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About the Book
The Budgeteers’ Guide to 21st Century TV is an independent, technical companion for those seeking TV without the “help” of cable or satellite providers. Finding practical knowledge and useful approaches can take days into weeks of internet searching and expensive shopping. It’s easy to get waylaid into doing nothing because the options look really difficult or inappropriate. Additionally, manufacturers often focus on their products and solutions in isolation, often choosing to ignore the fact that many practical solutions utilize multiple vendors and mixed technologies. By providing our readers with a systematic overview, along with some in-depth useful examples, we hope to save you time and money, make the process more fun, and increase your chances of success.
This book caters for readers of all technical levels. It isn't dumbed-down, but it also isn't full of jargon. You don't have to have a technical bent, but even if you do, you may still find out some cool new ways to watch TV.
Major themes of the book are:
- Understanding and taking control of technology you own.
- Not paying for content that is freely available.
A lot of the information in this book is specific to the United States.
About the Author
We have worked in the tech industry for over 25 years, from technical (engineering, QA, product marketing, etc.) to operations (marketing communications, sales, PR) to management. We continue to review and follow latest tech trends and we still geek out over new and cool ideas.
In 2008, our satellite subscription jumped from the “introductory rate of $29.99" to over $150 a month. We just couldn’t justify the cost of TV. We did a serious amount of research and came up with a solution: a $300 e-machines computer (we named her Emmie) running Windows 7 Media Center, a Hauppauge USB dongle for broadcast TV, a small antenna in the attic, and a streaming subscription to Acorn.tv. After this initial investment had paid for itself within a matter of months, we just kept exploring…and finding new and better ways to take control of our TV and the costs associated with watching the content we wanted.