I already have my computer and smart TV set up so I can stream stuff I download on the computer via DLNA. I'm about to cancel cable. What's the easiest way to be able to schedule OTA recording? I'd like to avoid pay services.

Can I do it with @mbwalker's HD Homerun? Sounds like you need to subscribe to their guide if you want to schedule recording with their software. Is other 3rd party software available? I'm okay just entering a channel, start and end time. Which device allows this without subscriptions?

Does anyone else use an Air TV with Sling? I've had Sling about a year and a half since I ditched cable, it came with a free Air TV. I use an old laptop hard drive in a portable enclosure as storage for it and it records OTA channels via an antenna I have in my attic. Sling integrates the OTA channels into my guide nicely. No complaints.

Yep, I have been for a few years, works really well and the guide is free which is a huge plus. I have a 2TB external plugged into it for recording stuff, never had an issue. I got rid of Sling paid services recently, and still use the Airtv through Sling without issue.

I’m kind of a low-end user - I don’t watch a heck of a lot of TV, but I’ve been very happy with my Amazon Fire Sticks and Fire TV Recast (and an antenna in the attic). I added a 1T hard drive to the Recast for more DVR storage and really like it. I was also very happy to ditch AT&T when they hit $200 a month. The equipment cost was minimal and the setup was easy for an old fart like me.

Watched the FSU game last night with regular old OTA. God it was beautiful! I've never been willing to pay the Sony Premium, but lucked into a slightly used Sony OLED for cheap. I've seen the light. I'll have to pony up when this one dies.

Have you ever noticed that it seems Airtv doesn't pickup all the available channels ? Recently lost power during a hurricane and unhooked Airtv and tried the antenna wire in a battery operated TV.... I received over 30 channels. With Airtv I get 12. Thought it was odd.

OTA TiVo is a great supplement to streaming. We have a Roamio OTA (any TiVo past that sucks) with the classic interface and it's come in handy for shows that weren't available on streaming or during internet or provider outages.

That said, we're looking at getting off Fubo and heading to YoutubeTV right now. Fubo's 2020 surprise price increase and dropping CNN while adding (and HEAVILY PROMOTING) Fox News was not welcome. Now they've changed the interface and made it a lot worse so you have to scroll down to get to your favorite channels (they now push "Fubo favorites" first). Last straw situation. I like Fubo's DVR a lot better, but we can get more channels (including BOTH CNN and Fox News) for less money with YoutubeTV, so we're doing the trial to see if we'll make the jump.

The main downers for YoutubeTV so far is the heavier compression makes the video softer than Fubo (I assume to nudge people to the $20/mo extra 4k tier) and the YTTV dvr is so bad it's barely a DVR. It's more like a container to put the shows you like and it may have recorded (no commercials) or on-demand (commercials) stuff and it's hard to tell which is which.

Cheap ass tuners. My Tivo and HiSense were glitchy at times. My Sony is rock solid even with a Bouganvilia growing in front of the antenna.

What antenna do you have hooked up to your airtv? I am in a very rural area and have a large mast antenna hooked directly to my airtv... I get about 88 channels from Madison, Milwaukee, Rockford, and on a good day, some Chicago channels.

I have a monster roof antenna inside my attic, probably from the 60's/70's (Was here when we bought the house). I'm in a area that doesn't receive that many broadcast signals anyway, but I know I'd get more with an outside antenna (just don't want to see it).

No kidding about the newer interface. Can't stand it, so convoluted. Tries to be everything and consequently fails at all of it. My original Tivio was a Direct TV box ages ago and the interface was perfect. Simple but got the job done. I don't even use the Tivio anymore (wife does some), but she doesn't like the GUI either.

I use Plex now, but wouldn't mind going the Recast route once they switch to an ATSC 3.0 tuner (sometime soon?).

Got a LNA (low noise amp) at the antenna?

Nope... Tried an amp and it actually lost channels.

You can double up antennas so you get different orientations to try to pick up more signals reliably. You need to make sure the cables to the antennas are the same length, though. There are DIYs on the internet on how to do it. If the towers around you are in much different locations, it can help.

RF engineer here. So there's a couple of things that can do that:

1) The amp at the antenna needs to be low noise, not just a booster amp. The booster amps can potentially have a high 'noise figure' (i.e. the amp is noisy). If the amp's noise is the same level (or higher) as the signal you are trying to receive - kinda defeats the purpose and you will go backwards. So a low noise amp is quiet enough to amplify small signals and get them up to a decent level. Then you can use a booster if there's splitters, etc.

2) Too much gain: You can overload the TV w/too much signal, or the amp itself (or amps) distorts.

So a bit of a balancing act between establishing a good signal (with a quiet LNA) but not going crazy with too much overall amplification.

