I have a similar setup. I live in San Jose, and with a digital antenna and an amplifier, I get more than 60 channels, with 20+ in flawless HD. The farthest I think is in Napa. A not insubstantial number of them are in Vietnamese, but still. Sometimes it's nice to just turn on the TV and watch whatever's on in the background instead of having to choose something on Netflix or Hulu.
The TV antenna is making a comeback
131–140 of 254 posts
Re: The TV antenna is making a comeback
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
Subscription is a deal breaker. I just want to be able to pause and rewind free TV signals. I'm willing to pay once for a device to do that but not a subscription.
Tivo Roamio OTA ($49.99) will let you do this if you never activate the subscription. You can use the tuner and buffer the broadcast stream.
This never came up in my research (although I was biased against Tivo), but I just checked and it said:
"$14.99 Monthly service with 1-year commitment"
Do you (or anyone else) know if the Tivo will work without an internet connection?
Re: The TV antenna is making a comeback
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
Comcast. No complaints about internet service. I get 50mbps, which I believe is advertised at $80/mo. With the basic cable plus HBO promotional rate, our bill is about $72/mo.
I'll also chime in to say that we have a similar deal. Not as cheap but still less than a lot of people pay. I usually get 100-120mbps down and 10-ish mbps up, cable with a bunch of channels that I never watch (but my gf seems to want), some of the channels are in HD, many are just stretched SD, again, I don't really care since I don't watch much. The "main" channels are in HD at least. Also HBO (main channel in HD,…
We had something similar with Comcast in SF - 2 boxes and 1 dvr in the house, '50Mb' (I'll leave that in quotes) down, 10'ish-maybe up.
When we first moved into our place last year, the internet was stable and worked well enough (I say well enough because the d/l speed would fluctuate pretty consistently at night). Sometimes there was a hiccup, but overall, it worked.
Then this summer hit. No warning, no reasons, nothing - internet no longer stayed stable. It was all over the place. Some nights, 2mb down. So, you have to spend the time to talk to tech people since it's late at night and the kids are asleep and you just don't feel like getting on the phone to battle.
Got the usual excuses that service was being upgraded in the street, the line looked fine to them, it must be something on our end (that one's always predictable). Annnd of course, a tech came out, twiddled and fiddled and discovered our signal was low. Weird that it just happened now and now when the second cable run was installed when we moved in.
Because my wife and I (sadly) work from home after hours, when you have no internet, you're screwed. We weren't watching tv anymore and when we did it was netflix or game of thrones or silicon valley - all watchable via hbo go. So, I switched to Sonic.net (the best isp in the bay area in my mind) and haven't looked back.
Sure, we're running over at&t fiber (sigh) and capped at 50 down/5 up (sigh), but it just works. We're not running 50 one day, 80 another, 10 another and we're paying about the same for internet as we were on Comcast.
Re: The TV antenna is making a comeback
#134With the exception of sports and news, linear TV is dead. It doesn't matter if it comes from the cable company or an antenna. Once users get a taste of watching things on their schedule, they don't want to adhere to the broadcaster's schedule. Also, I am going to predict that the advertising model used by current cable and broadcast networks won't ever work with on-demand programming. This is probably why Hulu now of…
Broadcast TV doesn't place any more restrictions or limitations on linearity of watching than any other transmission medium. If anything, broadcast TV places fewer restrictions since it's open access - anyone can connect and receive.
It's the devices used to receive the information, as well as the viewer's desire to be WATCH IT NOW which force the linearity.
Re: The TV antenna is making a comeback
#135The U.S. switch over to digital transmission killed my reception. The analog signal had no problem with the mountain ranges between me and the nearest metropolitan areas, but the digital signal can't make it through. I was using a rabbit ear antennae up until then. I get the NYC stations. It's perhaps a horrible thing to say, but Osama Bin Laden's boys knocked out only one of my channels and only temporarily; the FCC…
ATSC (well, 8-VSB) is pretty terrible at handling multipath. I live 12 miles from the antenna farm and ought to be able to get great reception with a bit of aluminium foil, but because I have a tree (who would have trees, right?) any one antenna position gets only about 2 channels well.
