Now that I’ve been without cable television for about a week now, I’ve been subsisting solely on network television and my Netflix DVDs and instant cue. Initially, my plan was to get the Roku Digital Netflix Player, a digital converter box and antenna and use my TiVo to tape all my network shows in lieu of the dearly departed cable.

This was a perfect plan, except for the fact that I didn’t realize my TiVo series 2 DVR wouldn’t work with antenna. Fabulous.

Lucky for me, the converter box and Roku were still within the 30 days full refund time, so I sent them both back and replaced the whole shebang with a TiVo HD DVR that would work with an antenna, had a built-in digital tuner and accessed my Netflix instant cue with no problem.

Granted, it was approximately $150 more than my original plan, but whatevs. It’s a lot less cluttered under my TV and the cable savings will eventually even things out. Plus, there are all kinds of extra features available on my new DVR, like watching YouTube videos and whatnot. I’ve yet to fully explore all the options.

Initially, I had some trouble accessing my Netflix and any other Video on Demand options. After restarting the system a few times, an upgrade was downloaded and all was well. As for picking up digital signals, after an initial channel scan, I went though and manually deleted all the analog channels and added some digital ones that are slightly iffy. It seems to be working well so far. In fact, I’m currently TiVoing Betty La Fea on a Spanish-language channel I didn’t realize I had, in order to try and brush up on my Spanish.

Of course, the moral of the story is that I really should be getting out more anyways. But when I don’t, this security blanket is working pretty well.

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