Update on Cord Cutting (Cable TV) 2017 - 2020

[RonBoyd]

https://www.cnet.com/news/cable-tv-...tenna-its-rolling-out-to-this-us-city-for-49/

Now, a company in Idaho is launching a fourth live TV option that's especially interesting for anyone with limited, or data-capped internet where streaming isn't an option. Called Evoca, it takes advantage of the new technologies rolling out with Next Gen TV to broadcast "cable" channels over the air. It's designed to serve people in the many smaller cities and rural areas across the US saddled with mediocre and expensive broadband Internet.

 

[statsman]

Locast expanding again. For a company that's being sued by all the networks, they don't seem to be afraid to keep expanding.

We are pleased to announce we are now delivering more than 60 local TV channels to viewers in the Detroit TV market, reaching the following Michigan counties with streaming TV: Lapeer, Livingston, Macomb, Monroe, Oakland, Sanilac, St. Clair, Washtenaw, and Wayne.

One more down. Only 17 more markets to go. Sigh.

 

[pb4uski]

One thing that I have noticed with my Fire TV Recast is that when I go to view a recording I frequently get a message

POOR VIDEO QUALITY
This recording may have poor video quality due to low antenna strength at the time of recording.

And then I watch the video and it is fine.

 

[jim584672]

PBS now has a live stream:

https://www.pbs.org/livestream/

 

[JustVisitingThisPlanet]

PBS now has a live stream:

https://www.pbs.org/livestream/

Would love to see PBS hookup with Pluto (and allow ads between shows if anything).

 

[target2019]

PBS now has a live stream:

https://www.pbs.org/livestream/

That is good to know. In my local market it is playing cartoons all morning! Must be a way to get adult stuff there...

 

[RunningBum]

One thing that I have noticed with my Fire TV Recast is that when I go to view a recording I frequently get a message

And then I watch the video and it is fine.

I've seen that too. Pretty annoying.

I also find I have to be careful when setting up recordings. I can pick up all networks with a strong signal, but I also pick up network stations with much weaker signals that cut out a lot. If I search for and set up recording for a show by name, it apparently picks up the first station numerically or some other non-sensical way, and that's often one of those weaker stations, and often the recording is bad. Instead I have to find the show in the guide, and then record it from the right station, and confirm that I want only that station.

I can set up the stronger stations as favorites, but I haven't seen a way to "forget" the weaker stations. It seems obvious to me that it should record from a favorite station before any other when there is a choice, but apparently not to the Recast developers.

 

[jim584672]

That is good to know. In my local market it is playing cartoons all morning! Must be a way to get adult stuff there...

That is what is playing over the air right now. If you wait until 4pm the "adult" programs start.

 

[RetiredAndLovingIt]

Roku and Peacock TV have finally come to an agreement.

https://www.cordcuttersnews.com/peacock-will-be-available-on-roku/

 

[bolt]

Parties interested in reducing their reoccurring monthly costs should research "Internet Essentials" supported by XfinityComcast.
Their sales agents* will not tell you about it. Its all done online/phone. There are hoops to jump through but its low cost internet that supports streaming, IIRC its about 10.00 mo.w/ones own hardware and multiple hrs of blablabla on net/phone during initial set up.

Good Luck & Best wishes....

 

[JoeWras]

Roku and Peacock TV have finally come to an agreement.

https://www.cordcuttersnews.com/peacock-will-be-available-on-roku/

Now all we need is HBO (AT&T) and Roku to figure it out.

 

[RetiredAndLovingIt]

Yep, almost every response to Roku's tweet brought that up. I read somewhere that there is a workaround to that if you have Hulu, you can log in that way. YMMV

 

[GalaxyBoy]

Parties interested in reducing their reoccurring monthly costs should research "Internet Essentials" supported by XfinityComcast.
Their sales agents* will not tell you about it. Its all done online/phone. There are hoops to jump through but its low cost internet that supports streaming, IIRC its about 10.00 mo.w/ones own hardware and multiple hrs of blablabla on net/phone during initial set up.

Good Luck & Best wishes....

I think you need to qualify based on income.

https://www.internetessentials.com/

 

[MichaelB]

Roku and Peacock TV have finally come to an agreement.

https://www.cordcuttersnews.com/peacock-will-be-available-on-roku/

I sure hope the Roku app is better than the cable service. We have Comcast and get Peacock Premium for free. Viewed through the cable box, it is very slow to load, clunky to navigate, with lots of audio drops and video freezes.

 

[beowulf]

I sure hope the Roku app is better than the cable service. We have Comcast and get Peacock Premium for free. Viewed through the cable box, it is very slow to load, clunky to navigate, with lots of audio drops and video freezes.

Sorry to hear about that. We have a Samsung Really Smart TV (as I call it) and have no problem using the Comcast voice control to get to Peacock instantly and also no issues with the streaming. We have the 200MBS tier for internet. When we have blips, pixelating, dropouts, etc., they are general issues that happen to all channels, not just Peacock. So many people are working from home and so many kids are attending virtual schools, there are times when the network just can't keep up with demand.

