I've been an advocate in this column for cutting the cable cord and getting your entertainment content from online sources. But I've also warned that in so doing you'll be a pioneer with all the good and bad the pioneer life provides. You'll get the thrill of settling a new frontier. You'll also wake up one morning to find locusts have eaten your crops.
A few weeks back, I came home with a takeout order from Wendy's. That was my first karmic mistake, but after a long day the last thing I wanted to do was cook. And I wanted to watch TV.
Putting the Wendy's bag on the kitchen counter, I decided to watch the sitcom Community on Hulu, an Internet-based TV service available only in the U.S. and to pioneering, advice-dispensing cord cutters like me. My plan was to turn on my old netbook, log into a U.S. server I subscribe to and use a program called Connectify to turn the netbook into a wifi hotspot to share its American signal. I would then turn on my PlayStation 3, log on to the wifi signal created by the netbook, fire up the Hulu Plus app on the console and watch the weird antics of the misfits at Community's Greendale College.
Don't try this at home.
The first thing I noticed was that my net-book wasn't connecting to the American server. I had no idea why. I spent several minutes fiddling with the server's settings as my Wendy's bag sat unopened in the kitchen. Finally I determined that the Internet cable connection from my router to the netbook wasn't working. I had no idea why. But once I disconnected the cable and used my router's wifi signal instead, the netbook found the Internet and the server connected. I grabbed the Wendy's meal, put it on a plate and sat down at the TV to turn on the PlayStation.
That's when the PlayStation announced, via an opening onscreen message, that it wanted to update its operating system. I had no idea why or what the update was about, but it wasn't going to let me do anything, let alone watch Community, until I activated the update. I sighed, clicked on the update, and watched in horror as it started to download. It was a significant upgrade and was going to take a long time. Wendy's, and my patience, were growing cold. So I switched gears: if I couldn't watch Hulu on the PlayStation, I would watch Netflix on my Xbox 360, which sits on a shelf just above the PlayStation in my TV cabinet.
The Xbox started without a hitch. I clicked on the Netflix app and waited. And waited more. It didn't work. I had no idea why. Thinking perhaps the Xbox had booted up wrong, I reverted to my time honoured technique for fixing gadgets: restart. Again I clicked on the Netflix app.
And waited. And waited more. It didn't work. I had no freaking idea why.
By this time, more than half an hour had gone by. I had barely eaten Wendy's. I had spent more time trying to make my cord cutting system work than it would have taken to watch the TV show I wanted to see. I gave up on the consoles, attached my Windows tablet to the TV, turned on its Netflix app and watched some dumb thing I can't now recall. I ate my Wendy's.
There are a few lessons here. First, I should have gone with White Spot. Second, my cord cutting system is too complicated. Its virtue is that it uses gear I've already got. But with multiple devices and software services piled on top of each other, my desire to outfox Shaw, Telus and the entire U.S. entertainment industry has turned it into an out of control mess. Turning on the TV should not take half an hour.
I could use the Windows tablet all the time, but attaching it to the TV and then detaching it for tablet duty is awkward. (Plus, when I tried to control the tablet with a bluetooth mouse, it didn't work. I have no idea why.) Simple is best. If I were starting from scratch tomorrow, I'd get an Apple TV or a Roku streaming player or both and be done with it. If I wanted U.S. Internet access, I'd go with a service called Unblockus and run it through a second router attached to the Apple TV and Roku.
The kicker is that since that night, everything has worked fine. The server, the consoles, Netflix and Hulu all are working as expected. Why? I have no idea. I'm just a pioneer.
...
Netflix pick: My Way (2010): With an unfortunate Frank Sinatra-ish title, this wartime Korean epic of two frenemies apparently came after the director saw Saving Private Ryan, Enemy at the Gates, Gallipoli and Chariots of Fire and then took a weekend seminar in filmmaking co-run by Oliver Stone and Michael Bay. It's ridiculous and amazing, and threatens to turn into a half decent story of regular people ground up in the brutal machinery of history. Two takeaways: 1. it's refreshing to see tired Second World War themes from an Asian perspective; 2. if Korea can make movies so grand in scale, why can't Canada?
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