A couple months ago I started researching different ways that we could replace our current TV setup. We were subscribed to our cable company’s top cable package with HD channels, PVR, and hundreds of channels we never watched. Essentially we were paying $80 a month to record TV shows that we would watch days or even weeks later,  and watch old re-runs that we had seen dozens of times that we put on as background noise when there was “nothing on”. The PVR was a total disaster even when it did work properly, which it rarely did. If you set the PVR to record “Lost” on ABC’s HD channel, the next week it would be listed as “Lost HD” or “Lost HD (5.1)” and wouldn’t get recorded due to the variation in the listing name.  I won’t even get into the abysmal user interface that the team at work analyzed in great detail in the Teehan+Lax PVR Report.  We were paying almost $1000 a year to watch old reruns of Friends and use an unreliable, out-of-date, and terribly clunky piece hardware/software to record our favourite TV shows. This was totally ridiculous.

Even the cable company was telling me to change the way I watch TV.

At first I looked into stripping down our cable package to only what we watched, unfortunately this wasn’t even close to being an option. I then looked into satellite TV providers who offered similar services for marginally less money, and the same standard options that didn’t meet our needs. I briefly thought about buying a TIVO, but realized I would still be paying the same amount of money, if not more. I researched various HTPC setups and the different pieces of hardware needed to build a PVR from scratch. Each option seemed to have its own set of road blocks or shortfalls, from various DRM issues in the Windows Media Centre, to the unattractive interface of MythTV or Sage.

I then started looking into using a Mac as an HTPC HTMac, the hardware is attractive and whisper quiet, and the software available is pretty amazing.  I chose to go with a Mac Mini over an AppleTV as it provided more possibilities.  I ended up finding a Mac Mini on craigslist for $500, which is close to what I would have paid for the various pieces of hardware to build a custom HTPC. We now have a full fledged Mac computer hooked up to our TV, complete with everything you’d find on a normal computer including Web Browser, Instant Messenger, and Games.

Our new TV setup with the Mac Mini looking right at home with it’s other gadget buddies.

The Media Library Interface

I started by installing Plex which is a variation of Xbox Media Center (XBMC). Plex provides a gorgeous front-end interface to your media library. Your music, pictures, movies, TV shows, and even online video are all accessible through its very customizable interface. Plex will pull down cover art, screenshots, all kinds of meta data, and even theme songs for all the movies and TV shows in your media library. Each time you start Plex it scans for new content and automatically downloads all the available meta data. This makes for a pretty impressive looking media library. Plex even has a media server which allows you to watch online content from sites like CNN, CollegeHumour, Vimeo, YouTube, Joost, Hulu, and many others. There are similar pieces of software like Boxee, and the original XBMC, but I’ve found Plex to be the perfect fit for us so far.

Plex provides a really tight front-end to your media library.

Full Episodes, Online, For Free

Outside of your own media library there is an abundance of online content available for free, and many of them are totally legal and backed by major television and cable networks.  Most people have heard of Hulu, a website where you can watch full episodes from a library of hundreds of popular TV Shows from networks like NBC and FOX. Most shows will be available on Hulu the day after it airs on TV. Most shows are also available in 480p which isn’t HD, but still looks really good full screen, and definitely looks better than analog channels on cable. Hulu even has a few shows available in full HD, which is hopefully a sign of things to come. Fancast is another website that provides the same type of service from an even bigger library of TV shows from networks like ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX and bunch of others.  Chances are if you have a favorite show on one of the major television networks you’ll be able to find it on one of these sites.  Most of the major television networks also have full episodes available on their websites totally free and totally legal.

Hulu and Fancast both have Hundreds of TV shows with full episodes available for free.

The major problem with these services is that they’re only available in the US, and the rest of the world gets the shaft. Fortunately there are ways around this, while not exactly legal, it’s not really illegal either, just a sneaky loophole. Your first option is a service called Hot Spot Shield which is a piece of software you run on your computer to mask your IP address through proxy servers.  Hot Spot Shield is totally free but it does add banner ads to every site you visit, and it can be excruciatingly slow as this has become a popular way around the “only available in US” content.

Another option which I’ve started using is called StrongVPN, which gives you a US IP Address through the use of their VPN Servers. Speeds are really fast through StrongVPN, I only see a slight drop in download speed when connected. You don’t need to install any software, just configure a VPN connection and all of your internet traffic will go through the VPN’s US IP Address. While it’s not free, at $15 a month it’s certainly cheaper than cable, I would highly recommend StrongVPN if you plan to watch online content from any US only website.

Connection speed comparison between my plain 10mbps internet connection, StrongVPN, and Hot Spot Shield. Notice how StrongVPN is only slightly slower than my regular internet connection, while Hot Spot Shield is significantly slower.

Downloading your Content

If you’re not into the whole sneaking around “only available in US” content, there is a less than legal alternative, downloading your TV Shows. Now I’m not endorsing pirated video, or stealing other peoples content, but for many this is the only solution that will work.

Most people are familiar with Bit Torrent, a file sharing protocol where ideally you upload as much as you download. Essentially you download a file from a bunch of people, and you share what you’ve downloaded with a bunch of other people. Without giving as much as you receive Bit Torrent simply wouldn’t work, you need people “seeding” or sharing content in order for others to be able to download.

There are a couple great applications for the Mac that will automatically download your favourite TV shows, saving you the hassle of searching Bit Torrent sites every day for new episodes. TVShows and TED are very similar applications that allow you to setup your favourite TV shows and they will starting downloading new episodes as soon as they’re available. I preferred TED which seems a little more complete than TVShows which hasn’t been updated in a while.

