a while just to get a sense of how it ... feels.  I should try Hulu plus for a free trial just to get the experience.  

Here goes...

NBA League Pass Broadband

NBA League Pass is a great product, whether you're going the anti-cable route, or subscribing through your cable provider.  That's actually how I first experienced it.  When I had Dish Network, and Pitt basketball was good, and Lebron James played in Cleveland, and the NHL was between lock-outs, and I was engaged to be married, I had a variety of sports options to watch in the Winter on regular cable.  

You would get Pitt in conference play plus the Penguins' star studded lineup twice a week.  You had NBA on TNT every Thursday night, plus NBA on ESPN Wednesdays and/or Fridays.  Once football ends you get NBA on ABC every Sunday.  Locally, we had about a dozen Cavs games on FoxSportsNet Pittsburgh -- which was a huge bonus. They were like my local NBA team.  I even went up to the Quicken Loans Arena for Game 6 of the 2008 Eastern Conference Semi-finals against Boston -- which was awesome.  NBA playoff games are intense.  Between the Pens, Pitt, and the Cavs, I had one of my favorite local teams playing at least 3 or 4 nights a week.  Plus I had a couple nights of prime NBA action on TNT and ESPN.

Things change, though. My fiance dumped me. They stopped carrying Cavs games on FoxSportsNet Pittsburgh.  College basketball becomes less and less watchable on a yearly basis. And really, how many hockey games  can you watch?  I didn't even have HD at the time, and standard def hockey is just blurry ice skating.  College basketball is unwatchable until tournament time.  All the while, the NBA had like 12 to 15 really good teams, which is remarkable.  All 8 playoff teams in the Western Conference in 2008-09 had a winning percentage of at least .585.  The Association was -- and still is -- stocked with star players.

For the first week of the season (and I think they still do this every year) they offered NBA League Pass for a free trial.  You can get it through your cable TV or streaming online -- or both.  I tried both for a week that first year and fell in love with it.  Enjoying the access to every game on the NBA schedule, including the top match-ups on regular cable on TNT and ESPN -- combined with hockey being boring, college basketball sucking, and FSN Pittsburgh not carrying the Cavs anymore -- led to my initial decision to subscribe that first year, which may have been 2007-08, but I'm not sure.

Last year, after I officially cancelled my cable, I subscribed to NBA League Pass Broadband Choice.  For about a hundred bucks a season (mine was prorated for about half the price since I joined around midseason) I got every game for my choice of 5 teams.  You get full DVR control over the game and a full archive.  So you can watch a game live or go back later that night or the next day and watch any game.  I found that when I would wake up early and have trouble getting back to sleep, I would watch a game.  Or I would work on my computer with a game in the background. A lot of times I would put a game on and skip ahead to the 4th quarter (which is marked for you, so it's easy to get there with one click).  On any give night last year I would watch the 4th quarter of the Heat game, the Clipper game, and the Thunder game.  

I also wanted to make a sleeper pick with my 5 teams.  I had chosen four favorites, one of which was a bust. I had the Heat, Clippers, Thunder, and Bulls (bad choice). Then I went with the Timberwolves. Remember, it was halfway through the season.  Kevin Love was an MVP candidate, Rubio was a top 3 rookie of the year, and Nikola Pekovic had shown he was more than just a big body.  Rick Adelman had made them a legitimate team again... almost.  So they were a great choice.  It made sense to pick an up-and-coming team, a team that hadn't made the playoffs in years, a great story to follow.  

I didn't realize I would become such a huge fan.  They were such a fun team to watch.  And mind you, when I say "watch," a lot of times I just have the TV on in the background -- especially when we're talking about watching basketball games almost every night -- so a game is on in the background while I'm working on the computer, doing something around the house, playing on my iPod, or a million other things.  But seriously I am now a huge Minnesota Timberwolves fan.  I look forward to watching them -- because they have now become an actual rooting interest for me -- more than any of my other 4 teams.

This year I went with the Heat and Thunder again.  I chose the Lakers over the Clippers.  I kept Minnesota of course.  And that left 1 choice.  I considered the Knicks and the Nets the most.  Then I let the season start and held that final spot open.  I was leaning toward the Nets before the season, then towards the Knicks, but the other day I finally went in a different direction and took Memphis.  They are kind of like what the Timberwolves wish they could be -- what they aspire to become.  And Memphis really hasn't proven anything yet, but they will this year.  So I think they'll become a rooting interest as well.  

