Goodbye DIRECTV, I’ll let you know if I miss you

I've been a faithful subscriber to DIRECTV for nearly twelve years. DIRECTV has supplied me with dozens of satellite receivers, numerous dish upgrades and exclusive sports programming. Which is why it's going to be hard to say goodbye.

This summer I'm performing a little Noobie experiment. I want to see if my family and I can survive without cable, satellite or fiber-optic television. In other words, no paid television programming. That's right, we're going old school. No CNN or Fox News. No ESPN or ESPN2. No Disney Channel or Nickelodeon. Just ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, PBS and a small handful of other local broadcast affiliates.

I plan on doing this by replacing my existing DIRECTV receivers with standalone TiVo receivers, each hooked up to a standard over-the-air antenna. Now this doesn't mean that I will be watching television at no cost. I didn't quite say that. What I said was that I wouldn't be paying any company to service my household with television programming. Although TiVo comes with a monthly fee, TiVo itself does not offer any television programming.

Furthermore, my experiment will also involve occasionally purchasing pay-per-view shows from Amazon Unbox, which is fully integrated with the TiVo service. My hope is to replace a handful of shows my kids like to watch on channels we will no longer receive with the equivalent Amazon Unbox downloads.

Here's a breakdown of the advantages and disadvantages to my summer experiment:

Advantages

• Cost, cost, cost. I currently pay around $75 per month for DIRECTV. With free programming and TiVo service, I will only pay $15-20 per month.
• High definition. I will be able to record and watch all shows in compression-free high definition, when available (not all shows broadcast in high definition). I would have to pay a minimum of $10 extra per month to get high definition programming from DIRECTV.
• Recording capacity. My existing DIRECTV receivers can record 70 hours of standard definition programming and 0 hours of high definition (only because they are not built to record high definition). My new setup will allow me to record upwards of 600 hours of standard definition programming or approximately 65 hours of high definition programming.
• Transfer recordings between receivers. With the new setup, I will be able to transfer a recording on one TiVo receiver to another. Currently with DIRECTV I can only watch a show at the location it was recorded.
• And a host of other TiVo-only features too numerous to detail here.

Disadvantages

• Limited channels. With the new setup, I will no longer be able to watch live television programming from cable-type channels such as CNN, ESPN or the Disney Channel.
• Pay-per-view costs. In order to satisfy my kids' appetite for children's programming, I will most likely purchase individual episodes of their favorite shows from Amazon Unbox. While this is an added cost, I am tempted to call this an advantage rather than a disadvantage since the cost of these shows ($1.99 each) plus the new low monthly fee will still outweigh the $75 per month fee I currently pay DIRECTV.
• Live sporting events. This one will hurt the most. I will have to revert to the radio and/or Internet broadcasting to watch or listen to any live sporting event that is not carried on my local broadcast affiliates. If I can not find the event on the radio or the Internet, I will either have to miss the event or head to my local sports bar (and figure in the cost of lunch, dinner or a few drinks at the sports bar). With DIRECTV I had the NFL Sunday Ticket which meant I never missed a single Packers game.

Time will tell whether or not my new setup will prevail. Throughout the summer I'll provide updates as well as a summer-ending summary of my experiment. Wish me luck.