Are you watching free OTA digital TV

[razztazz]

I've been Over The Air since Jan 2011. Some subchannels even in the same metro are duplicates. Don't know how the 2 different local stations decided they'd make money that way. Also, at certain times of day (usually approaching sunset) the sun interferes with a couple channels. Same with other weather conditions. But none of this has had me considering going back to cable

[H2ODude]

TVFool is a pretty impressive analysis. It says I should be able to get at least 10 channels with a set top antenna. I'm thinking the antenna I bought and returned may have been OK but I just did something wrong. I know I had input set right. Oh well.

[Sunset]

We do use netflix as well as OTA.

Plus redbox for the odd movie. Today use the promo code SNAP to get $1.50 off your redbox rental.

[CountryBoy]

I'm very fortunate to live on the top floor of my apartment building, about 5 miles north of downtown Pittsburgh. I get 40+ OTA channels (but probably don't watch more than 10).

When my "extended basic + dvr" cable package shot to $119.00 in Dec 2014, I bought a Mohu Leaf just as an experiment, was surprised to get 15 channels--then I read someone's comment on Amazon.com that the Mohu Curve (which sits on a nearby bookshelf or table) worked much better for them, so I traded in the Leaf for the Curve and wow--100% difference.

Now I only pay $20 a month (for my Tivo service & Netflix), couldn't be happier--but I might be on Comcasts' Hit List. A few months ago they posted a notice in our lobby that Comcast customers would be losing service for the day because of line repairs. One of my neighbors heard "Good Morning America" on my tv & asked how I was able to watch it, when I showed him my Mohu, he almost fell over! I had several neighbors since asking to see it.

[Fermion]

We are watching OTA digital TV when we are in range of a transmitter with our RV, but I am really missing a few things I used to get on cable. We are streaming Game of Thrones after signing up for HBO now (30 day free trial) but many of my other trash shows (Naked and Afraid, Bering Sea Gold, Orphan Black, Fear the Walking Dead) are not available unless you have a cable subscription. Hulu and other sources are way behind (most of the time you can only watch stuff from 3 seasons ago).

Bates Motel you can buy episodes on Amazon. Thank goodness Fargo and Breaking Bad are over, otherwise we would not have been able to sell our house!

[RE2Boys]

It's interesting that several posters have related the "re-discovery" by many folks of OTA transmission. I have run into people that only grew up with cable TV and were unaware of any alternatives. Somewhat understandable as I have lived in small towns in PA where only one or two stations could be picked up by an indoor antenna but for me it was a treat as I was 28 when I bought my first TV, went for 10 years without television once I graduated HS and moved away.

To this day, I'm not much of a TV watcher, primarily either PBS and the local news. Started streaming soon after Netflix started offering it and about 80+% of the households TV watching is streaming.

[ziggy29]

Quote:

Originally Posted by H2ODude TVFool is a pretty impressive analysis. It says I should be able to get at least 10 channels with a set top antenna. I'm thinking the antenna I bought and returned may have been OK but I just did something wrong. I know I had input set right. Oh well.

If some of them were VHF (actual RF frequencies under 14 - not simply channel numbers), it's likely set top rabbit ears would fall short. My experience with TVFool has been that when it says a station is in the green or sometimes yellow bands, AND it is UHF, I can get it with an indoor antenna. I had no luck getting VHF at all, no matter how much I tried to adjust the rabbit ears according to the guides I've seen.

[Chuckanut]

I have an antenna hooked up to a Tivo OTA recorder. IMHO, the Tivo unit makes OTA television about as good as it can get.

It has several great features like being able to put a live show on hold for up to 1/2 hour while one takes a break to get a beer or answer a phone call. It also has a rapid play function that zips through a show 30% faster than normal with no chipmunk voices. And did I mention the commercial skip feature for most of the network prime-time shows? Very nice.

I have setup the Tivo to automatically record the shows I am most interested in which it does with great reliability. And the Tivo will do Netflix and Amazon with out needing another device. (I have not tried other services on it.)

Combine OTA, Tivo, and Netflix and one has a plenty to watch.

[LauAnn]

I use a Mohu Leaf indoor antenna to pick up 5 local channels; and subscribe to Netflix via a Roku box. Rabbit ears didn't do a good job picking up the OTA signals. I also continue to receive the local channels with my internet connection through Time Warner, but they don't come in HD as do the OTA digital.

[Rustic23]

I would, but even with a good antenna it is not available.

[ERD50]

Quote:

Originally Posted by RE2Boys It's interesting that several posters have related the "re-discovery" by many folks of OTA transmission. I have run into people that only grew up with cable TV and were unaware of any alternatives. ...

And something they may not be aware of, and might be surprised at - the 'free' OTA provides a higher quality signal than cable! The cable providers do a lot of compression to get those 500 channels with nothing on.

