The TV setup on the cheap and the way I want

We got rid of DISH Network over a year ago since we were mostly watching about four channels and DVRing the same sitcom episodes to watch over and over. $60+ a month to do that? Preposterous. And that was just for television.

Fast forward to summer 2010. So, the kids are using their laptops to stream TV shows from Hulu, nbc.com and cbs.com (among other sites), and I bought a few Roku HD players for $60 each to stream quite a bit of content from Netflix (thanks for adding newer TV series!) and hopefully Hulu Plus sometime in the next month. These units are located in the master bedroom and the formal living room.

Is this ala-carte programming? Pretty close. Combined with OTA HD programming, the Roku boxes and a Blu-ray player that streams HD movies, YouTube and Pandora, we've covered a lot of ground for programming without any need for cable TV, satellite or u-verse -- all of which are $60+ a month, mostly for content we never would watch.

So, here goes (and this is why the face of TV is changing):

Netflix: $8.99/month for unlimited streaming of movies, TV shows, children's programming and a ton more -- and a single DVD rental out at a time to boot. A lot of the content is HD as well, for free.

Hulu Plus: $9.99/month for unlimited streaming of just about any TV show from any major network, even though we have to wait a day after it airs originally. Oh, and it's in HD. Again, for free.

Over-the-air broadcast HD programs: $0.00/month

High-speed internet: $44.99 to Cox for their 20Mbps service that feeds all this: four laptop PCs, an iPhone, and iPod Touch, two Roku HD boxes, an LG Blu-ray connected player, a Sony PS3, a Nintendo Wii and an IP camera to monitor a room in our house. That's a lotta WiFi goin' on.

So, for $63.97 a month, we get really fast high-speed internet (the "dumb pipe" by all accounts) and pay less than $20 per month as part of that total to consume as much television, movie, music and other content -- on any device throughout the house from game consoles to smartphones to STBs for the bedroom -- as we wish. There are some limits, yes. But, it's the content the family wants, when they want it, on any device they want it on, with no "appointment television" or goofy DVR fees and HD fees that the cable and telecom companies want to "fee us to death" with -- for 98% of the content we would never watch anyway.

Netflix seems ubiquitous everywhere (on all the Roku boxes, the PS3, the LG Blu-ray player and the iPhone/iPod Touch apps), and Hulu Plus is on the Roku boxes and on the iPhone and iPod Touch (via apps). The WiFi router in our house, amazingly, has not melted yet.

Just three years ago I would have not imagined we would be watching TV and movies this way (we rarely rent DVDs or Blu-ray discs). And, for so little money all things considered. Sound complicated? It isn't. Seriously.