The Lakers have had so much drama this year that I've enjoyed their games.  Minnesota got Love back after injury, plus they added Kirilenko, making them a great watch and potentially formidable team once Rubio returns to full speed.  The Heat and Thunder are still probably the best teams in the league and I enjoy having the option to see their games whenever I want.  I get full DVR capability and I can even watch 4 games at once if I so choose.

I highly recommend the product!

Introduction to JoeSoHatesCommercials

I think this is my most anticipated weblog, for me at least.  When I did my Pirates Season Tickets, Baby blog in the Summer of 2012, I really enjoyed it and I know a few other people did as well.  Since then I've realized that I should keep more weblogs for other activities I "get into." I tend to dabble in various hobbies or go through phases where I get into something for a little while and then move on -- bowling, NPR, sewing and other crafts, baking, Urban Eco Stewards, various exercise programs, etc.  Some of things, though, I will keep coming back to and continue doing... For a hobby like cooking or DJing, keeping the blog is a way for me to document what I'm doing, explore principles that evolve and lessons learned, and plan ideas for the future.

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But this one, the ... anti-cable, down with Comcast, I hate commercials, streaming internet rules, you can download anything ... blog, this one might actually be of use to other people.  Nobody really cares how many calories I burned on my exercise bike or that I burned them while watching the Minnesota Timberwolves, but somebody might like an experienced opinion about how I'm watching it without cable: the hardware, software, cost, parties involved, usability concerns, etc.

I'm still not entirely set on the name -- JoeSoHatesCommercials. I think I will settle on that.  It's not entirely about going off the cable TV grid, although that's part of it.  It's not just about the fact that you can get a lot of quality programming streaming online, although clearly that is a major part of the solution.  It's not just about avoiding commercials, but that's a major part of it too. Maybe I should just call it JoeSoWatchesTV or something like that.  

So this JoeSoHeady weblog will document and share my experience as an active TV viewer -- someone who watches sitcoms, movies, sports, and more -- viewing solely with the internet and whatever hardware, software, subscriptions, and services I can get my hands on.

It's not so much about money. I don't mind spending some entertainment dollars on "TV" (used broadly to mean everything you watch) as long as I'm getting solid value.  I wouldn't even mind paying for Comcast, but their product isn't worth it.  Here's where commercials factor into it, for me at least.  

This is where you have to "pay twice" to watch cable TV.  You have to pay 100 dollars a month, or more -- well over a 1,000 dollars a year -- just to "get" some shows.  Then, almost everything you watch has commercials, which means you're paying again.  You have to pay two and a half minutes out of every ten.  You're paying twice because the programming you're already paying 100 dollars a month for has commercials in it.  DVR Fast forwarding got really old really fast.

When you get free TV over the air, with an antenna, that kind of TV is supposed to have commercials -- because you're not paying for it.  Cable TV is a racket.  If I were ever to care about a mainstream American presidential election, it would be because there is a consumer advocate type person running (sort of like Ralph Nader) who might care about this kind of issue.  This is real life, day to day, American politics -- the amount of pure consumerist lifestyle driven advertising that we are forced to see and hear, especially on cable TV, which is a service we are paying a lot of money to have!

The power of the Internet! credit

Anyway, around January of 2012, I finally made the bold move I had been mouthing off about for a long time -- I cancelled my Comcast cable TV!  My price (for TV + internet) had somehow gone up from, like, 120 to 140 to 160, and it was just time to cut the cord.  

I kept my internet service of course, for about 60 a month, and instantly had an extra hundred bucks in my pocket monthly.  I was already someone who had a computer hooked up to the main living room TV.  I was already using a computer to watch Netflix, ESPN3, and my own downloads, so I was ready for the transition.  I had a mentor who was already off the grid ready to coach me through the process.

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So far I don't miss it at all. I'll go into detail about the various avenues I've pursued to replace cable TV with more affordable, mostly commercial free, options in more posts... but the main things I use are:

• the internet, duh
• Mac mini. wireless keyboard, magic trackpad
• 2 TB external hard drive
• Samsung 42" Plasma HDTV
• Lenovo Thinkpad T420, Kindle Fire, iPod Touch, Windows desktop
• pirate sites like demonoid and superseeds, both of which are now down!
• Plex media server
• Netflix
• Hulu
• NBA League Pass Broadband
• MLB.tv
• FirstRowSports live sports streaming
• ESPN3.com
• PBS online: Nova, Nature, American Experience
• YouTube subscriptions
• Pandora internet radio, etc