Cutting Cable

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FogHelmut: Dec 18, 2003

I checked with some of those websites that tell you what your signal strength should be, but I don't trust them. I'm 17 miles as the crow flies from the broadcast towers in a first floor condo. They say I should be fine with a regular antenna, but is going up to an amplified one a bad idea? I'm thinking the Amazon Basics version.

# ¿ Dec 12, 2014 16:33

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# ¿ May 18, 2024 05:35

FogHelmut: Dec 18, 2003

My antenna picks up every local channel with great signal but one. Is this due to antenna placement/location? ABC is kind of a big channel, you'd think it would come in with the others.

# ¿ Feb 2, 2015 16:50

FogHelmut: Dec 18, 2003

I'm having trouble finding info on the HDHomeRun. Is the HDHomeRun any good going directly DLNA to a Smart TV? Does the FireTV app work well? Do you get a guide and are you able to change channels easily?

I really don't want to spend all day configuring streaming bitrates and bouncing things between PC servers. I just want to plug it in and watch.

# ¿ Jan 13, 2016 22:03

FogHelmut: Dec 18, 2003

This is great info, I think I'll hold off until I get more than one TV.

I just moved, so it was a good opportunity to cut the cord. I have an Amazon Basics antenna, and I get a bunch of channels, but I feel I could get more. I'm thinking of putting something heavy duty in the attic. Was looking at Winegard Flatwave Air - http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00E5Z3R6A . Do these modern antennas do better or worse than the old style with all of the arms everywhere?

Considering also supplementing with SlingTV and Hulu.

Edit - did the math, its pointless as hell to get SlingTV, Hulu, and Netflix. I really don't want anything on Netflix, so there's that.

Internet alone - est $1440 two year cost. Internet with basic TV package (131 channels, Cox mini box, online On Demand) - est $2200 two year cost. Internet with SlingTV and Netflix and Hulu - est $2304 two year cost.

Add $150 to the total for the cable package if I want a full box with built in On Demand and PPV availability. Subtract a couple hundred from the steaming options if I don't choose all of them.

With that close of a difference over two years (chosen for bundle contract), who gives a poo poo. Might as well get the cable package for the convenience of watching live/current shows.

At this point I'm back to undecided. It's antenna only or back on the juice.

FogHelmut fucked around with this message at 08:27 on Jan 14, 2016

# ¿ Jan 14, 2016 06:20

FogHelmut: Dec 18, 2003

Ixian posted:

For antennas - keep in mind in the US you are really only talking about the big 5 - ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, Fox - plus the CW. If you are in to Spanish channels (or have in laws that are like me) then you have a few more options like Univision and Telemundo. There are some off-brand movie and shopping channels but let's be honest, no one really gives a poo poo about those.

That's it for HD. There are a lot of sub-channels too but most of them are in SD and also garbage. Even the ones I can tune I block out in my guide.

For your pricing calcs - don't forget all the soft fees. Cable box rentals, copious local/state/federal taxes - when I had a cable bill I paid an additional $25 a month just in taxes, and boxes were something like $9/month, more for DVR service. Cable also loves to do promos to get you in the door and then jack up the price later. They will nickle and dime you to pieces.

OTA + Sling TV covers a huge swath of what most people like to watch (though covering all the bases/tastes is impossible). I throw HBO Now on top because HBO Now is awesome and has a lot of good programs. At the end of the day I've found I like everything I get and don't miss the stuff I don't. It's easy to overthink this up front, best thing is to try it out for a few weeks, adjust to the new app-centric way of watching TV, and see if it is for you.

While I did factor in the boxes, I did not look at taxes and other fees. Cox does list their monthly costs by month for the length of the contract. It only increases $10 per month the 2nd year for the package I'm looking at.

For me this is about saving money. I've had cable my entire life and that is just about all I watch. I only watch sports and news on the local channels.

A cable subscription gives me all of the channels that I want but a lot that I don't, true. The DVR service with Cox is outrageous - $20.50 a month for the DVR + box. I figure that On Demand and access to shows on individual channels' websites via a cable subscription login makes up for lack of DVR for the most part. If I have SlingTV, can I use my information to get access to these On Demand programs?

