Back about a year and 1/2 ago I wrote a little post about how to get free, on-demand TV via the internet (check it out here). Honestly, we don’t use it a ton because we still have DirecTV, but I think that may change this summer once all of our normal shows are off – and here’s why. There’s this wonderful little company called Boxee that’s aiming to take out cable and dish – and as much as I like DirecTV – I’m all for it. The internet isn’t going away after all, and has become nothing short of a necessity in everything we do these days.

Currently, there’s a little setup involved for being able to access the internet on your TV – but it’s relatively simple with just a few adapters and a spare computer/laptop. There’s a great little video here that’ll help you. Once you’ve got everything connected, that’s where Boxee comes into play. It’s basically your menu or guide to everything that’s available to watching via the internet – bringing various venues like Hulu, YouTube and all the main networks like ABC, NBC & Fox all in one place. And it doesn’t stop there – it also accesses any photos, music and movies that you’ve already got on your hard drive and will play them for you on-screen. AND… if you’re a Netflix subscriber, you can tap into their “watch instantly” movies. Check out some of the screenshots below.

Home Screen

◄ Back

Next ►

Picture 1 of 5

I know this is a purely techie, geeky post for some of you, but I think Boxee’s a game changer and makes this whole “internet home theater” idea a reality for the otherwise, non-techie. If for some reason you don’t have a spare computer or laptop laying around, they’re also developing a stand-a-lone box that allows you to tap into all of the above without having to connect a computer to your TV. Pretty sweet. They claim it will be released sometime this summer and cost less than $200.

So will services like Boxee mark the end of cable & dish? Probably not anytime soon, but with TV manufacturers rolling out new lines of internet equipped TV’s, it’s obvious they’re seeing the writing on the wall too. It’s interesting to watch the trend for sure. Now if only Boxee could make some sort of deal with the NFL to bring Sunday Ticket to their users, I’d drop DirecTV quicker than you can say “HUT! HUT!”

If you want to get a little more fancy (or geeky rather), check out the HippoRemote Pro, that can turn your iPhone into a wireless mouse, keyboard and app launcher… all for $5 in the app store. Did I mention it could remotely turn on your computer too? Pretty cool.

If you ever need help/advice setting this up, let me know and I’d be happy to help.

How many of you have played around with internet TV? If yes, what do you think? If no, why not? Your comments, as always, are appreciated!

Ok, so I’ve known for awhile now I could do this, just never felt compelled to do so. This past weekend Carrie and I were a little bored so we headed to Blockbuster to check out a few movies, didn’t really see anything that we wanted to rent, so decided to check out Lost. I’ve heard it’s a good show, I just hate jumping into a new series mid-way through, I’m kinda anal like that.

I quickly fell in love with the show and the characters… Carrie? Not so much. Anyways, we watched what we rented, but I didn’t really feel like waiting to rent the rest, so I headed over to ABC.com to check to see if they had Lost online. I’ve seen advertisements over the last year or so that most of the main stations are putting their shows online, that’s what ABC has done as well. They’ve got all 4 seasons of Lost available to watch online for free… and in HD quality as well!

If you don’t have a home theater system and don’t mind staring at your computer screen for long periods of time, then you may not care about the rest of what I have to say, but for those of you who are interested in watching internet TV on your home theater system, without sacrificing your surround sound, etc. then read on.

There’s several different ways to go about this, but the way I set it up is to run an HDMI cable from my laptop to my Samsung LCD. Most newer laptops have an HDMI port, but if yours doesn’t that’s ok too… and you don’t need a newer TV or HDTV either. There’s a handy dandy site here (just see Steps 1-2) or simply watch this YouTube video that explains the whole process in more detail and what you’ll need to make it happen. Most (if not all) computers have some form of video output – all you need is a cord that will plug into it and run to your TV’s input. The links I mentioned will help you set everything up, and if you still have questions, you can always Google “connect computer to TV” and find a whole host of others… or feel free to email me.

When I go, I go all out, I can’t resist, it’s what I do. I have surround sound and while having sound through your TV may be well enough for you, it wasn’t for me, so I bought an 1/8″ to RCA adapter and ran it from my laptop’s SPDIF port (my laptop has one of those too, it’s just a digital audio port, your headphone port will work too) and connected it to my receiver to get full surround sound when watching a show online.

Also, another addition I made, and it’s a completely lazy one I know, but I bought a long-range Bluetooth wireless mouse so I don’t have to get up out of my Lazy Boy every time there’s a commercial break to click continue or something.

There are other ways of doing this if you don’t have a laptop or computer nearby to plug into your TV, but all the ones I’ve seen cost a lot more than this option. Some of the others are Apple TV, converter boxes, etc. none of which I’ve tried personally and all of which have a decent cost associated with their use. Read more here.

As far as what you can watch online for free? Here’s some links to check out, I’m sure there are many more I haven’t found and more services to come soon I’m sure:

http://www.hulu.com

http://www.fancast.com

http://abc.go.com*

http://www.cbs.com*

http://video.discovery.com

http://www.sidereel.com

http://www.joost.com

*Offers full episodes in HD

That’s just TV shows, there’s tons more you can do once you’ve got all this setup. View your photos and movies on the big screen, watch YouTube videos, play computer games, etc. I have a feeling we’ll see more of this technology down the road as the internet continues to grow and hi-def takes over the world. Pretty soon your TV will have wireless internet and you’ll be able to do everything with one device, just give them another year or two. In the meantime, I’m preoccupied watching Lost… 1 season down, 3 to go. Gosh I love technology!

If you haven’t seen that episode of the office, then that title makes absolutely no sense to you. Check it out on NBC.com or something. Ok, so for some reason today I’ve made up my mind to start running again… the day after we just canceled our membership to the Y, mind you. I’m so stupid. But anyways, I really want to lose some weight and get back in some sort of routine. I went through a running program called “Couch to 5K” back last year and earlier this year as well and actually made it all the way through before the summer. But then summer hit, I got busy, we found out we were having a baby and I’ve been eating crappily (is that a word?) ever since.

Getting old sucks, you know? Back in high school/college, I never in a million years would’ve though I’d be 29 and have some baggage to lose, but here I am and there went my metabolism. It’s not like I’m morbidly obese or anything, but I’m not where I want to be either (in so many ways). The reason I’m doing this is because I really want to be healthy for my kids. I don’t want them having an overweight, out of breath daddy running along behind them. That is not my definition of coolness and I know it won’t be theirs either, speaking from experience.

So the goal is to lose 30 pounds in 130 days or something like that. It seems impossible, but so does everything I ever try to do in life to be totally honest. Oddly enough, I find that running and just being in this mindset really helps me focus on my relationship with God as well. Must have something to do with being disciplined, which I am definitely not right now.

A friend of mine at work told me about a website called SparkPeople. Looks pretty cool, so I’m going to be using it to watch the “caloric intake” and all that crap, so we’ll see how it goes. If any of you out there want to join me, that’d be awesome. We can put on a Richard Simmons wigs and spandex and cheer each other on.