Watching TV Needn’t Be Expensive!

When you are trying to maintain a tight budget, you sometimes need to cut down on those luxury outgoings. Cable and satellite television may not seem like an extravagance, but you can get nearly as much quality without paying a bean! Those monthly subscription fees can soon add up and you can easily pay over $600/700 per year just for a few extra channels. The basic packages may be pretty cheap, but you soon get bored of watching 10 year old reruns of Friends. And when you start to add a few decent sports channels and a movie option or two, the costs start to rocket big time! Here we look at some legal ways to keep down the costs without watching garbage!

Playon Softwarehttp://www.playon.tv

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This is an excellent option that allows you to stream online video programs from many recognised providers directly through your television set. You’ll be offered a huge choice via suppliers such as Hulu.com and you’ll never run short of options or different genres to choose from. You’ll also need a networked media device to receive the signal from, and an Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 will do the job nicely. This option is not free but you only have to make a one off payment of $39.99 and after that you’ll be golden.

Other Onine Video Streaming Services

There are now an increasing amount of video streaming services that allow us to watch a huge variety of shows and movies at the fraction of the price of cable or satellite TV. Here are some of the most popular and a few of our favourites for you:

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  • All My Faves TV Online – You should try this as your first port of call as you will undoubtedly see a lot of familiar old friends on this streaming site. It has a very easy to use menu and is just as user friendly on your handheld devices. Just book mark this site and you’ll always be just a few seconds away from those classic and new TV shows.
  • Amazon Video – They seem to be taking over online shopping options, but Amazon has certainly earned their spurs so far! This streaming site allows you to instantly stream any movie or TV show from their huge library. It is a pay-per-view offering but is much cheaper than the cable/satellite route and is safer than those free but illegal downloads we love to hate.
  • Xfinity TV – This Comcast streaming site is a real winner and is available to all current Comcast customers as a free option, but newcomers will have a small charge to pay. It is technically a cable cop out but offers such a great service that we allowed it to sneak in quietly!
  • Coke & Popcorn – As well as the coolest name in this category, Coke & Popcorn brings some of the best and most popular movies and TV shows to the public. You have the option to stream the shows directly from the site and you can reduce the quality if you wish. This allows for a much faster streaming service and is perfect for the smaller handheld viewing options. Buffering is almost non-existent and you can pack a whole lot of viewing pleasure into your weekends!

To Stream or Not to Stream?

We love all of these options and whilst the streaming sites may not sound the end for satellite and cable TV, they will certainly give them some food for thought for the future regarding pricing and quality!

Featured images:
  • tv License: Image author owned
  • tv License: Creative Commons image source

This guest post is by Paul Potter, a passionate blogger and a technical consultant at VMedia, a company that provides online TV in Canada. He has a lot of experience in networking and shares his technological views through his blogs.

  1. its absolutely right…watching tv need not be expensive…thanks for posting

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