Another interesting thing Cox offers is all of the local OTA channels + internet and HBO for $70 a month. If HBO was something I was interested in for more than 10 weeks out of the year, this would be compelling because I wouldn't have to fool around with antennas, and for roughly the same cost. Internet $55 + HBO $15.

I think going all in, the cost difference just isn't there. Not here, at least. Where I used to live, the options were Comcast or FiOS. The packages and pricing made OTA + streaming a good deal. I'm not seeing it here unless you're going full stop. I even considered AT&T + DirecTV, but that didn't last - their first year price is very good, but the 2nd year literally doubles.

And it's hard for me to get behind the cord cutting tech. We look at the two year cost because that's how long cable package contracts last. If I'm buying devices to get a service, how long do these last? If you get stuck in that upgrade cycle, there isn't much of a savings. We tend to look at these things where I put out the money up front and I save in the long term, but how long is that term really?

Believe me, I want to cut the cord. I want it to work and be as easy as plugging in a box and using a remote. But cable is easy as hell. I'm not on a righteous mission to destroy the monopolies, or looking at this as some technology based hobby.

The cost is the bottom line. I just want to be able to turn on the idiot box and watch 6 hour blocks of Diners Drive Ins and Dives, or some rednecks crashing trucks into each other's nuts without feeling like I've been ripped off. But then maybe it's my choice of programming.

# ¿ Jan 14, 2016 17:02

FogHelmut: Dec 18, 2003

gently caress it all, I'm just getting internet.

Gonna climb up in my attic. There's a huge antenna in there from the 70's. It's been torn down, in pieces. Gonna try to rebuild it and convert it to coax.

# ¿ Jan 15, 2016 08:33

FogHelmut: Dec 18, 2003

Thermopyle posted:

_{usenet + kodi solves most (all?) of the problems talked about on this page while introducing a smaller and less vexing (for technically proficient people) number of problems}

_{just sayin}

Yes, and I'm told there's some kind of box you can buy for $~250 that has all of this preinstalled and configured including some kind of Popcorn Time or equivalent.

But :filez:

# ¿ Jan 15, 2016 18:01

FogHelmut: Dec 18, 2003

I have used Kodi and it is a pain in the rear end to sideload and operate on the FireTV. Plex works nicely when it feels like working. However as poor as the interface was, nothing was better than the WDTV. Nothing just worked every time. It couldn't do anything else, but what it did, it did flawlessly.

# ¿ Jan 15, 2016 19:37

FogHelmut: Dec 18, 2003

Spent two hours tracing cable wires around my house. There have been several past installs of cable, possibly ATT Uverse, and DirecTV. Lots of cut wires and terminated connections. If I were a scrap man, I'd be drunk on copper wire.

Anyway, old attic antenna is possibly beyond resurrection. I'll just buy a new one. I can hook it in to the latest DirectTV wires and have it going to 3 rooms in the house. The cable internet is on a direct line to a 4th room. Looks easy enough to reroute if needed.

# ¿ Jan 16, 2016 07:34

FogHelmut: Dec 18, 2003

BigFactory posted:

I have a roku, Netflix and Amazon prime. And an antenna for football. I don't know what Usenet is. What am I missing?

It's content is like bit torrent but for cool kids. They always used to say "Don't talk about Usenet." But its well known enough that its always getting DMCA'd, so you have to sign up for secret Dutch websites to get you the secret encrypted indexes.

FogHelmut fucked around with this message at 16:55 on Jan 16, 2016

# ¿ Jan 16, 2016 16:52

FogHelmut: Dec 18, 2003

BigFactory posted:

what are we talking about? bad cable shows, basically, right?

I'm not trying to be a smartass, is there something crazy that I'm missing? I haven't had cable in a few years, never paid for premium channels, and have no problem going to the library to get DVDs of HBO shows and stuff as they come out.

