If you buy your own well-researched equipment it will ALWAYS perform better than the crap from the ISP.

I wonder if Fox Sports wishes that they wouldn't have been so greedy now? I almost gotta believe that their value has went down now that there isnt any sports going on.

I was thinking the same thing. GREEEEED

I'm on a grandfathered in Direct TV Now (I mean ATT TV Now, too many t's...) plan that has increased to $60 a month plus a $35 per month 100mbps internet plan. I would like to move to YouTube TV which has the Golf Channel (my ATT TV Now plan doesn't) for $50 a month but since it doesn't have the Hallmark Channel that's a deal breaker for the Mrs lol.

Just noticed that ATT has a 12 month offer for 1 gig fiber internet for $50 a month that is pretty tempting. My current ISP wants $45 a month for 200mbps, $55 for 500mbps, and $75 for 1 gig.

Yep it looks like greed is going to cost them big time. I love it.

I use Philo, and the UI was the only minor gripe I had back when I got it, maybe a year or so ago. They've updated their UI, much better now. At least on the Rokus and Fire Sticks. I use Pluto for news (free).

I have a powerful Asus in the basement for the main router. Then I connected another ASUS router (not as fast) upstairs. Upsatirs was wired so I don't use any WIFI BW between them. Runs fast, great coverage.

Hey, when you guys attach an antenna like this, is there a place to locate a ground? I know my satellite dish is grounded. Thanks

Philo is awesome. Only a chronic bitcher would complain about it for 20 dollars a month.

You rang?

Cheap isn't a deal if the product is annoying. Philo is annoying. With the AMEX 20 back, Fubo is substantially better with more channels (about 2x as many) for $40/mo net, a MUCH better DVR interface and more storage.

Philo seems fine to me. I liked Fubo until they lost Fox Sports Ohio and that was a deal breaker for me. Philo is a bargain at 20 bucks though in my opinion.

I re-used the ground block from my satellite dish.

https://www.amazon.com/Weather-Connector-Frequency-Coaxial-Satellite/dp/B00URX8WXW

It is rather impressive for what $20 gets you. I guess if I was a sports nut then I wouldn't subscribe to it (but I'm not) since no sports channels. Can't say there's any channels I miss, maybe SiFi might the only exception. Online DVR is a bonus.

No complaints about stuttering, I had Sling and it was non-stop stuttering at the time (several years ago).

That was my plan. Thanks

An ATSC 3 HDHomerun is on Kickstarter now. I might get one.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1275320038/hdhomerun-atsc-30/posts

Chitownpinball , thanks for reaching out and sharing your thread with me.

Just wanted to say for anyone wanting to delve deeper into cordcutting, streaming, etc, I can highly recommend perusing AVSForums. I've been a member for 17 years now and there's wealth of info there on everything from Streaming to high end projectors.

This is probably the most appropriate section to check out in terms of alignment with this thread:

https://www.avsforum.com/forum/39-networking-media-servers-content-streaming/

Fubo screwed their subscribers by pulling CNN and some other channels with ZERO notice last week. We got the email after it was done. Oh, and they're raising the price, too. They justified it by saying they're adding some more channels no one wants IN TWO MONTHS, but the loss of CNN International and CNN is a drag. I had "news row" with all the channels lined up, and CNNI overnight is usually pretty good, so pissed they took it away with no notice.

The drag is that it seems to be a "thing" that Warner will be doing as contracts expire so they can drive people to a new platform of theirs in 2021. Crazy.

We already have Hulu no commercials at a discount and you can get the gift cards for 20% off occasionally, so considering moving to Hulu Live, no commercials and ditching Fubo. Only problem is Hallmark channels which my wife and daughter are addicted to. Probably have to add FriendlyTV for $8 just to get those in that scenario.

Streaming is such a mess with everyone wanting their own platform that Reed Hastings is right - piracy is the competition. It's just about to the point that setting up an automated pirate server to get the shows you watch is easier and less hassle. Almost. The first company that brings all these together at a reasonable price will own the market, but with Disney having so much power, I don't see that happening.

