I sat down a couple of hours ago, all primed to watch Kansas Jayhawks basketball. They played the DePaul Blue Demons in Chicago this afternoon.
SWMBO and I buy the ESPN Full Court package each year, at a cost of $100.00 or so for the season. That usually gets us our games of interest. Today, ESPN saw fit to broadcast the game on something called ESPN/U, also one of their channels. DirecTV wants another $12 per month to get ESPN/U, which is part of something they call their “Sports Package.” This package includes 24 or so Fox Sports Channels, any 8 of which are broadcasting the same game simultaneously at any given point in the day.
Not willing to extend our DirecTV plan, we listened to the game on XM Radio, and cringed as the Jayhawks went down to defeat today.
I don’t know if it’s ESPN’s or DirecTV’s policies that resulted in our not seeing the game on TV. It’s not even worth the effort to call either network. What I will say is that I’d be all for kicking TV out of my life entirely, if there were a way to view the following:
In addition, I’d like to be able to see a few sporting events throughout the year. I’m even willing to buy a Mac Mini, or something comparable, and dedicate it to teevee watching. I’d lash up any kind of gear necessary to make that happen, and pull the plug on the whole bunch. For what we pay DirecTV in a year’s time, we have a good down payment on an alternative.
-k-
1 – That headline, proper English and all, is in memory of all the long-suffering English teachers in my life.
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you can watch full episodes of Jericho and CSI: Miami at CBS.com.
Unfortunately I don’t think FOX is down with the full episode thing yet.
Full episodes of Friday Night Lights can be see on NBC.com, but I don’t see an archive so it might just be the last show.
So if FOX gets with the times, a TV might not be entirely necessary in the future.
Thanks, James. Losing our DirecTV bill wouldn’t mean that we’re retiring in luxury; it just galls me to think of how few shows we really like, and how much they really cost.
I retrieved your comment from the Akismet trap; there must be a link limit that figures in.
-k-
Everything is available on the interwebs, provided you don’t limit yourself (as James did) to officially sanctioned sites.
You can get all the TV you want, provided you want to hunt for it, on http://mininova.org and similar BitTorrent tracker sites. Or you can find them on Usenet if you want to do it old school.
Not all shows are available, but maybe some day. Jericho, Prison Break, and CSI are, though.
Mininova has RSS feeds per show at http://mininova.org/cat/8
I find this really handy. I keep and eye on the feeds for shows I’m interested in with NetNewsWire. When I see an episode with enough seeds, I grab the enclosure, then download the video with a BitTorrent client.
I’ve been watching “TV” like this for the last five years or so. No more channel surfing, I watch what I want when I want.
It’s like podcasting, but for TV shows. It’s not fully automated yet, though. Mostly because the people making the torrents don’t use careful tagging and the RSS feeds are totally messed up. But maybe some day.
Ha ha, I think I ended up in the Akismet trap too.