Now that it is 2010, all the '10s are starting to feel the ugly specter of the real world' creeping up on them; the little things in life Dartmouth students never deal with start surfacing. A normal person's first concern when graduating is probably not their future entertainment center setup, but as people frequently remind me, I am not a normal person.
Since the real world does not get DarTV, I am slightly concerned as to how I will watch TV next year. Because a week's worth of going out in the real world costs about as much as a whole term's worth of dues, I figured it would be a prudent move next year to forgo cable TV and just rely on some technology and the internet.
Here are the options, in order of easiness:
Microsoft Xbox 360/Sony PlayStation 3: Both of these machines are better known as video game consoles, but these days they are so much more than that. The PS3 has a built-in Blu-ray player and could arguably be the only thing you ever need to plug into your TV besides the power cord. Both the Xbox 360 and the PS3 are now capable of streaming Netflix movies. So as I long as I am content watching slightly dated movies and TV shows, I will be all set.
Roku HD: The Roku player is a $100 box that connects to the internet and streams TV shows and movies from a variety of online sources, like Netflix or Amazon, so it offers just slightly more than the game consoles above do but only just. A lot of the content would require paying extra money, but the Roku box is straightforward to set up and easy to use.
Boxee Box: The Boxee Box by D-Link is a brand new device that was just announced last week. It does everything the Roku HD box does, but with the addition of Hulu. Although a lot of information about the Boxee Box like the exact price is still unknown, it will have a very cool half-sunken box design, Nvidia Tegra 2 graphics for 1080p HD glory and a remote with a built-in QWERTY keyboard. It sounds pretty awesome, and it appears the Boxee Box will be hitting the proverbial shelves just in time for graduation.
Acer Aspire Revo: Finally, I arrive at the geekiest, most involved option on my list. This option will potentially take a weekend to get up and running, but if you find enjoyment in technology like I do, that will not be a big deal. In fact, it might be more entertaining than the TV you were planning on watching.
The Aspire Revo is a nettop computer, or a desktop version of the popular netbook mini-notebooks that are showing up around campus. The Aspire Revo starts at just $200, but it packs enough graphics power to churn out 1080p video to an HDTV. Using Windows on a big TV is not cool, however, so the trick is to install either XBMC or even the Boxee OS used by the aforementioned Box. Doing so will give it a menu system that is simple enough to use with a remote. The payoff for the time spent setting up this system is the additional flexibility it offers over the Roku and Boxee Boxes. Although, given the cost and time involved, maybe it is better to just get a PS3 or Xbox 360 and play more video games instead.