 

[RetiredAndLovingIt]

The Peacock Roku app is now available as a private channel. It took a few minutes to show on my menu.

https://www.cordcuttersnews.com/peacock-is-beginning-to-roll-out-on-roku/

 

[Freedom56]

Peacock works well so far with Roku. We took the premium plan at $49 annually. NBC Universal programming is pretty good. So far our cord cutting services include:

Paid services:

Locast (local broadcast channels) $60 donation annually
CBS All Access - $60 annually
Peacock (premium) - $49 annually
Philo (Viacom cable channels) - $20 per month
HBO Max - $14/month
HULU - $5.99/Month

Free Services:

PBS
Pluto
Crackle
Roku Channel
FAWSOME
TUBI

We dumped Netflix last year due to poor quality content. We got tired of skipping through terrible low budget movies and shows.

 

[Z3Dreamer]

With my antenna, I can get all the CBS and NBC live that I want. I would only pay for the All Access or Peacock Premium if the VOD was worth it. I will check out one month of each or try the free versions. Those of you who have used All Access or Peacock Premium, is the VOD great?

 

[pb4uski]

We used CBS All-Access a couple times to view CBA All-Access only content.... Star Trek: Discovery one time and then later, Picard. Other than those two CBS All-Access shows, not much to get excited about IMO.

We are currently using OTA with a Fire TV Recast OTA DVR that effectively makes live TV and DVR available to our 4 tvs in the house (each TV has a Fire TV stick). Its a pretty neat set up... one remote, no input switching, similar functionality to the Dish Hopper that we had before... but free rather than $65/month.

The Recast TV tuner is just ok... last week it was raining heavily and the signal was occasionally pixelated but when I connected the OTA directly to the TV then the picture was good... so I'm assuming that the tv tuner built into the tv is better than the tuner built into the Fire TV Recast. The current recast was the 2-tuner model to see how it works... if they come out with a new model I'll buy the 4 tuner version.

Since we've gone from $65/month to $0 we don't mind sampling the various streaming services... currently on Hulu without commercials at $13/month but are ending that since we'll be gone in a month.

 

[MichaelB]

We just signed up for ad-free Hulu yesterday. After the 30 day free trial we’ll still another month @$13 to get us into late November, but it’s well worth it for me just to avoid all the political ads.

Our Comcast HOA subscription includes HBO, so we get HBO Max, but can’t watch on the Roku. They seem to be at an impasse so I’m thinking about getting Apple TV.

 

[explanade]

We just signed up for ad-free Hulu yesterday. After the 30 day free trial we’ll still another month @$13 to get us into late November, but it’s well worth it for me just to avoid all the political ads.

Our Comcast HOA subscription includes HBO, so we get HBO Max, but can’t watch on the Roku. They seem to be at an impasse so I’m thinking about getting Apple TV.

New update for Apple TV is overdue so may want to be careful about buying the current one.

 

[GalaxyBoy]

New update for Apple TV is overdue so may want to be careful about buying the current one.

Rumors of that have been around for a while, so who knows what might happen at the next Apple Event possibly next month. Another rumor is that the remote will be updated which would be enough for me to upgrade, for sure.

 

[MichaelB]

New update for Apple TV is overdue so may want to be careful about buying the current one.

Rumors of that have been around for a while, so who knows what might happen at the next Apple Event possibly next month. Another rumor is that the remote will be updated which would be enough for me to upgrade, for sure.

Makes sense. No need to rush this decision.

 

[REWahoo]

I cut the cable (ok, cut the sat dish) almost two years ago and was using an attic antenna for OTA channels long before that. When we moved out here in the country 22 years ago I installed an old "big @ss" antenna in the attic that I've had for so long I don't recall when or where I purchased it. I have been reasonably happy with it except for two small problems:

1. The thing is huge and unsightly (see photo below, left) and I had to do some redneck engineering to get it installed in the attic and pointed at the antenna farm 40 miles away. Of course I'm the only one who sees it, but I do have my standards.

2. Our local ABC channel has a strong signal but gets some infrequent and very intermittent signal interruption. It only lasts for a second and may occur a few times during a one hour broadcast but the interruption is irritating.

Enter the new antenna (see photo, right).

Channel Master offered $50 off their $89 UltraAntenna60 model and I took a chance on spending $39 (including tax and shipping) for a far smaller antenna that is probably 40 years newer than the old monster in the atttic. The Channel Master is 2 feet wide, 3 feet tall and 5 inches deep where the old antenna is something like 6 feet wide, 4 feet tall and 7 feet deep.

Took me about 30 minutes to install the new antenna next to the old one. Signal strength numbers are virtually identical and it appears the interference/signal loss on the ABC station is gone.

Tomorrow I'll go up and remove the old monster and give it a fitting send off.

 

[pb4uski]

Interesting. How do you measure signal strength? My Fire TV Recast shows strength as Unavailable, Poor or Good... they may have better than Good but the best I get is Good. Unfortunately, none of our TVs offer a signal strength meter but I understand that some do.

Oh and BTW, I did try out a Channel Master SMARTenna earlier this week. I bought it in the hope that I would get better reception but after playing around with it for a few hours I concluded that my dumb $40 RCA antenna was actually better.