Iddee:
I know I have mentioned these two sites in other posts, but for anyone "giving up on TV" and I know a few people who have - typical cable and Internet combo around here is around $160 a month (that's tossing a premium channel in) and the shows I tend to watch on the pay channels are series, a few from HBO and a few from Showtime - there are plenty of ways to see these on the net for free - but as for all regular broadcast shows, you have:
www.hulu.com - who advertizes big on TV these days, only 15 to 30 second commercial breaks at regular break intervals and
www.fancast.com - which uses Hulu's meadia player and also has many movies to choose from.
Both services offer really good fullscreen streaming shows, as recent as this weeks programs, hundreds of current and old time TV shows all on your computer and all free.
My point, TV can be something on your own schedule today and no real cable TV or digital boxes for it - in theory, you can just pay for your highspeed connection (hope you and others have highspeed of one type or another) and choose what you want, when you want it.
We live in the ENTERTAINMENT AGE, the digital age and communication ages are behnd us, they are so a part of the everyday life that we don't think of them as outstanding any more. Having, streaming everything for your computer, TV, portable devices ALL makes watching programming fun and on your own terms.
Honestly, as much as I love this HDTV, we spend as much time watching web content on it than hi-def content. A little creative searching and anything is available and free when you want it is probably as good as it may get for a long time to come.
Honestly, the change in how media is distributed change dramatically when the Writer's Strike occured. TV stations all of a sudden had the web to place their shows as well - and I'm wondering still how that "limited commercial interuptions" that lead to about 2 minutes of commercials in a one hour show pays any bills - but somehow it is, at least for now. I have a feeling that commercial TV may find that web-casting all their programs may be a lost-leader and they'll take a whooping in the long run, although the web is here to stay, until the next BIG THING comes along which will knock the web back a notch or two.
So Iddee, this post may have not interested you, but someone may read it, check out those two sites and see that you really may not need a Digital Video Recorder and other gadgets just so you can watch your favorite primetime show at 2 in the morning - it may not be for everyone, but it surely is a great feature on the web that should at least be checked out. I just finished rewatching the latest Southpark episode, dealing with the ecconomic crisis as only Southpark can do - very funny episode, no one does parody better than they do - IMHO.