If the FCC hadn't succumbed to NIH and used the European version (COFDM), which handles multipath better, people might actually see the very nice picture available over digital broadcast.
Re: The TV antenna is making a comeback
#136I took a look at a relative’s cable bill last year. He lives in a town with three competing cable/ISP services. Here is how the monthly costs broke down: Expanded basic service: $60 High definition converter box: $10 Digital converter rental: $3 HBO Cinemax package: $18 Premiere Total Pack: $16 Showtime/TMC: $5 Starz: $5 Franchise fee: $7 Broadcast TV surcharge: $4 Sports programming surcharge: $2 Total monthly cost:…
I live in the woods 40 miles outside of Atlanta. I can (usually) get all of the important Atlanta stations, no problem. My Antenna was $150, but I have been using it for almost 10 years (you do the math). I do require some formidable signal amplification and lose picture when an airplane flies overhead.
Re: The TV antenna is making a comeback
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
That looks nice, but is a bit steep especially if you still have to provide your own storage. Still, best I've seen so far, thanks.
I can vouch for this model. Works great. I think it gets the guide over ethernet. It comes with a jack for that, or you can get an optional wireless USB dongle. The interface is decent, nothing great, but better than most cable provided boxes. I've got mine hooked up to a 2TB usb drive I had laying around. Worked immediately. It has reasonably good recording options. It can do string matching, so you can say "record…
I don't have any first-hand knowledge, so thanks for that.
However, it is my understanding that if you hook this up to the internet it gets its EPG from Rovio. OTOH, if you do not link it, it will have a crappier, yet sufficient EPG from OTA signals. I believe Rovio gives EPG 2 weeks out, but EPG via OTA is 2 days out.
Re: The TV antenna is making a comeback
#138Get internet service from cable provider with basic cable plus HBO for less than the advertised price of the internet service alone. Have to call back every year to get the promotional price back, which sucks. But we almost never watch the cable channels. Local channels in HD with a couple low-end antennas in the attic. And tend to watch HBO GO on a Roku, where we also have Netflix, Prime, etc. Doing Sling during foo…
>would like to have a better antenna setup with DVR that does not require subscription I have been looking at a Channel Master[0] for this exact purpose; the cost is $250+HDD. It has an ethernet port which allows one to get an EPG [1] from Rovi, but it isn't required. If I pull the trigger maybe I'll do a write up and submit it. [0] http://www.channelmaster.com/Antenna_DVR_s/336.htm [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/…
Isn't an EPG part of the US-American standard? It has been part of the DVB (rest of the world…) standard since the beginning, so there's generally a button on a TV remote to display it.
(The DVB MPEG transport stream contains mostly video packets, but is interspersed with the EPG — in bits — and other media. Almost all TVs will cache the EPG, though earlier systems required the user to wait until the requested information was rebroadcast.)
Re: The TV antenna is making a comeback
#139Two years back I decided to make my own antenna. I had no idea what a folded dipole was, but found a website that instructed me to use a metal clothes hanger cut to the proper length for HD US signals, and a block of wood. I had neither so I taped some leftover enamel wire to a piece of cardboard. I still use this antenna today, and get about 50 channels, living 30 miles away from the nearest broadcast antenna.
Point is, these broadcasts are incredibly easy to access, and it doesn't seem like the voodoo designs of $200 dollar antennas are actually needed by most people. It's somewhat surprising TV manufacturers don't simply add simple antennas as an accessory the same way my FM radio tuner came with one.
Re: The TV antenna is making a comeback
#140Two years back I decided to make my own antenna. I had no idea what a folded dipole was, but found a website that instructed me to use a metal clothes hanger cut to the proper length for HD US signals, and a block of wood. I had neither so I taped some leftover enamel wire to a piece of cardboard. I still use this antenna today, and get about 50 channels, living 30 miles away from the nearest broadcast antenna. Point…
Awesome. Care to share the resources you used for this project?