I got interviewed by our local NBC affiliate, WJAR 10, about a month ago for a segment on over the air (OTA) HDTV. It aired last night and apparently again tonight because they got so many calls about it. It was a lot of fun being the technology evangelist for OTA HDTV for Rhode Island.

Not bad, huh? I was a little nervous and forgot to mention a couple of things during the interview. While I did mention that I get all the Boston stations with my OTA antenna, I forgot to note that Cox doesn’t carry any of them, whether in standard def or high def. Also, despite what the operations guy from Cox said, you can totally tell the difference between the recompressed HD signal on cable and the pure OTA signal.

For the most part, 98% of what’s on regular cable is crap. I will admit that I love the original series on HBO and Showtime like Deadwood, Rome, Weeds, Six Feet Under, etc. I see them when they come out on DVD. I like watching a whole season of something in one shot anyway. Except for those few series, how many times can you watch Beverly Hills Cop on HBO? There are also a few of those reality competition shows on Bravo (Top Chef, Top Design, Project Runway) that we don’t get to see live. But if we’re really dying to see them, we can always get them from the iTunes store.

When you figure that I’d pay about $100 per month for the pleasure of having all that entertainment piped into my house by Cox every month, I’m way ahead of the game by going OTA for network television and then buying everything else a la carte.