Netflix VS U-verse and Cable

Most Americans like me love TV. It is an integral part of our daily life. I come after work and the first thing I do is sit in front of the TV, it helps me relax after a stressful day at the office.

The problem that I am having is that U-verse (from AT&T its like cable) is so darn expensive. Since I love TV so much I have the “Crème de la Crème” of TV packages. I get HBO, Showtime, Starz, Cinemax and Encore plus like 300 other channels. Now some of you might think this is excessive, why would I need something like that? Yes, most of it I don’t watch but there are channels that my family watches so it is worth to have all of them.  But is it really?

With times getting harder every month I needed to revaluate. I have seen a 15% drop in pay over the last year so I would like to cut cost but keep the same value. Value being the key here, I didn’t want to sacrifice too much just to lower cost. I could cancel U-verse, but who would want no TV?

With so many commercials out about Netfilix, I thought I would give it a try. Their product was always reviewed well. They made the rental process for DVD’s a no brainer with most rentals to your home in about a day. Their newest feature, online streaming to your computer or TV, is what made me decide to give it a try. The price was the best part. It costs $9 a month with 1 DVD rental at a time and unlimited amount of streaming.

To see if Netflix could replace my U-verse, I decided to break my families TV watching into 3 categories; Movies; Network TV and Alternative TV.

Movies

Being a huge movie buff I found the selection on Netflix to be on par with what U-Verse on demand has to offer.  They both have some that each does not have to offer. Netflix currently has Starz On Demand (I hear that they might drop this) so everything  that I could watch on U-Verse I can watch on Netflix. In this category I think they are dead even but since the pricing for Netflix is so much less. I would have to say Netflix is a better value for me.

Network TV

Now with Netflix you’re not able to watch any current episodes, this is a big downside for them. However they offer a huge selection of TV shows on demand. My personal favorites are the Office and 30 Rock. With some of the TV shows like Dirty Jobs you are only able to watch a select few episodes. The reason why they do this I don’t know, so I would have to say that this is a downside for them. In cases like this you could always rent the DVD to watch all the episodes. Netflix takes the cake here, it still adds tremendous value by giving me hours of TV content at a low price. Yes, I cant watch all the episodes but with still basic U-Verse I can DVR them. 

Alternative TV

My wife loves to watch MTV, probably one of her favorite channels. Unlike the network TV content , which they stream quite a bit of, Netflix offers little if any streaming content of MTV or VH1. Yes, they do offer some of the Discovery Channel shows in streaming but for my wife this isn’t that important to her. In this category there is more value to keep U-Verse then Netflix.

When the trial period for Netflix ended I decided to keep it. I also decided to cancel my “Crème de la Crème” of TV packages. I have gone to the lowest one possible, a $41 savings after the Netflix subscription.  That is a 21% savings from what I was paying before.

When I saw this website I was pretty impressed. I can relate to getting a speeding ticket. What I like about this site is that you can post speed traps in your area by using your mobile and other users will be alerted when they are approaching that area. They also use a ranking system to rate the users post, if it matches other reports the user gets a higher ranking which shows credibility.

I guess for me the next step would be if I could integrate this into my GPS that would  be even better.

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I was reading this article on Mashable and thought that it was pretty interesting. This company in Korea is getting 15M in funding to start this online gaming services. With focus being on Korea and China for its initial markets. It plans to expand to the US in 2009. It looks as though it will be offering services similar to SecondLife.

From what I understand Second Life doesnt have a huge presence in Asia so this new service could be huge for Nurien. Especially since China is such a growing market as well.

I have been seeing a lot of commercials lately for this services that is offered on the Ford, Lincoln and Mercury cars. I wanted to see what the hype is about.

What it allows you to do is connect your mobile phone or digital music player by voice. So you can say commands like Play artist .... or call the office. It communicates with the car by using mostly bluetooth to connect with the devices.

I like that I can say commands in my car to be more hands free since in 7/08 California is going to require the use of headsets in the car. But the fact that it is only available on some models suck!

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Now usually I wouldn't blog about products but I couldn't not blog about this. Logitech has this new keyboard out and it is so cool. With most TVs being able to be hooked up to your PC now, you need a keyboard that is compact yet sleek. The Logitech diNovo Mini Keyboard is your answer. Here are some specs

Convenience and Style

• Palm-sized mini-keyboard with backlighting: Fits in your hand. Backlighting makes text entry effortless, even in low light.
• Compact: Perfect size for your coffee table.

Control

• Integrated, dual-purpose ClickPad: Use as a touch pad to point and click – or as a directional pad to navigate menus and make selections.
• Backlighting: Makes text entry effortless – even in low light. Enjoy two different backlight colors depending on the mode you're in – orange for cursor mode, and green for media control mode.

I have always wanted to hook up my PC to my Lcd TV but always stayed aways since there was no real keyboard that was compact enough to go with my stuff or had the right capabilities like bluetooth. With this it solves my problems of finding a place to put it and not having to worry about the extra components that I would have to setup or store away.

Logitech