Hasta La Gadget!

Watching the ABC/Cablevision slap fight on the eve of the Oscars made me want to shout: there is a better way!

About a year ago, I ditched cable TV, and yes, I’m watching the Oscars on ABC on my HDTV tonight. In fact, my picture will probably be better than those poor saps with cable.

I’m getting my ABC over the air – in tech parlance, OTA. In my column from 2008, “How I Slashed My Bills with Tech,” I explain how you can get free, high-quality HDTV without having to deal with Cablevision, Cox, Time Warner or anyone else.

You can set up a basic system in under an hour. If you have a relatively recent TV with a digital tuner, run out to your local electronics store and get a basic RCA ANT1000 antenna for $10. If you have an older TV, you’ll have to grab a $50 digital converter box, too. When you’re ready to make a commitment, get a better antenna – the outdoor kind are great, but I’m happy with a $60 Winegard SS-3000 that sits on a bookshelf.

If you want to know what channels you’ll get when you go OTA, try AntennaWeb.org. An official government Web site has a quick guide on how to set up digital converter boxes. 

I get ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, CW, minor networks like MyTV, Qubo and ION, and a whole lot of PBS over the air. I also get strange local programming and some excellent music videos on our city-funded municipal channel, and a bunch of Spanish-language channels I don’t understand. For other programming, I can rent or buy it on my TiVo HD or Apple TV (yes, I have both, but you don’t have to), order it from Netflix or call it up on demand from Web sites – though I don’t have my PC hooked directly to my TV, so that last category I have to watch on a PC screen. 

There is one caveat: going OTA doesn’t help anyone who needs live cable sports programming. My wife and I don’t watch any sports – zero – so this isn’t a concern for us, but there are lots of games that aren’t shown anywhere on the Internet or over the air. If sports is your “killer app,” it looks like the pay-TV providers have you by the neck. Have any other solutions, readers?