I absolutely do not need to watch HGTV, Food Network, or ESPN programming, and if I really, really, really do, some of that is on Amazon anyways. But I'd rather read a book than watch a rerun of house hunters or iron chef.

Ok that sounds horrible. I sit in front of a computer enough at work, I don't have any interest in going through that to watch tv. Get it, but not for me.

It's actually the more mainstream shows, I don't think the scene has any interest in the more obscure/bad ones. It's actually pretty simple to automate with Sickbeard and Sabnzbd. Just select your shows and soon you'll have 4tb of crap you never will watch or won't ever watch again.

Just to be clear, this is technically :filez:

(you can argue if you can see the channels its the same as recording if you like) so this information is for entertainment purposes only.

# ¿ Jan 16, 2016 17:07

FogHelmut: Dec 18, 2003

Thermopyle posted:

I'll explain how usenet + kodi/emby work in my house. You could use Plex or Emby instead of Kodi, for the purposes of what usenet does for you it doesn't matter.

This isn't a how-to so I'll skip some not-pertinent stuff.

The first thing that happens is that an anonymous person(s) somewhere upload TV shows within a few minutes of them airing (note that airing usually means where they first air anywhere on the planet so they're often available before they air in your timezone).

A program called Sonarr knows which shows our household is interested in. When someone in my household hears about a show that we might be interested in, we click a bookmark in our browser or use an app on our phone which tells Sonarr that we care about the show.

When a show is available the following things happen:

Sonarr downloads the show.

Sonarr notifies Emby.

Emby downloads neat artwork, ratings, plot, cast, etc, for the show.

Emby manages all of this information for Kodi.

My Kodi homescreen has a list of recently added episodes, from which I can select and watch, or I just browse through a list of shows and select the episode I want.

As Emby manages my media database instead of Kodi it is super simple to maintain watched status between multiple TVs as well as to stream to mobile devices just like Plex.

(There's another program that you can use instead of Sonarr alongside Couchpotato that does movies instead of tv shows.)

The advantages to this setup:

Everything is in one nice-looking integrated interface. No jumping between different apps for different stuff.

You can customize how it all looks and works, and if you do a good job its easier to use than any app.

I haven't done a detailed comparison, but my gut tells me that on average the media quality is better than most streaming.

Fast forward and rewind work perfectly and instantaneously along with skip forward/back.

For 99% of people 99% of what you're interested in is going to be available via usenet.

The disadvantages of this setup:

There is a significant amount of configuration required to get it going. You have to configure a usenet client, Sonarr, couchpotato, a remote control, apps, a server to hold your data, etc.

There is some amount of ongoing maintenance required. (note that this is pretty insignifcant...I might spend 15 minutes a month fixing a TV show that was labeled wrong or something)

Not everything is going to be available. Like, random shows on HGTV or whatever. No sports.

User Ixian thinks that this setup is missing the discoverability of new content that apps like Netflix bring to the table. I don't think he's totally wrong, but I don't feel like its a huge drawback either. The amount of a drawback that it is is going to be dependent upon how much you care about discovering new content via the web rather than via your tv. We always add anything we hear about that might be slightly interesting, so our media server always has way more content to browse than we could ever watch.

A Usenet provider costs a bit of money. If you don't watch much TV you can use whats called a block provider where you pay a flat fee to download X GB, or you can pay 8-10 bucks a month for an unlimited provider. A good provider will max out your download speeds.

I certainly wouldn't recommend it to most people because its not enough better to be worth the additional up-front time and effort. However, if you're knowledgeable enough or wanting to learn, you end up with something that is arguably better.

edit: clarified that you use Couchpotato alongside Sonarr and added that a usenet provider costs a bit.

So then Sonarr is like a Sickbeard/Sabnzbd?

# ¿ Jan 21, 2016 20:32

FogHelmut: Dec 18, 2003

Anyone have SlingTV? I'm doing the free week, using it on my FireTV. It doesn't remember my quality settings when I exit the app. Is this normal? Will I have to change it to lower quality every time I open it?