With OTA, each station has enough bandwidth for for a very high quality 1080i signal.

-ERD50

[Sunset]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chuckanut I have an antenna hooked up to a Tivo OTA recorder. IMHO, the Tivo unit makes OTA television about as good as it can get. .......Combine OTA, Tivo, and Netflix and one has a plenty to watch.

Do you have to pay a subscription to use the Tivo OTA recorder ?

[Dawg52]

I survived just fine for a couple of years with OTA channels and Netflix. But missed the Golf Channel and other sports channels. I'm now paying $35/mo for Playstation Vue and get all the sports channels I want. Actually 70+ channels. Half of them I will never watch, but it's worth $35 to get the ones I like. Still much cheaper than cable.

[ExFlyBoy5]

It looks like we are finally going to go the way of "cutting the cord" since I am sick and tired of battling the folks at AT&T. I could go on a long diatribe about the wrangling I have had to do with them over the last couple of years, but you have heard the story many times over. The only hangup that we have had is that some shows my DW "must see" are on Bravo, and it's difficult to find the most recent shows on any streaming provider...without cable, you have to pay for them. But, doing the math, even if we had to pay for the few shows "outright" that we can't get on Amazon or Hulu (or OTA) we still will be coming out ahead by a SIGNIFICANT amount. It's downright pitiful how expensive TV has gotten.

The DVR is FULL of stuff, so my intention is to go with the minimum package to keep the DVR so we can get all that watched...then cut the cord and I CAN'T WAIT!

Edit: Wow...it looks like with just a set top antenna, we can get a messload of channels! It is NOT 1978 anymore!

[CountryBoy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sunset Do you have to pay a subscription to use the Tivo OTA recorder ?

Unless you pay several hundred for a 'Lifetime' tivo with no fees, it's $14.99 a month. But I've read on the Tivo forum that after a couple years, if you call them & ask for a better deal, they'll often drop it to 12.00 a month.

It's worth the cost though--you get an online guide with shows a couple weeks in advance, it comes with Plex, Hulu, Netflix, Amazon Prime, YouTube installed. Also has Pandora, iheart radio, etc. A nice set-up

[Fishingmn]

We cut the cord a little over a year ago.

Just a pair of powered rabbit ears that cost $15 and we are 27 miles from the towers with great reception.

The rest of our setup is a Tablo DVR and 3 Roku boxes.

In addition to the local channels we subscribe to Sling TV (wife needs HGTV and I like getting ESPN and CNN) and Netflix so our monthly bill is about $100 less at $30/mo.

[jjquantz]

We do OTA, Netflix, Amazon Prime and MLBTV. The OTA is mostly for DW's football addiction and MLB is so that she can follow the Cubs. I will watch parts of the major golf tournaments OTA, but the commercials come so often that I can't sit through the entire broadcasts (Masters, excepted). There is so little programming that I am interested in that I just don't see investing in any additional technologies/equipment. If you exclude DW's sports, we average less than an hour/week of "TV" watching, although we do stream the occasional movie (1-2/month).

[REWahoo]

We tried the OTA plus streaming route a couple of years ago but it didn't work for us. The OTA was great but our sad, slow, unreliable internet service made our Roku useless.

[easysurfer]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dawg52 I survived just fine for a couple of years with OTA channels and Netflix. But missed the Golf Channel and other sports channels. I'm now paying $35/mo for Playstation Vue and get all the sports channels I want. Actually 70+ channels. Half of them I will never watch, but it's worth $35 to get the ones I like. Still much cheaper than cable.

If you have the will power to not add on stuff, then OTA if you have good reception is the way to go to save. Otherwise, before long, add a bit here, a bit there before long, the price ends up the same or more if you didn't cut the cord.

For me, my set up is OTA for regular TV, Amazon Prime for streaming (but I view this as included as I get Prime for the package delivery and usually on rent movies that I get free credits for). OTA still gives me the home team NFL games. The exception for me is baseball, but I don't mind listening to most of the games on the radio with OTA games broadcasted about once every 5 games.

Now, if the Cubbies make the playoffs, that's my exception as then that is Sling TV time .

[W2R]

Quote:

Originally Posted by REWahoo We tried the OTA plus streaming route a couple of years ago but it didn't work for us. The OTA was great but our sad, slow, unreliable internet service made our Roku useless.

I am probably a little weird about this (OK, I *KNOW* I am a little weird about this). But anyway, to me, there is something infinitely more satisfying about going strictly OTA instead of OTA with streaming. It is an amazing feeling to know that I am not paying one red cent for television and getting everything I watch for FREE. And also, I am not dependent on any company's crummy service.

But then, like I said, I'm weird about this. I didn't even have a TV at all for many years.