Post edited 2:29 pm – December 5, 2011 by Craig Chamberlin

I've often had this thought cross my mind over the past few months when I turn on Netflix. About three months ago I opted to drop Cable television entirely from my monthly bill and switch exclusively over to Netflix as my primary media provider. This was also brought up to me over this weekend when a co-worker asked what I thought about the Roku Box Streaming Media Player.

Well, first of all, the Roku box is basically the best streaming media currently has to offer. It is extremely cost effective, hitting only as a $60.00 one time fee and offers streaming services from all the major vendors such as Hulu, Netflix, Amazon HD Video and Pandora. Of course, your subscription to these services must be done separately, but you can pick an choose which ones you'd like to have and at what time.

With Netflix providing a huge array of television shows such as Frasier, News Radio, That 70s Show, Psych, White Collar, Burn Notice, Futurama, Family Guy, 24… just to name a few… it is hard to justify spending so much on cable when they really only have a couple of shows to offer – with commercials. Netflix only hits you for around $8.00 per month for unlimited access to almost the entire series of these shows. Everything except the latest and greatest release.

Amazon offers great High Definition pricing for Bluray quality movies, assuming you get a Roku box with full 1080p resolution. It's pricing is competitive as well, at $4.00 per movie and it gives you plenty of time to watch the movie in it's entirety.

You will also notice Apple TV and Google TV have tried to adopt streaming media as a primary streaming venue, sometimes bundled within televisions now to make "smart TVs". You can see these services being banned by many major TV media outlets such as ABC and NBC – who instead of embracing these technologies, still attempts to thwart the open platform by rejecting streaming services such as Google TV and offering an often inadequate service such as Hulu.

Has anyone else here taken the plunge to get rid of their monthly cable bill (that lands well over $100.00 for many) and jump straight into streaming media? I know there are a number of reasons not to switch, there still isn't a good offering of up to date television on any streaming medias and of course, you really can't get a good set of sports events yet. Seriously, it's probably just a matter of time.