~ Official "I watch TV on my PC" thread ~

[kaptkarl]

I've dabbled with internet TV and found it to be totally unexceptable. I'm a HD fanatic. Why buy all the high end HD exquipment if you can't get a true 1080p signal. I'm still experimenting with it, but very dissapointed in the picture quality I get off the net.

Just saying....internet TV has a long way to go before I join in and dump my AT&T uverse.

Kapt

[ragejg]

I could really care less if most of my media is HD-quality. Most of my media viewing is done on my couch or at my desk with the TV pointed at me, and I usually only watch stuff when I'm tired (and often am about to fall asleep).

I grew up having a black & white TV, and some of the best football games I ever watched were on a static-y screen, so maybe my standards are lower...

I've watched some premium HD content on my 720p tv (@ 720p or 1080i) and yeah, it was nice, but IMO it's best for special occasions, so I'm ok if for now that grade of content is only taken advantage of once in a while.

[betterdan]

I grew up watching stuff on black and white tvs and an old 25 inch console tv in my parents living room that had crappy reception and people were way too red or green and over saturated.

Having said that, I really prefer HD programming and have a hard time watching regular old standard definition on Directvfor very long. If it is 480P widescreen, at least, then I don't have a problem with it.

I can watch Youtube videos on my blu ray player or my Directv HD DVR but they are horrible looking.

[mullet]

Yeah once you see HD it's hard going back.

[michael b]

I grew up watching stuff on black and white tvs and an old 25 inch console tv in my parents living room that had crappy reception and people were way too red or green and over saturated.

Having said that, I really prefer HD programming and have a hard time watching regular old standard definition on Directvfor very long. If it is 480P widescreen, at least, then I don't have a problem with it.

I can watch Youtube videos on my blu ray player or my Directv HD DVR but they are horrible looking.

You had a 25" black and white tv? I remember my first b&w. It was a 13 inch with the VHF/UHF knobs with some sweet rabbit ears! But I agree, I never watch anything nowadays that is NOT in HD. I just got Uverse and am still unsure about its quality over Comcast. I am only a week in though...waiting on football season.

[Hogrider]

I think betterdan meant the 25 inch console tv was color since he mentioned the people onscreen were too red or green. ;)

[snowmanwithahat]

So at my new home we have a very interesting setup. We don't have cable TV and only miss it when there's a game on TV that isn't streamed, which seems to be really rare. At that point it's just a good excuse to go out to a bar lol.

We have a C2Q Q8400 in our server, 8gb of RAM, 5x2 TB of drives in RAID-5 and they currently store around 3TB of legally owned and obtained movies and TV series that my roommate or I own.

My other roommate has a 55" TV and a (poorly designed and built, but it's fast) HTPC in the living room that acts as our media hub. It has a Core i-5 2500K, 4gb of RAM and an ATi 5870. It's powerful, but it is loud and intrusive, not at all an ideal HTPC solution. These are all connected over a gigabit network for optimal streaming.

My desktop also has 5x2 TB drives in a RAID-5 array so we're actually doing full backups of our media server to my desktop in the event of a drive or hardware failure that isn't covered by the RAID array.

Oh and it's all tied together in the living room with the high end Logitech Z 5500 5.1 speaker setup that my other roommate owns... if you've noticed the trend, it's that I don't pay for anything and we build all the cool **** out of my roommate's stuff lol. I do own the networking equipment though... I guess that was my contribution lol.

But between Netflix, legal TV streams like Big Bang Theory, Southpark, etc.. (for all the new shows) and our personally owned copies we're set