Dropped Cable TV Today

[REWahoo]

However, the fact that he can get the streaming video just fine on his laptop (through his wireless network), and use the TV as a monitor, makes me think that the router may not be the problem.

Yep, not the modem.

Tell him he might want to try unplugging his Cat 5 cable and blowing it out to clear any debris that might be slowing down his feed.

 

[jjquantz]

Yep, not the modem.

Tell him he might want to try unplugging his Cat 5 cable and blowing it out to clear any debris that might be slowing down his feed.

That's always worked for me.

 

[folivier]

Or just put the cable in when you do laundry. Works every time

 

[easysurfer]

I know what you describe is true for DSL, but cable broadband is/was a bigger pipe than DSL. Friends who had DSL would find time of day a big determinant for speeds... Middle of the night had very fast speeds, evening had worst speeds.

I had bad speeds all the time with DSL .

 

[John Galt III]

Hi. This seems like a good place to ask this question. My parents canceled their Verizon account which included voice, along with internet via DSL modem. I think the modem is about 7 or 8 years old. The agent didn't say anything about returning the DSL modem, apparently. And my parents don't remember what the agent said. I don't know if they were renting the DSL modem or had bought it. In any case, would Verizon want the old DSL modem returned? If all else fails I'll call Verizon to find out, but I don't want that whole byzantine customer service agony if I can avoid it. Thanks

 

[HFWR]

They may want it back, but it'll likely go into their junk bin.

 

[braumeister]

When I dropped my DSL service I brought in the modem to the local store. The person doing the process looked at it and entered its serial number, then pitched it into a huge bin of them behind the counter.

So I would say yes, they probably want it, but if it's that old they probably won't really care if they don't get it. Mine was only a couple of years old.

 

[easysurfer]

When I switched from DSL to Cable the person at the other line just told me to keep the modem in case I decided to come back. The router has since made it to Goodwill .

 

[John Galt III]

Thanks for the replies!

 

[steelyman]

I've been using something that's been working well but I wanted to gain some experience with it before posting here. The reason for waiting to post is that I'd read some reviews that made me wonder how well it works.

It's an inexpensive device that allows you to decode digital OTA signals and has a recording capability (like a DVR). I'd read about devices like the Roamio (at e-r.org) but they seemed a little pricy. Here's a seller listing for this other thing, called an iView:

http://www.amazon.com/IVIEW-3200STB-Multimedia-Converter-Recording-function/dp/B00RDQGBIE/

It's priced in the high $30 range and provides the capabilities I was after: basic reception/decoding/converting and recording of digital OTA signals. In my case, one of the TVs here is a nice but older set, just the size that would be perfect for watching The Big Game... in the mid-90s. So it's not a super-high-res set, but it still works perfectly. I'd been using streaming through a Roku 2 on it (the set doesn't have an HDMI input), but it couldn't handle the HD antenna without the decoder. All I really wanted was the decoder, but the recording capability is a nice surprise. I'm just using a USB stick that plugs into the USB port on the iView. Maximum external storage device size supported is 3 TB, but I get along fine with a lot less than that.

It's not the slickest thing in the world, but with a little experimentation and use, it's fine. It does give you a program guide, but not the easy things you get used to with a typical cableco-provided receiver/DVR setup. For example, you can't set a "series recording", rather you program it to record THIS channel at THIS timeslot (so that, for example, if the football game runs over and you're not paying attention, you might miss some 60 Minutes).

It only has a single tuner, but it does support pause, rewind, and so on. You have to enable it, which is easy to do and referred to as "timeshift" mode.

 

[W2R]

[...]It's an inexpensive device that allows you to decode digital OTA signals and has a recording capability (like a DVR).

Wow, at $30 the price is right, that's for sure.

I have no DVR, which is sort of like living back in the 1950's in a way. I really don't miss it, though, for some odd reason. If/when I do, I'll keep this one in mind.

 

[steelyman]

Wow, at $30 the price is right, that's for sure.

I have no DVR, which is sort of like living back in the 1950's in a way. I really don't miss it, though, for some odd reason. If/when I do, I'll keep this one in mind.

I can understand that. I suppose it all depends on your pattern of use. It turns out that, for me, I didn't really need to record all the stuff I did when I had the Comcast-provided setup. I guess it was too easy to point and click to record tons of stuff.

At the beginning of 2015, I was a total rookie to the concept of streaming and the a la carte approach it gives. Companies like Netflix, Amazon, Hulu handle most of the things I recorded - except the recordings are stored "in their cloud", not my cableco box. Sling is different, but the add-on channels I use through Sling pick up the slack. But there are a few broadcast things I'd like to see on my timeframe (usually local PBS offerings) and this fills that slot.

$30+ was a price point that I could handle to decide "does this work, or doesn't it?". It seems to so far.

 

[UpAnchor]

This looks very similar to the Mediasonic/HomeWorx unit which several members here (including myself) have used. In fact, I seem to recall ERD50 discussing his experiences with them in some detail awhile back.

 

[ERD50]

This looks very similar to the Mediasonic/HomeWorx unit which several members here (including myself) have used. In fact, I seem to recall ERD50 discussing his experiences with them in some detail awhile back.

Correct. It's a variant, and offhand I don't recall exactly how it fits in that product line up. It might be the same family of chipset and base firmware, ina different package and different config?

I agree with steelyman's assessment - it has a clunky UI, and some quirks, but it generally gets the job done. For $30 (plus you supply an external USB drive - but those are cheap and can be re-purposed), it was worth the risk for me, and I ended up buying a second one for another room. Oddly, after using it daily for about a year, we suddenly got out of the habit and have not used it much. But I have a bunch of Nova and other PBS shows queued up, so it's nice to have those when I feel like it, and not be tied to a broadcast schedule.

