TiVo and Roku offer alternatives to cable companies for Gripe Line readers frustrated by the high cost of moving to digital In response to a previous Gripe Line post, “Comcast upgrade renders reader’s A/V equipment obsolete,” Greg writes in:Charter Communications has been doing the same thing. I’m now paying $20 a month for converter boxes, so I can get channels that moved from analog to the digital-only area. With the original VCR or DVD recorder, though, I could program it to record one channel at one time and another channel the next hour. There is no way to program the digital box to change channels at specified times. I’m very disappointed. I have a few hundred tapes. I should probably just cut the cable and watch reruns. At 10 hours of TV a week, it will be years before I start repeating. By then, my memory will have failed enough that it will all seem like new material to me.And Christopher reports, “The situation you describe happened a year ago with Verizon Fios. I had to give up using my second tuner. To get television in my children’s rooms, I now have to pay for digital adapters.”[ See the InfoWorld post that kicked off this outpouring: “Comcast upgrade renders reader’s A/V equipment obsolete” | Frustrated by tech support? Get answers in InfoWorld’s Gripe Line newsletter. ] I don’t usually cover products here on the Gripe Line, but since the price tag on cable service drove me to a work-around years ago, I’ve discovered that it’s possible to vote with my dollars when it comes to entertainment. I can’t resist sharing my solution.I skip the cable company’s digital box and DVR service altogether by using a Tivo DVR and TiVo service. I subscribe to only the most basic cable service and use TiVo to create a menu of shows I like from that limited programming. I can easily schedule shows from my TV screen or the Web, and I never worry about what time programs are on. I simply search by the program title and subscribe to a Season Pass. TiVo finds it and records it every time it airs. (I can also use TiVo to stream content from Netflix or Amazon Video on Demand.)TiVo did the math and claims this route is cheaper than renting a DVR through your cable company and paying for DVR service. But since it allowed me to drop all extended cable programming, it saves me more money than that. Another tool for working around your cable company’s grip on your programming dollar is to buy a Roku box. This $99 device lets you stream from Netflix or Amazon Video on Demand. If you, like Greg, are simply looking for something to watch with minimal effort, this will give you plenty of programming with no cable at all (though you need broadband Internet.)I also connected a desktop computer to my big-screen TV so that I can watch Hulu.com, Fancast.com, and the TV channels’ own Web sites over my Wi-Fi network. That way, I can see TV shows in their current season — though they usually air online a day after they go live on TV. And since that family room TV is also connected to an Xbox 360, my kids use the gaming console instead of a Roku box to stream Netflix TV shows and movies and Amazon Video on Demand.This combination of tools provides what feels like limitless on-demand programming throughout our house. The major expense after the hardware is high-speed Internet, though we also pay for Netflix, basic cable, and Amazon movie rentals. I realize that neither of these solutions will satisfy Eric’s hankering for sports programming, but in some markets, cable subscribers can watch sports online. And when a game is not available that way, my husband has discovered that fact makes an ironclad excuse for going to a sports bar. Related content Comcast upgrade renders reader’s A/V equipment obsolete A Gripe Line reader is stuck with a nearly useless home entertainment setup after a Comcast digital service “enhancement” Technology Industry