# ¿ Jun 29, 2016 00:12

FogHelmut: Dec 18, 2003

I gave up on SlingTV after my free week. I've just gotten used to not having cable after 6 months. I can't really say I liked the channels they offered either. Outside of History or Food Network, there was nothing that I really used to watch. It was mostly just odd channels, and I was disappointed that so many of them weren't actual live channels but rather a selection of on demand programming.

# ¿ Jul 6, 2016 15:42

FogHelmut: Dec 18, 2003

Doctor Butts posted:

For the past few weeks, we have not been able to receive a large portion of our DirecTV content since a neighbor's tree has grown to block out the signal. DirecTV techs are unable to find a mounting solution anywhere else on our house to get a better signal. Neighbor isn't doing anything with the tree.

Our DirecTV setup has been maxed in recording more than a few times, so we would need a 4 tuner DVR at the least. We have the Genie receiver in living room, and 2 mini's elsewhere in the house.

Wife watches a bunch of crime procedurals and some other random stuff. All major networks needed, plus CW, TNT/TBS/USA and probably some others that I don't know of. Kid watches stuff on Nick Jr. Disney Jr. and most of the stuff the kid is into isn't on Netflix. Haven't checked Amazon Prime.

I watch a show or two on regular and cable channels, but also need access to our RSN since sports team(s) I watch aren't on broadcast.

Looked into other solutions and Sling doesn't provide the right selections (even with add-ons) for either its orange or blue packages, plus orange is only single stream. Playstation Vue doesn't have CBS, and it's offerings for the other local channels are all whatever is available 'on-demand' and of course this time of year all of the on-demand stuff is blank. Vue's 'cloud' DVR doesn't keep things indefinitely, either.

Have never tried receiving antenna in this house, though for main channels plus PBS it seems like reception could be OK.

If I cut the cord and wanted the same functionality as I get with my current setup, I figure I'd need something like a 4 tuner Tablo, an antenna, the requisite external hard drive, and 3 Roku's all wired into our LAN plus I believe Playstation Vue's middle package for RSN and TNT and stuff.

If I were to switch to cable, I'd probably either get a TiVo Roamio or Bolt, plus two Minis. Since the Tivo stuff is MoCa, I could just use the existing Coax cable used by the DirecTV setup instead of having to route more ethernet.

And unless there's stuff I'm missing, that's what I think my options are. I'm also leaning towards the Tivo option since it is easier to set up and more than likely easier to use.

Not sure what kind of tree it is:

http://forestry.about.com/od/forestinsects/p/con_ins_worst.htm
http://forestry.about.com/od/forestdiseases/p/hdw_dis_worst.htm

A guy I used to work with had a neighbor's tree that would drop leaves all over his yard. It was on the fence line, so it's roots went under into his property. He dug them up and applied herbicide directly to them just about every day. I don't remember if this worked.

You could also construct some kind of microwave HERF gun and aim it at the leaves you want eliminated and it may cook them. It may also disrupt air traffic or violate a number of laws.

# ¿ Jul 6, 2016 20:49

FogHelmut: Dec 18, 2003

I just want to pay the NFL to let me stream my team's games live. Is that too much to ask? I can't watch them on antenna because I live 2500 miles away. I don't want to buy the whole DirecTV. I don't want to watch the games later that day on replay. I don't really want to sign up and watch through a proxy.

torturemyballs posted:

I started with Sling, moved to Vue for 6 months or so, and am back doing a 7 day trial with Sling to figure out which one I want to keep. So far, it looks like Vue has the better picture quality? I only know that PS Vue was running at about 5.2 mb/s and Sling is at 3.7 mb/s. I can't tell which one is going to be better overall for college/pro football when Vue gets NFLN and Redzone.

The part that is really lame about Sling though is subscribing to HBO does not give you Go or Now access....can't really figure out why.

Just get HBO Now on its own, it's the same price.

# ¿ Aug 12, 2016 01:38

FogHelmut: Dec 18, 2003

Luceo posted:

Last year, I bought NFL game pass through AdFree-Time paying in Brazilian currency, and had no problems. AFT is a DNS spoofer, not a proxy. I haven't tried it yet this year, though.

