At home, we don't subscribe to cable or satellite television. For about 5 years, we have had free over-the-air (OTA), free-to-air (FTA), and the internet.

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OTA
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OTA is superb. My first OTA receiver was a HD receiver I bought from ebay for $99. It is a satellite company that only offered HD channels but I discovered by much research that their reeciever worked to receive HD stations without a subscription. I still have it and works great; however, it definately needs a good antenna.

After I received my $50 HD converter box with my $40 government certificate, I put the HD box away and began to use this Tivax that I purchased at Target (about 2 years ago), and it's so great. I don't even need an antenna with it. It brings in my closest stations perfectly. With a basic rabbit-ear antenna, I can bring in 10 channels and my lcoal PBS - which is the most important one!

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FTA
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FTA is so awesome and in the past could be hacked to work with Dish Network and Canada's Bev. I used as it was intended with a real FTA satellite and saw even international channels. My antenna broke, and I couldn't replace it right away, so now I just have OTA and internet, which is all I need. Someday, I will buy a big FTA satellite and get these free channels again.

Complete FTA channel list for US:
http://www.lyngsat.com/freetv/United-States.html

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INTERNET
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Internet is by far the absolute best! With my laptop's WIFI, I can bring movies, TV shows, and news to any room of the house. I can plug it into my TV and my movie projector and get a bigger screen. With Netflix, I can see tens of thousands of movies and TV shows for under $10 month (and get one DVD mailed). Although...I'd like to stick with only referring to free sites but do recommend Netflix -- they now have a service for only their internet streaming for $8.99/month (unlimited watching).

Here are the web sites I use that are free! They are listed by my most favorite.

• www.Justin.tv (entertainment and sports section)
• www.Movshare.net  (Avoid the Ads by copying the embeded URL and pasting it into an HTML file. Then open this newly created HTML file in any web browser. Faster, too! Sign up required.)
• www.FreeFullMovies.net
• www.Hulu.com (Click the popout button to make the movie stream faster!)
• www.fancast.com (Avoid the Ads by copying the embeded URL and pasting it into an HTML file. Then open this newly created HTML file in any web browser. Faster, too!)
• www.TBS.com
• www.PBS.com
• http://Pbskids.org/go/video
• http://nickjr.com/kids-videos
• http://spongebob.nick.com/videos/browse/full-episodes/1
• http://nick.com/videos/all-videos/?tab=all-full-episodes
• www.Veoh.com
• www.YouTube.com (full movies section - try www.YouTube.com/XL for a larger version!)
• http://sho.com/site/order/preview.do
• http://disney.go.com/preschool/videos/nc/?int_cmp=phd_GrpsPg_phd_tv_link#/preschool/videos/nc/
• www.imdb.com/features/video/browse/film/ (click on the number next to the title -not the title)
• www.imdb.com/features/video/browse/tv/ (click on the number next to the title -not the title)
• www.cbs.com
• www.nbc.com
• www.fox.com/full-episodes/

Install Boxee on your computer or laptop, and your internet watching experience is so much more enhanced! Boxee is free and based on the Xbox Media Center application - so it plays tons of video and audio formats. They give you the free software so you'll fall in love with the product and buy their set top box. If I was in the market for one, I would definately buy it. Try it now (boxee.com)!

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PC Requirements
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Recently, I bought a used computer from pcexchange.net for $60. So, I did some research on all the above sites and discovered that your computer or laptop will need to have (at the very least) the following specifications. TRUST ME, I experimented and anything slower will not stream most video sites I mentioned above - and definately won't run Boxee!

-Processor: 1.8ghz or faster
-Memory: 512mb or greater
-Video Graphics Card: 128mb memory or greater with 32 bit color
-Hard Drive: 40gb or greater
-Internet:  3mbps or greater (i have 15mbps with verizon fios)
-Mouse: Mouse Remote that can type letters

This is the computer I bought:

http://www.pcexchange.com/Dell-Optiplex-GX260-Tower-p/2000-dell-gx260-t581.htm

This is my mouse remote:

http://cgi.ebay.com/USB-2-0-Wireless-mouse-Remote-Controller-PC-Laptop-/150527919822?pt=Mice&hash=item230c29c6ce

This is my video card (Nvidia Geforce MX4000):

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=220645856948&ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT

This is the PC to TV converter I bought (for connecting your computer straight to your TV - if your video card doesn't already have S-video out - that is! Also check your new flat panel tv, it may have a computer VGA input!):

http://cgi.ebay.com/PC-VGA-AV-TV-RCA-video-converter-adapters-box-b16-/110459109166?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item19b7e03f2e

So, in my house for the cost of the internet, we don't miss much of what's playing on TV. We can watch live sporting events, tv show, and movies.

With more internet set top boxes like GoogleTV, Apple TV, Boxee, and Roku - even more internet content will be available to us. I'll wait until one of these boxes (really, really) are able to browse the internet like I do on my computer. Then with their installed apps and the internet browser...the options are limitless! (FYI - Google TV does claim to be able to browse the internet. I have to do some real research though.)

Now, go enjoy your FREE TV!

Signing Off,
Vivian
ViSO Tech