Thursday, February 11, 2010

Feeling good about the fine print

I'd ditched cable TV a few months ago. When I tell this to people, their reaction is to ask which satellite company i'm on. Nobody can seem to comprehend that I do not have pay TV. After explaining this, the next question is "What do you do then?" Well, I generally do lots of stuff, watching TV however, is not one of them.

In fairness, I do watch once in a while. I have installed an antenna on my roof that picks up about 30 digital channels, half of them are HD. Also having Boxee on the Mac Mini allows for on demand programming with little commercial interruption. Also, a Slingcatcher connected to a Slingbox gives us all the German programs and keeps the wife happy.

Ironically, the free to air local channels come in better from the antenna than from the cable provider. Direct TV pays for commercial time on these free to air channels to entice you with their service, in case I was dumb enough to pay for 500 channels ill never watch. (Except for about 3). It comes in so clear in fact, that you can almost read the fine print in the Direct TV commercial. $24.99 a month for 12 months!!! Sounds like a great deal.... Right? The fine print however says it requires a 24 month commitment. Funny, they dont post the price for the second year which doubles.

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