Can I spoof my DNS on my FireTV? I'm not sitting at my computer like a bitch or finding a really long HDMI cable.

# ¿ Aug 14, 2016 22:14

FogHelmut: Dec 18, 2003

Some of these channels on SlingTV seem to not be the actual channel but some kind of SlingTV version. I mean I know it's a joke that the History Channel is nothing but American Pickers and Ancient Aliens, but this is literally every day 6 hour blocks of American Pickers and Ancient Aliens.

# ¿ Oct 10, 2016 03:59

FogHelmut: Dec 18, 2003

Cheesus posted:

We have Orange because my wife wanted Bravo. However, according to her, they show more commercials in Sling's streaming version.

I have the one with ESPN because there was one Monday Night Football game I wanted to watch. Also it's $14 or $15 a month with a T-Mobile account. I'm not sure if they discount the other plans.

# ¿ Oct 10, 2016 15:20

FogHelmut: Dec 18, 2003

AMC is the king of commercials. Movies last for 4 or 5 hours.

# ¿ Oct 10, 2016 17:19

FogHelmut: Dec 18, 2003

Did SlingTV drop the Cooking channel? Or was it a temporary thing to begin with?

# ¿ Dec 8, 2016 20:50

FogHelmut: Dec 18, 2003

My low end 24" LG is picking up more antenna channels than my brand new Samsung. Same antenna. Hell, even my old 40" Samsung picked up the station I want. CBS out of LA.

It's been a finicky station, but I have the antenna aimed right and the other TVs get it, but the new TV doesn't like it.

The absurd thing is I did another channel scan and I picked up Fox out of San Diego clear as day. I shouldn't really be able to get those, not with this $40 Amazon basics flat powered antenna.

Any ideas how I can improve my signal to this one TV for this one station? Bigger antenna? Signal booster?

# ¿ Feb 1, 2017 07:32

FogHelmut: Dec 18, 2003

I do have the older version of this https://www.amazon.com/AmazonBasics-Ultra-Thin-Indoor-Antenna/dp/B00X4RAEZC and it's in my attic. Well, my lower attic, I could go up another floor, but I'm mostly uninhibited between here and the LA towers, which are about right on the 50 mile end of the range. I was getting 120+ channels, except CBS. Will moving up to an antenna in the $100+ range make that much of a difference? I was already getting the one San Diego station, which is 65 miles away. Maybe a combination of a bigger antenna and going all the way up?

# ¿ Feb 1, 2017 16:58

FogHelmut: Dec 18, 2003

FCKGW posted:

If you already have attic access just get this one.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00D...u7zL&ref=plSrch

I'm about 30 miles from LA towers and pick up about 170 channels with it.

I took your advice, I get about the same amount of channels - but no ABC for some reason. I've re-aimed this thing like 5 times.

Maybe I need to power it, or move it higher.

# ¿ Feb 4, 2017 03:00

FogHelmut: Dec 18, 2003

FCKGW posted:

So you get CBS now, but lost ABC? Weird.

Are you aiming it via http://tvfool.com/ or a similar service?

Some app called TV Antenna Helper Free. It makes a compass that points to the tower locations.

Edit TV Fool puts everything at about 330 degrees. That app has it at about 318. I'll reroute the antenna and see.

Edit 2 - up to 102 channels from 95. Still no ABC. Gonna mess with it more tomorrow.

Edit 3 - my other TV is picking up ABC no problem. Very weird.

FogHelmut fucked around with this message at 09:11 on Feb 4, 2017

# ¿ Feb 4, 2017 04:27

FogHelmut: Dec 18, 2003

I scanned again this morning, got 110 channels including ABC. Must be the weather.

# ¿ Feb 4, 2017 18:29

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# ¿ May 18, 2024 05:35

FogHelmut: Dec 18, 2003

MrBigglesworth posted:

Ive regretted never buying in when the price was a sky high $480/share. Now it is $902!

Don't worry, the whole market is overdue for a ~~crash~~ correction.

# ¿ Apr 11, 2017 15:18

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