Someone on the Plex Forums even created a little application called Episode Linker that will rename and move your downloaded TV shows to the proper TV show and season folder.  This will allow Plex to properly scrape your TV shows and download the cover art and meta data. Without this application you’re left manually moving your downloaded files every day which can get a little annoying.

While the semi-automated Bit Torrent setup worked for the most part, it wasn’t really seamless and still required a fair amount of attention. Some torrents wouldn’t download due to restrictions with the tracker which leaves you searching for alternate torrents. Download speeds weren’t ideal as my ISP shapes my internet traffic, and Bit Torrent seems like a primary target. I was also using double the amount of network traffic that I needed as I was uploading as much as I downloaded. So one 350mb TV show actually cost me 700mb of traffic, when you have a 60gb download cap you need to keep an eye on these things.

The Better Way to Download

That’s when I discovered Usenet, a network which actually pre-dates the World Wide Web. Originally used for posting messages to newsgroups, many people have started uploading files to various newsgroups which can then be downloaded by anyone with access to that newsgroup. Everything from books and movies to software and games can be found on different newsgroups. I really don’t know much about Usenet, and I definitely don’t know all the lingo, but I do know that it beats the hell out of downloading with Bit Torrent. How to Usenet should help get you started if you’re interesting in using Usenet

You’ll need access to Usenet if you’re ISP doesn’t already provide it, I went with Astraweb which has great prices and a pretty good reputation despite their terrible website.  Next you’ll need a site where you can search for NZB files which are similar to Torrent files. TVNZB is a great site that hosts NZB’s for hundreds of TV Shows, and many shows are up within 15-20 minutes of being aired. The final piece of the Usenet puzzle is the software you’ll use to download the files. Again I don’t know much about Usenet, but from the sounds of it files are usually downloaded in groups or RAR files which need to be analyzed, repaired and unpacked once you have them downloaded.  Luckily there is a program that will do all of this for you, and more.

SABnzbd+ is a program with a terrible name that will make downloading files from Usenet a completely seamless process.  SABnzbd+ is a server-oriented program that you access through a web interface, and once properly setup you can access from anywhere in the world. While not the sexiest program or the easiest to setup, once it’s running it makes downloading files from Usenet a totally painless experience. You can setup SABnzbd+ so it will automatically move downloaded files to the proper directory. For TV shows it will even rename the file with the proper “S01E01” format and move the file to the proper TV show and season folder, which Plex requires. SABnzbd+ can also read RSS feeds so it will download new files as soon as they appear in the feed. MyTvNZBrss will generate an RSS feed of your favorite shows which can then be plugged into SABnzbd+ so it can automatically download your TV shows as they become available. You can then go back and modify your RSS feed at any time and you won’t have to change any settings in SABnzbd+. When a download is done you can even have SABnzbd+ make a call to the Plex web interface to tell Plex to scan for new content and add the new download to the Plex library.

Once this was setup and tuned properly downloading content became a totally hands off experience and I rarely have to leave the Plex interface now. In fact there is even a SABnzbd+ plugin for Plex so you can see your queue and even queue files from TVNZB within the Plex interface. Oh did I mention I’m able to download files at 1100kB/s from Usenet, which means a 30 minute TV show downloads in under 5 minutes. In many cases TV shows will be ready to watch in Plex 20-30 minutes after they air on TV.

Screenshot of the SABnzbd+ queue using the Plush skin

Things to Consider

I’m much happier with our new setup, and I’m very happy to not give our cable company $80 a month for an out-of-date, unreliable service. While this type of setup works great for us, there are some things to consider before you cut the cable.

 
• Do you watch a lot of sports, if so you may find yourself at the local bar more often now as you won’t be able to watch live broadcasts
 
• Do you watch the evening news. To my knowledge downloading complete news broadcasts isn’t very common.  Although, you can find top stories on CNN or other major news websites.
 
• Can your internet connection handle the amount of content you’ll be pushing through it. You’ll want decent download speeds (probably nothing less than 5mbps) if you’re going to be streaming content from sites like Hulu, and you’ll need a pretty high download cap
 
• Is everyone that will be using the TV tech savvy enough to understand the basics of your new setup.  It’s not as easy as picking up the remote and flipping through channels. Although it will pretty straight forward.
 
• Are you willing to deal with the occasional momentary chuggy or stuttery streaming video. With a decent connection it doesn’t happen often, but it’s bound to happen.
 
• Do you have enough storage space for all the video content you will be downloading, use of a large external drive or NAS is probably a good idea.
 
• If you wear a tin foil hat and you’re afraid of missing the doomsday notice on the Emergency Broadcast System this probably isn’t going to work for you.
 
• If you’re looking for an out the box solution you’ll be disappointed, you’ll need patience and the willingness to tweak your setup.
 
• Mac OSX isn’t really designed to be used from 10 feet away, you’ll need some pretty keen eyes. I find myself zooming in to read text quite often using the Control + Mouse Scroll Wheel zoom feature in OSX. However Plex is designed to be used from 10 feet away, and is easy to read and use.

Final Thoughts

On demand entertainment is the way of the future and it will eventually replace broadcast entertainment. You can download TV shows and rent movies from iTunes, and sites like Hulu and Fancast have tons of on demand content. The one thing we’re missing is a seamless experience that ties it all together. Products like AppleTV and Vudu are pretty close, but not quite there. I want a sexy piece of hardware, and a tight clean interface like Plex for a reasonable monthly price.  If a product / service combo like that existed I would totally be on board, until then I’ll continue to tweak and use my current TV setup.