Media and me….

OK so I’m not some super AV geek who has a IP based HD setup in house so I have HD via IP streaming to every tv in the house.

For starters I only have one TV so the whole HD over IP is a non-starter for me, but I do have a fair amount of media in DVD format that I would like to have accessible at my fingertips.  DVD conversion of media is another topic for another day, and honestly it’s more planning and process then actual problem so it’s not worth talking about.

I’m talking about the various digital outlets that I’ve gone to for my media more and more in the last couple of years. Basically it comes down to a simple oxymoronic premise I don’t want to be tied to a single service or outlet (iTunes, Amazon, Netflix) but at the same time have one file and device to rule them all.

Let me break it down for you, I have cable for one reason at this point ESPN and Fox Sports AZ, honestly those two things are barely enough to keep me on cable.  The only reason that I’m not a cord cutter is I have not devised a way to easily get my media onto my HD tv.  That problem is more a function of me being in a not research mood over the problem then anything else. As all great questions in the technical realm begin for me, I make a blog post about it.

How 2003 of me.

Ok so basic dilemma I have shows that I do want to watch, that I would like to not pay for if possible (and for the sake of argument and a paycheck lets just go ahead and say that bit torrent and it’s ilk are no longer a good way to go) so anything that is over the air is captured easily enough by a HD antenna and a recording device (hello TiVo) ok there are a few shows that watch that are not over the air… things like Top Gear… and damit if I’m going to watch six figure cars go fast I want to see them HD.   So things like that tend to be avalible in two spaces iTunes or Amazon which on a feature basis are pretty much at a even level with one another.   I have content from both of these providers so I’m not breaching new territory here either, which again I do like.  So the cruxt of the problem comes down to content and how it’s delivered to my TV.

In the case of amazon it’s almost all via a streaming type delivery with a download avalible in some case.  Essentially everything lives in the cloud though.

The iTunes model depends on a download to a device and then from the device it’s either watched on the device or streamed to another node on the network (HD over IP light)

Basically what I think this means is I need to get a Roku box and just use that.