Hope that short FYI helps!

Thank You

This sounds great, but do you have a recommendation for a LNA? There's an ocean of noise in the segment when you just search for broadcast antenna LNA and I'm sure most of it is garbage...

No doubt about the junk out there. If they don't give a Noise Figure spec, it really is a crap shoot. If it was good, they'd likely publish the number.

Channel Master makes some popular LNA's (<2dB Noise Figure, which is decent). Nice thing about those is you can buy a mid, high or adjustable gain. So that allows you to tailor the gain so you don't overload things. Irishbastard has the antenna in the attic (so do I). Even with a low noise figure amp, if a station's signal is just in the mud because of attenuation thru the roof, then the LNA may not help - there's only so much you can do. A FM trap in the LNA can help to prevent overload from out-of-band FM stations too.

There's some other brands, but Channel Master come to mind since I have one (old model).

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Thanks. I'll give that a shot.

We are not worthy! You sir, are an expert in what I refer to as: "Black Magic".....

Curious if any of you could do without home wifi.
Yeah, no wireless signal coming in.
May come to that soon.
For me anyways.
Left with a landline phone and rabbit ears for the tv, circa 1966.
Would actually like to try it for awhile to see if I could adapt.
Oh, and a great FM receiver with antenna.
Beginning to realize other than mechanics videos youtube doesn't have much to offer.
Know most of this stuff by heart.
All of the intriguing discussion channels (99%) are dead.
The breaking news is usually better over the air.
Seriously debating whether I need Internet at all.
The few E-mails I send could be managed at local hotspots.
Input?

Thanks! LOL, I always thought the antenna guys were the 'black magic' gurus.

I designed transmitters for the military for maybe 35 years (recently retired). Quite often I would design the receiver LNA too since I had the module that would connect to the antenna. So to keep losses low, those were usually located on my board too.

A former coworker described that as '"Amish TV".

Can you even get a real landline phone anymore? I think most of them are internet based nowadays.

Mine is a real landline. It is required to get DSL wifi. I like it because it is cheap, secure, and always works even during power outages.
Use a flip phone for cell service so it would be a toss up which would get cancelled first.
I admire the Amish.

AT&T is purposely neglecting the maintenance of the copper wire landlines so they can move people to IP based phones. This sucks for many reasons, not the least of which is landlines are powered through the line, so they work in power outages, and landlines have real 911 location tracking. Internet phone service does not.

We were stuck with degrading landline service that went up in price every year $3-4 until we were paying for local only phone service (no long distance) for $60/mo, which was CRAZY. I kept it until the line quality got so bad it wasn't worth having, which is AT&T's plan. Made the change to OOMA internet phone last year. Was not happy about it.

That's interesting. Easier to push a bunch of data down a couple of fiber lines than having individual copper wire going to every house.

I wouldn't be surprised if someone still has copper, that it doesn't get converted to fiber for the backhaul.

Can someone recommend a vpn that YouTube tv won’t detect?

Can't say for sure but Express VPN let most everything through that another one I had was blocking. I was in Korea at the time.

Thanks! Locast worked simply using location spoofing. YouTube TV is making me work for it…

Too lazy to go thru all the info here.I'm dumping DIRECTV finally what would you recommend from people who've had both
Sling TV or Philo?

We tried YoutubeTV because Fubo changing the interface and dropping channels without notice pissed me off, but YoutubeTV is a DISASTER as far as I'm concerned. Their UI and DVR are terrible - amongst the worst in streaming. Meanwhile FuboTV put their interface change back to the way it was before, so we're sticking with FuboTV for now. Why can't SOMEONE with some industry clout and money get this right? Classic TiVo interface with YoutubeTV channels and video quality would print money.

Here's the ones we've tried over the past few years:
Sling blue/Orange - generally poor video quality, way overcompressed
Philo - bad video quality (but better than sling), limited channels, excellent price, though
PlayStationTV - really liked this one, but the service is dead now
YoutubeTV - terrible UI, terrible DVR, good video quality, very good channel selection, pricey
FuboTV - good UI, very good DVR, decent video quality, good channel selection (but missing CNN and some others) TONS of soccer and other odd sports crap I couldn't care less about, pricey

I've only tried Sling, and have zero complaints. I don't notice any video quality issues like mentioned above. I like how my local channels via antenna are integrated into the Sling channel guide as well.

One of the reasons to switch to fiber optics is economics. When the original phone lines were installed, the phone company powered it on their end. When the phone "rang" that power was provided by them.
With fiber optics, you now pay for the power. They provide you with a back up battery and charger but that power supply is you powering the system on your end. If you unplug, the phone will not ring.

