Over the Air TV
 

Has anyone else made the switch from cable? I did and honestly do not even miss DirecTV. I've built an antenna (using plans found online) with a 3 x 3 board, some screws, and wire coat hangers. Aside from live sports, not really missing cable. What are your thoughts?

You live a simple life.

I lived without cable for a long time. With a little effort, you can always find your live sports online.

If you have internet from one of the bigger providers, you may have access to espn3.com. It won't give you everything but it is better than nothing.

Or from some Web sites that go unnamed. Had to watch Jamaal own the Faid in Oakland that way ;)

Haven't had cable or satellite for years and years. I have an antenna and a Roku. Done.

I've been pondering something like that myself. My cable bill is unreal, and it's not worth it. I only pay it out of habit.

I would, but . . . sports.

It's the "aside from live sports" part that I get hung up on. I'd gladly go to Netflix/Hulu/Etc. for all of my TV watching without a second thought, but it'd drive me nuts not being able to watch football and hockey live without a lot of effort.

Football is "easy". Set up a proxy through the Netherlands or New Zealand and you can watch games out of https://gamepass.nfl.com. I haven't found a similar setup for hockey though or I would be able to effectively keep up with the Devils.

There are ways and ways.

Pretty much the same for me. I'm stuck watching every single Bronco game if I don't have NFLST. Anything else, I wouldn't mind watching on the web.

MLB, NHL, and NBA packages are available on Roku at least

I know there are ways, but any of those could be closed at any time, plus I do try and keep legal for the most part these days. Until there's a truly legit way of getting Chiefs and Avs online (and streamed to my TV in good quality), I'll stick with cable.

As far as I know, local teams are blacked out on NHL Gamecenter at least, which would make it useless. Could be wrong.

Damn.

Are Avs games not televised on one of the local major stations? If so, are Avs games getting blacked out?

They're on a local sports station, kind of like Fox Sports. They're not broadcast OTA.

I've been without cable for over 2 years now. OTA antenna that picks up all local KC HD channels. Better picture than old Time Warner.

I use XMBC for all movies and TV. Some sports are still really hard to find. Only downfall of that setup...

gotcha. that stinks.

i cant stand watching football/baseball/basketball streams, itsux the buffering and the skipping then the occasional cut off.

Netflix makes it easier, but **** that, i need my life sports looking HD. Now, if i culd just get live sports and nothing else, i'd do that. lol

Do you have to smack the side of your TV when it gets fuzzy?

Most major sports teams are on extended pay cable networks or own their own network. So a huge ass antenna only works for footballand you have to be in the area.

I could get Raiders and Niner games, but **** them 2 teams.

Crazy thing is during the football season I unplug the cable and use over the air. The cable connection is full of static and the station is local.

Series 3 TiVo picks up over the air signals in HD. We usually just pay the monthly fee during nfl season and cancel.

This year they offered us a lifetime sub for $100.

Bingo.

Yea, I know if my machine blows a power supply or chip that we could be hosed, but still worh it.

I once bought a TIVO and couldn't figure it out. Wound up using it for target practice.

Only thing I would miss is March madness and weeknight football, and a lot of daytime college football. I'd also miss Justified and SOA but I would get over it.

If I had only had over the air TV I would go insane in about a week.

It's not that bad. Seriously.

No.

In fact, I just spent 4 days in the hospital (Back and knee surgery) and me and the wife commented several times about the crappy cable service. Love our DIRECTV.
It took me a while to get her warmed to the idea for ST, although I've had it since day one. I'm Not bailing now. All the TV's in the house including the ManCave look so brilliant in pic and color, no way I'm messing with a good thing.

Now our cell phone bill, I'm working on that.

What day do you plant your taters?

Please explain Roku.

I hate Comcast.

Bob Dole got a Chromecast and is weaning himself off DirecTV. Streaming from browser is not as sharp and smooth, but it sure is cheaper.

I've switched to OTA. $1200.00 a year for DirecTV. I can find better uses with my money. Get 112 channels over the air.

I would truly miss the live sports in high def.

Damn, 112! I only get 25 in KC and 5 of those are Jesus channels, but it's still better than cable though.

My Dtv bill comes in at $1500.00 per year including ST. I'm rural, yet, I can still pull OTA stations from Indy. I dropped ST for a couple of years and tried streaming but it doesn't compare to ST, so I resubbed. Gotta have the Chiefs.

Another reason why I think TW and comcast want to merge. Control the internet and start jacking up the prices more for internet.

My Dish Network contract is up in October so the break point where a month of service exceeds the cancellation fees is end of April. We will also be dropping it and going exclusively with Internet TV.

I might invest in an OTA antenna but we have precious few channels here and we can get the weather over the Internet.

I can do without live sports, even the Chiefs.

I have 200 channels and there's NEVER anything on.

The Sunday Ticket contract is up this year. I really hope Direct TV doesn't get exclusive rights again. There needs to be some competition.

Lemme ask you OTA guys this...can I put an antenna on the top of my house and use the existing coax from my satellite setup to run it to all of my TVs? I'm sure I can but am interested to see what everybody else has done.

netflix, mlb.tv and a set of rabbit ears. I'm good.

112!?

I got rid of cable (AT&T uverse, kept the internet service). The service was fine but it's so freaking expensive.

The only thing I miss is the NHL, but you can subscribe to that online. I still get the local channels but nothing else.

I think it's easier for me because I'm not living in the area where my teams are based. If I were living elsewhere I'm sure that I would want Royals and NHL coverage, and college basketball sometimes, but for now it doesn't matter.

2 days for me.

For the OTA crowd. Did anyone other than the OP make an antenna? If so, can you link the page for it?

Sure run a cable from the antenna to a splitter and the existing cable from the splitter outputs to each TV.

That's what I figured.

This is the one that I used.
http://makezine.com/projects/digital...anger-antenna/

I'm at that point. Roku upstairs, and PS3 downstairs.

I've been trying to convince the wife for years to ditch cable/satellite.

getting close to getting her sold on it.

Have you seen the new Roku sticks? They plug into an HDMI port on your TV. Works like a box, $50 a pop. Not bad if you don't have smart tv's.

:hmmm:

I have not.
.....this seems oustanding.

I ditched cable. Only had it for Thursday night football

My ota tv antenna is an RCA I got at lowes for 10.00

Also, check out
http://www.reddit.com/r/cordcutters

Whole home or single set?

Probably single set

Single set

http://www.lowes.com/pd_140372-63374...ductId=3553424

In store they are 10.00

So 10.00 per tv was a lot cheaper than cable

Been cable TV free for almost 3 years now. I did get it for at least 4-5 months for the Royals games, but I realized that I'm hardly home these days, and I can listen to the game over the radio, that I just decided to cancel it instead. Haven't looked back since.

Would be nice if the Royals would actually broadcast their games OTA, but that ain't happening......

I'm solely on antenna and love it. I just wish I had access to all the KC channels. Since I live in the heart of Topeka, it is just too hard to pull them in. I'm sure if I were willing to throw up a 40 foot mast I might get them but I don't want to do that.

http://www.frys.com/product/8026694?...Fcli7AodSmgAPw

It uses a remote, but I like to use the Android remote app to screw with my kids, I don't know if that works with the stick.

I'm looking at this:

http://www.amazon.com/AmazonBasics-E...oor+hd+antenna

It would be cheaper for us than getting an antenna for each TV and I still should theoretically be able to tap it right into the existing coax that my satellite is using and serve the whole house.

Here. I get most Chiefs games, I can head to a bar/grill to watch the others, and I listen to Royals games on radio. Otherwise, I keep the TV around for video games, weather updates and The Red Green Show.