Entertainment on the RV road

Many campgrounds have cable TV, but particularly for those RVers depending on off-air TV signals, the advent of digital television with its shorter broadcast distance, means you may not be able to get as many (or any at all) channels in the same locations you had great reception in last year. Here are a few options.

On one of my last excursions I had spotty Internet connectivity. The problems were brought on by a combination of satellite Internet through DirectWay and enthusiastic Internet users who overloaded the bandwidth provided by DirectWay. Keep in mind that the services I'm recommending here depend on having good connectivity and generous limits on data transfer volumes. I have not measured the requirements of each of these, but they are all in the 'more than e-mail' load category, and lower than what it takes to download streams of MP3 files.

That said, if your campground provides decent WiFi to your site, you should be able to take advantage of at least some of these services. If you have your own wireless broadband connection via one of the cellular services, with a 5gb/month limit, you are likely to be able to get decent performance, but need to check your usage as you go. Overusing the allotted capacity can be expensive.

TV
The easiest and least taxing on your bandwidth is simply finding the local television station's Internet channel. These are usually pretty good for keeping up with local news and weather. You'll also find coverage of wider interest, but for national and international news, CNN, Fox News, or other news sources work well.

If your television interests are more focused on entertainment, HULU is a great source. HULU streams movie trailers, TV episodes, and lots of other content. You're likely to find the full series of your favorite shows there. But as a word of caution, this kind of streaming video is one of those that eats into your available bandwidth and your download allotment. The quality of your viewing depends on how good your Internet connection is at the time you're watching.

Movies
You may have brought a few DVDs with you, that you got from Netflix before you left the driveway. Depending on your Netflix account level, you can watch a certain number of hours of Netflix movies through your online connection. While you have over 100,000 DVD movies available through the traditional Netflix delivery service, there are "only" about 12,000 available for online viewing.

There are lots of other services offering television and movie viewing online. Some of them are legitimate, and some of them just want you to install their viewer on your computer, which can be a security risk depending on the company. If you've found any providers that offer good selections and service, without any burdensome requirements, post them here for us.

Music
Of course, there's always AM and FM radio, and for many of us, there's satellite radio as well. One other option is the plethora of Internet radio available. One of the most interesting is Pandora. Pandora lets you find exactly the song or artist you want to listen to, then builds a listening series based on your preferences. It's a free service, and in terms of bandwidth requirements, is significantly less a hog than any of the video services.

Equipment
It may seem obvious, but it's worth mentioning that all these services are available through your computer (not your television). I dusted off an old laptop computer and mounted it under my television set, then connected the VGA port on the laptop to the VGA adapter on my flat panel TV. I use a wireless keyboard and mouse to control the TV/computer combination from the sitting area. If your TV doesn't have the proper connection, you can simply watch the videos on your laptop screen - maybe not as large as you'd like, but probably much better resolution.

I also ran a wire from the laptop to the 'aux' input on my camper's sound system. This makes for a nice distribution of the sound through much better speakers than those installed in either my laptop or my TV.

Above all, be sure to watch out for bandwidth and download limitations. You'll know immediately if you are overstretching the bandwidth available because you'll get pauses and hesitation in your video. It's not so easy to know about download volumes, so find out from your Internet provider where to check, and do so often.

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