And if all you want is time-shift, you can probably get by with an 8GB thumb drive (might need one with decent read/write times, people report varying success with a thumb drive)


here's the old thread...

http://www.early-retirement.org/for...ing-for-a-good-ota-dvr-59977.html#post1547180


-ERD50

 

[steelyman]

That's a good earlier thread, ERD50. I must have missed it because I was too busy raising my hands, holdup style, for Comcast.

 

[Chuckanut]

I also have the Mediasonic and used it for about 6 months. After a while I got tired of its quirky interface and how easy it was to make a mistake and not record something important. While looking for alternatives, I found a Tivo OTA Romaio. The price was only $50 for the unit, but for $250 I was offered the life time guide, rather than the monthly $15 a month fee for the guide. (That's for the life of the unit, not the buyer.) After doing quite a bit of research, I found that the Tivo units were reliable and the parts most likely to fail 3-7 years down the road were the disk drive and the power supply. Both are easily replaceable. And, Tivo's with lifetime guide subscriptions are very easy to sell on the used market since the guide goes with the Tivo unit. Note: Tivo only occasionally offers the lifetime deal it was a good buy. In less than a year and a half, I break even with the monthly guide fee. After that it's all gravy.

I also saved the $75 I was going to spend to upgrade my old Roku box which was showing signs of not being able to keep up with the more complicated stuff on the internet.

Despite the higher cost I consider it a huge win for me. It records my shows reliably. I can pause a live TV for up to 30 minutes and come back to the show - without missing anything. Lots of choices for how long and how many shows in series can be kept. etc., etc. etc. It blends live OTA TV shows with with past shows available on Netflix and Amazon.

Best of all, no cable fees.

 

[Dawg52]

Wow, at $30 the price is right, that's for sure.

I have no DVR, which is sort of like living back in the 1950's in a way. I really don't miss it, though, for some odd reason. If/when I do, I'll keep this one in mind.

I haven't recorded a program in years. Don't feel like I have missed out on anything either.

 

[ERD50]

I haven't recorded a program in years. Don't feel like I have missed out on anything either.

But even if you don't record to watch later, it sure is nice for 'live' TV viewing. Start it up, come back 15 minutes later, and now you can pause, FF through commercials, and most importantly, 'rewind' to repeat that line you missed.

$3x.xx and a thumb drive is all you need (for OTA).

-ERD50

 

[Chuckanut]

Start it up, come back 15 minutes later, and now you can pause, FF through commercials, and most importantly, 'rewind' to repeat that line you missed.

-ERD50

+1

That quick rewind is great, especially when watching movies where the actors mumble, have accents, or the music is louder than it should be.

 

[audreyh1]

The best thing about internet streaming to me, is not having to record anything, or worry about any program schedule.

 

[ERD50]

The best thing about internet streaming to me, is not having to record anything, or worry about any program schedule.

Yes, but there are some daily local OTA news shows I was watching that aren't streamed.

And we have a modest internet speed, so doing the "back up 15 seconds to catch that line I missed" can result in painful re-buffering.

-ERD50

 

[Mulligan]

I haven't recorded a program in years. Don't feel like I have missed out on anything either.

Well hopefully you are smarter than me and don't pay for one...I may record something 2-3 times a year, yet I continue paying the $10 monthly rental fee.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[bUU]

The best thing about internet streaming to me, is not having to record anything, or worry about any program schedule.

There isn't a big difference between worrying about having to record something and worrying about the reliability of one's Internet connection and the possibility of getting surcharged for exceeding the ISP's bandwidth cap; and there isn't a big difference between worrying about the program schedule and worrying about from which streaming service is series X or movie Y available at the best price. As with practically everything, there are trade-offs. In the end, absent price controls, everything tends toward a steady-state where relative value is reflected in relative pricing on average. The key is capitalizing on any differences between yourself and others that make one option or another more valuable to you that that option is to others. If you're just typical, like many of us are, then there's not going to be a big difference between various options, in the long-run.

 

[mpeirce]

The best thing about internet streaming to me, is not having to record anything, or worry about any program schedule.

My problem is that there are two variations of internet streaming: w/ and w/o ads.

I've had TiVo for (what seems like) forever. I honestly never watch anything live - we even eat dinner at 6:10 or so so we can skip commercials while watching the 6 o'clock news.

Some of the internet streaming is great. We watch Netflix and Amazon Prime and enjoy them, BUT some of the other streaming provides bundle in ads. FAIL! I just won't put up with it. There always an alternative for us and we take it.

 

[mpeirce]

Also

"not having to record anything, or worry about any program schedule"

See, that's what I like about TiVo so much. It lets me simply tell it to harvest all the new episodes of some show. I doesn't clog the machine with old episodes I've already seen. It keeps track of all this for me. Just record NEW House Hunters Internationals (our favorite "filler" TV) for us.

What I especially dislike is services that play games with releasing certain episodes and then unreleasing them. Were were watching some miniseries on PBS - "I'll try this on PBS streaming to see how it works" Started in on it. Watched the first 3 of five episodes. Came back from a trip. Tried to watch the last two episodes. FAIL! Those had been removed from their offering. Back to TiVo we go...

And TiVo tracks the schedules for me. You just tell it to record some show. It does all the work. Heck, even when Jeopardy is bumped and they play it at 2:30 AM, it usually gets an updated schedule and successfully records it for us.