Home audio & video forum: Wanna ditch cable. Please help me watch online.

with online content is to hook up a PC or Mac to your TV. Everything else (Popbox, Boxee Box, Apple TV, PS3, Xbox360, Roku, etc) has some but not all the pieces of the puzzle. And once you hook up a computer you have to have a keyboard and mouse to use it effectively which is kind of a pain.

You might check into those EEE Boxes from Asus which are essentially netbooks that hang on the back of your TV with HDMI outs. Or you could go for something more expensive like a Mac Mini or Microsoft HTPC for a more powerful and full featured experience. Or you could wait and see what kind of traction Apple and Google get with their new boxes due out this fall. if Apple can bring apps to the new Apple TV you'll likely have Netflix, Hulu Plus, and Revision 3, ABC and a host of others providing apps.

We use a combination of devices in our house to make up for the lack of cable... Apple Tv for pictures, video podcasts and streaming music, a Netflix and Vudu enabled Blu-ray player for streamed content, and plain old Netflix discs for everything else. An OTA antenna gives us nice HD feeds for the few times there is something we want to watch on network TV. We haven;t had cable for 4 or so years and have never missed it. I actually prefer watching TV shows on DVD or Blu-ray because you can power through a whole season quickly.

Thanks to you both. I feel sure I can do without cable. I am interested in whatever may be coming out in the fall (I have price locked in with cable til end of Nov). If you know of something due out by maybe March of 2011, I would be interested in seeing a link to those items.

If I was looking to buy an inexpensive, separate unit (so my laptop would be free for normal activities), what minimum requirements should I be looking for? I mean, would I need a big hard-drive since I would not be storing much, just streaming. Would I better off looking at the processor. If I can figure out what requirements might be best, I might be able to find someone locally to build me one (I have a few friends that have built their own computers).

Thanks again!

It's a lot easier to work with upgraded equipment with the appropriate ports/connections than it is dealing with the odd rogue mix of breakout boxes, etc. For any sort of streaming this is especially true. You will have to upgrade the laptop or HDTV at the very least.

1. if your tv has an hdmi input and your laptop that you are going to buy has an hdmi output. (if you want the best graphics and sound) (i gather u know what this looks like:)

2. you can buy an "external USB video capture card", which are about 10$ on eBay. this is so that you can transfer image and sound through AV cords-(red, white and yellow cords). you will also need to buy a "two way" av cord. click on url to see what the two way cords look like.

https://encrypted-tbn1.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQsznNmMOfBVaA9HzElG6HF6f6ibZgPLDDmK-HTiXeKcFZA8eUzKA

3. check if your laptop your going to buy has a VGA output ( you will use a cord that you also use to connect to a projector) and also make sure that your tv has a VGA input.

i cant think of any other ways apart from these so yeh. im starting to learn a lot about computers, and also alot about ps3s, like how to fix them. i hope this fixes your problem. also, the cheapest method would probably be option 1 and option 2. you will need to buy a hdmi cable on ebay (not in the store cause its too expensive) for around 2 $. i gather the vga cord will be the same. i hope this works for u, runescape_guy.