We finally did it. We cut the cord… to cable tv. And I wish we had done it years earlier. There is a bit of a learning curve because it does alter the way one watches televised entertainment but I’m slowly adapting.

I have been a lifelong channel surfer. Back before we had remotes, I used to wear out the TV dial by turning it to change channels constantly. That habit, honed over the last 50 years, has been deeply ingrained in me. I’m finding that it doesn’t serve me well with this new technology but the cost savings are so high that I’m making the effort to retrain my TV watching habits.

We’ve cancelled our cable service. To replace it, we bought an HD antenna which picks up some 60 channels of which maybe 5 has programming that we might watch (mostly local news shows). We also bought an Amazon Fire TV kit that connects to our Smart TV. I am an Amazon Prime subscriber and we’ve signed up for Netflix. The HD antenna and Fire TV were a one time fixed cost and the combined Netflix and Prime monthly subscription rate are substantially less than the monthly cable bill we were incurring.

But no more channel surfing. Streaming technology is more suited to binge watching. Pick a show and watch a season at a time. My wife just finished The Crown and is working her way through The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. I just finished the last two seasons of Stranger Things and have yet to decide where to go from there. There is just so much to choose from.

It is a new world with new rules…but it seems to be where the future is heading.  That is one reason why we offer Digital Video Archive as a part of our Home Video Studio services. Digital Video Archive (DVA) is the streaming alternative for your home movies. We even have an app that works with the Amazon Fire TV and Fire Stick. Just bring your home movies to us, we will encode it to the DVA format while you download the DVA app to your Fire TV or Fire Stick. And in no time you’ll be watching your home movies on your smart TV, your smart phone, or your computer. And you can share them with all of your friends and family no matter where they live.

The future is here.  And you can find it at Home Video Studio.

Michael Ondrasik and Home Video Studio specialize in the preservation of family memories through the digitalization of film, videotapes, audio recordings, photos, negatives, and slides. For more information, call 352-735-8550 or visit our website.