You cant be serious.......right?? Lol

I'm totally serious. CNN international has some good shows. I watch ALL news (PBS, CNN, CNNI, BBC, ABC, NBC, CBS, NHK, etc). It's the only way to get a complete picture. People that watch FOX News and think they're getting actual news are delusional.

Lol I'm cracking up over here. Thanks for the laugh! Did Fubo ever get fox regional sports back?

Don't know. I don't watch them. But cutting ANY channel, then telling subscribers after the fact is bad for keeping those subs.

Yeah I agree. I'm not happy about the YouTube TV increase because they added channels either. If it wasn't for my gf loving her baseball games and Hallmark, TV Land etc I would drop you tube TVand Philo for. I may keep Philo possibly but I doubt it. I'm paying way too much for TV.

When Sling lost Fox Sports that really screwed me, then Fubo lost fox sports and that really screwed me.

Well yeah. You have to supplement Fox with OAN and Nigel Farage tweets to be well informed

I don't subscribe to National Enquirer, People, or US Magazine, either. Same thing.

All the providers are playing a dangerous game of greed because the apps that enable you to get what you want to watch automatically delivered to your own server and pay nothing have improved substantially. I never really considered it before, but am definitely now. If there's another change with the lineups or pricing after we move to Hulu Live, we'll probably just move to getting our content for free. Not a move I want to make, but I'm not going to keep playing these games while the providers fail upward. We'll see...

The problem is sometimes the VPN stops working. Then what? Youtube + internet is roughly the cost of cable + internet a couple of years ago for all the f'n TVs in my house.

I'm doing well with internet + antenna + philo. I find everything else as I need to, but it sucks to have to do all of that.

Eggs
Zebras
Tomatoes
Vegans

Italy
Ohio

If you put the VPN on a mini computer instead of a router and it's automatically grabbing everything you've "favorited" in the app, you can set it up with scripts to reboot once or twice a day, which automatically restarts the VPN, so if it died, that fixes it. Like I said I'm not to that point *yet*, but I'm definitely staying aware of options.

Youtube's channels suck for what they charge. You need at least two other services to fill in the blanks, and then you're back close to $100 again. Fubo was great for exactly 5 months until they pulled this delete channels and tell your subscribers later bit.

But if your VPN craps out while you are seeding certain shows, don't you get a shit ton of DMCA warnings? Asking for a friend...

I used to use https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/ and liked it. I don't know all that much about VPN's though. For what you pay you get a user id and password and you can install the software on any number of devices for the one price.

Not if you bind the application to the VPN port only, so if the VPN dies, the app stops cold via the kill switch.

Well shit! That's good to know. Thank you!

PIA is US based, which is bad news for privacy.

Pretty sure their CTO is still Mark Karpeles, the dude that did a bunch of slimy stuff and melted down Mt. Gox. That's also a bad sign.

Meh, it was easy to use and all I did with it was watch UFC fights on Fightpass that I already paid a subscription for.

Any opinions on Privado? My dirt cheap VPN switched to them a few months ago. It is faster, but choosing Oslo, Norway gives me a Romanian IP. I'm not sure that actually matters...

Didn't know Privado offered VPN service. Last I heard they were in private searches. But they're located in Spain, so that's a plus for privacy. They're not in the 5 or 9 eyes, just the D-list 14 eyes.

I've been paying 15 bucks a month for about 8 years for a seedbox. Yeah it sucks waiting for the download at FTP speed but I have never had any problems with warnings. Plus the cloud storage space is always a good thing and maintaining a ratio is easy for private trackers.

Youtube just announced their departure from Sinclair.... No surprise there. Say goodbye to regional sports networks.
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With any luck Sinclair will be broken up and media ownership rules will be strengthened.

Yeah I saw that. I think the baseball playoffs will be on the national networks probably so no big deal. I hate fox sports honestly. They sound like they are a bunch of money hungry greedy ass pricks.

I have YouTube TV - and I had previously had Playstation Vue and I tried Hulu's tv service for a week.

In my opinion the YouTubeTV interface is the best of those three and the service works REALLY REALLY well. I have no complains about the picture, options, DVR, etc. In fact when I tell it to record old reruns of a show it gives me access to multiple recording of the same episode archived so if an episode got cut off on one recording I can pick another one.