Have you ever tried Philo?I want Sling Blue over Philo for fox sports and nfl channel but want Philo for Insp westerns and channels my wife dig.I guess we’re spoiled with the overpriced directv Anybody here have Philo?

Philo is great if you don't care about sports. Video quality looks good enough to me. I've got it for $10/month via T-Mobile. Though I now also have Youtube TV ($55/month) and find I don't watch Philo much at all. I think the only thing I'm missing is History Channel from Philo.

Do any of you guys load up on discounted Google Play gift cards to make Youtube TV cheaper?

I’ve been waiting....waiting....and....waiting for Starlink. I live in a rural area where your choices are Directv or Dish. Gave up on satellite internet years ago(when they catch you using it, they punish you by slowing it down). Current Directv payment has surpassed $150 and I have no movie channels. Anyone know the Starlink timeframe for area code 32736?

It's going by latitude, so I have to think Florida will be a while. We're up at the north end of CA and it's here, but only some of the people that signed up actually got dishes so far. I know some who already have it and others who are still waiting.

Yeah, I put down my $100 deposit earlier this year with the assumption I’d get it by the end of this year. Still waiting but damn, really want to cancel Directv. Probably will finally do it after this football season.

I don’t know how you been dealing with Directv but I hit the wall with these greedy mofo’s.Since 1997 Ive been able to talk to CR there and get discounts to a reasonable rate until yesterday.So I’m moving on afte 24 years

I have Philo and I think it's great for my needs, had it for a number of years. Never any buffering issues, and I'm grandfathered in at $16/mn. 30day DVR (online, not physical). Has the channels I'd normally be interested in. Not really a sports person, so I appreciate the savings of not having ESPN.

mcluvin - With my plan (just under 50 channels, I think) straight thru Philo, the History is part of the package. Maybe T-mobile doesn't have that since you're paying $10/mn.

I've got it with Philo. I just meant the only channel I miss with YouTube TV is History.

What about T-Mobile Internet? We rented a cabin in BF North Carolina and used it to reliably stream Netflix all week. I was surprised how well it worked.

Ahhh...understand now.

Quite a deal for $10. So can you watch Philo on a TV, or phone only (besides maybe casting)?

Just checked and it’s the same ole same ole.

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Yeah, it's a regular Philo account. You don't have to use your phone.

You can "freeze" your account for up to 6 months. I did that after football last year and signed up for a bunch of streaming services, including Sling. Realized I never really used Sling, instead just streaming from various services.

When football season started, I called them up and asked for Sunday Tickey for free. They did that. I asked for any other discounts, and they gave me $60/mo off, in addition to the $50/mo I already had ordered my account.. I'm currently paying $9/mo for DirecTV and Sunday Ticket. I'll pause it again after the Superbowl (Go Bills!) and try again next year.

I'm hopeful that the new DirecTV will be better now that AT&T is leaving but we will see.

If one is retired and/or with low income, there is/was a $50 a month credit for Internet Service.
Not sure when the funds run out.
Mine dropped to under $20 a month, and then 6% back from CC.

Along the same lines, always call/online chat with your internet provider and ask for a lower price. I get 100mbps from Comcast for around $40/mo, just by asking.

Ask for customer retention

I have DirecTV (Entertainment package) now
but wish I could pick ala carte, as my wife and I only actually watch about a dozen channels regularly.
My only source of high speed internet (>25mbps) is to go with XFinity/Comcast, (I currently subscribe to a 100mbps plan)
as the phone company (landline) route can only provide 5mbps at best.
I do have a good OTA antenna that gets most all Portland Metro stations
I am now streaming more (NetFlix, Amazon Prime, Discovery+, Hulu & Disney, Britbox & HBOMax and Peacock),
Some of which I am getting by piggybacking off my wife's neice accounts, though some I paid for outright.
But I do not want to drop DirecTV mainly because wanting to retain CNN & ESPN, AMC & TCM and easy access to local network stations,
because the reliability of my internet and wifi service is somewhat sketchy
as at least once or twice a day we lose our internet or wifi connections for minutes at a time, sometimes longer
to where we have to reset our wifi modem, to correct the problem.
I have replaced the modem once already with XFinity.
While pricey, DirecTV has a decent DVR system and the signal is reliable, except during a very heavy rainstorm.
I just do not trust that Fubo, Philo, YouTubeTV or Sling or Hulu LiveTV
will be reliable enough to go with total streaming. (mostly the fault of my internet provider)
The phone company does have fiber optic internet, but it has not reached my neighborhood yet, if ever.
Sad that locast is down for the time being.
After streaming for a year, I will re-evaluate the value of keeping with certain streaming services,
if they have enough content that i actually want to watch.