My biggest complaint against it is that they did EXACTLY what I hated about cable companies and DirecTV. About a month or two ago I got notice that they were adding several channels I did not want or ask for. Price went up like $10 monthly (which was about a 20% or so increase in the monthly rate). So once again someone tells me I'm getting a good deal for the extra money because they gave me something I didn't want, was happy living without and can't refuse to take.

Those of us who do not watch a ton of TV are pretty much better off purchasing shows on DVD or digitally into our Amazon library and may save money in the long run "owning" all the Seinfeld episodes rather than paying $70 bucks a month to have a service with 100 channels we don't watch that happens to play Seinfeld every night.

Have you tried Sling? I looked into to all options prior to ditching cable and Sling "Blue" covered 90% of our channels. Got the Airtv2 for free, hooked it to an antique abandoned antenna in our attic and get our local channels. Then added an old laptop HD for DVR on the Airtv2. Pretty happy so far. Other than Amazon/Netflix/Disney+/Hulu, we use a "Grey Market" app for movies/TV. Don't miss anything about cable. Went from paying $190 for cable/internet to $92 (With tax) for Sling and internet.

I signed back up to Sling last week so I could watch the Chiefs/Ravens game last Monday night. $20 for the month and they threw in Starz, Showtime and Epix at no extra charge. I canceled my subscription yesterday. I'll renew if there's a college bowl season.

I canceled my MLB.tv subscription yesterday also. I'm going to just sub to ESPN+ and watch whatever MLB games they have on there or the MLB.tv free game of the day next season. I like ESPN+ for the Bundesliga on the weekends and NFL Primetime Sunday nights. Plus when NHL is in season they have a game on almost every night of the week.

I dumped Comcast Internet last week and signed up for 400-Mbps FIOS which will save me another $40 a month. Plus I'll get another free year of Disney+ and ad-supported Hulu for signing up.

Most of my TV time is spent watching sports, so an antenna does well this time of year for football on the weekends.

Other than that, between Plex, Tablo and YouTube I have plenty of stuff I haven't watched yet. Free services like PlutoTV, Roku Channel and Stirr are good when I can't make up my mind what I want to watch. When sports went on hiatus this past spring, I never watched as much PlutoTV and YouTube prior to the lockdown.

I also have Curiosity Stream. I'm on the fence if I want to renew or not. I took the $12 deal for the year back in January. I don't watch it much but I have enjoyed the content that I have watched.

This is something I probably need to look at again. Having the local channels is important (so that is why we did YouTubeTV). We live in an area that is just far enough from the major cities that the broadcast networks did not work on the last antenna I tried but I admit that was at least 10 years ago and in a different house (same town). I know the HD over antenna options have gotten better and the quality (that is signal strength) is better these days.

Just remember, there is no such thing as an "HD Antenna", it's just a sales pitch. OTA channels still run on the same UHF and VHF signals. My area blows, I only get ABC, NBC, and ION. Can't get Fox or PBS and lost CBS in order to get NBC clearly for the wife. I'm going to try a different antenna soon to see if I can at least get Fox, but I doubt it in my area. You can use this site to see exactly what channels you can receive at your address: https://www.rabbitears.info/

You can also use www.locast.com (or the locast app) for all the local channels. If it doesn't work in your area (like me), use a VPN and it will work fine.

I recently bought a ANTOP HDTV ＆ FM Amplified Antenna AT-800SBS with a projected 85 mile range
from Fry's electonics for $99 when they had it onle a few months back.
And it did greatly improve my over the air reception.
I am located about 50 miles from the main TV towers in Portland OR;
and my reception greatly improved to where I now get all OTA channels that I need
without much digitized/pixelated mess while watching.

I will be so glad once the Reds are eliminated from the playoffs (hopefully tomorrow) so I can cancel my YouTube TV subscription and save 70 dollars a month. I will then only be paying 20 dollars a month for Philo TV which is a great deal imo and I will watch my local channels with a antenna.

My gf basically cost me 90 dollars a month during baseball season between Philo and YouTube TV. I could get by with using a antenna only and I would have my Amazon Prime. Theres a few shows on Netflix I like but I can log into a friends account for that what little i watch of it.

Happy days are here again, good bye YouTube TV!!