Finally turned off my cable tv but...

[Dark Star Balla]

Now I have to find the best option to get my local channels free & in HD. Anyone here living cable/satelite free?

 

[Math Geek]

best option is an over the air antenna. remember local channels are sent over the air for free if you have an antenna. the cable company buys and resells the signal to you but it is always available for free without them.

you can get them at your local walmart/target/best buy type store and they run about $20 for a cheap one and over $100 for the best ones. i use one myself as i am also cable free. get one that plugs into the wall and amplifies the signals it finds. this will give you the best picture and most reliable signal.

you do need one for each tv you want to hook up, unless you spring for a high end whole house set-up which will be a single antenna with multiple outputs for the house. they run a lot but are very good quality. if you only have a couple tv's though, it'll be cheaper to get one per tv.

note the range each antenna has. figure out how far away you are from the towers and get one better than that distance. they sell them in various ranges from 20 miles to 60+ miles varieties. if your only 10 miles away from the broadcast tower, then a 15-20 mile on would be fine. but if your 30 miles away, then a 20 miles one won't get much of the signal for you and so on.

 

[rgd1101]

digital over the air or go online for your local tv station

 

[kanewolf]

This website -- http/antennaweb.org/ can help you determine the size of antenna you need and the direction it needs to point.

 

[Math Geek]

you'll find with an antenna you'll probably get more local channels that your cable company provided. i have 33 channels in my area for free. cable usually offers 6 of them to us!! that's a lot of tv i missed out on some of them even cover what used to be premium channels, such as we have a 24/7 classic westerns channel which was available as an encore package channel with cable for extra. also have a number of channels that show old tv shows from the 80's n 90's. again something the cable company had as add on channels for me.

 

[jsmithepa]

http/antennaweb.org/

^Good website right there.

What a shame, people are so used to paying for cable, they forget there is a thing called an antenna. I love mine, I think it even looks better than cable because the broadcast channels are not highly compressed like from highway robbers cable providers.

 

[Dark Star Balla]

Wow, Thanks for all the suggestions! I have some research to do. Honestly I really only care about Football & basketball & the WhiteSox. Other than that TV usually watch me while I work or surf online.

 

[Math Geek]

i get NFL Sunday ticket streaming now. they expanded who can get it that way last year. used to keep the dish installed just for sunday ticket every year, but now i can just stream it. think the other major sports also have their streaming packages for non-local games. think sunday ticket was $200 this year which is not bad.

Sunday ticket is still the only way to get all those games i actually want to watch. don't root for local team so got to have it to see my team play each week

 

[Dark Star Balla]

Can you get NBATV, NFL Network or ESPN without cable or sat?

 

[Math Geek]

a good trade off is Playstation Vue service. you can get a lot of good stuff for little money. it's like sling tv, cable channels you stream over the internet. the "core" service which i believe is $45 a month has all that and a lot more. here is a channel listing https/www.cnet.com/news/directv-now-vs-sling-tv-vs-playstation-vue-channels-compared/

for $45 a month with no other fees, you get a ton of channels, online dvr, lots of on demand stuff. only thing missing is local channels which you can get with the antenna we already mentioned. is what my house uses. lots of movie channels and plenty of stuff you're used to seeing with cable so you don't have to fully give up stuff like history, discovery, hgtv, and stuff like that. it works with roku, apple tv, smart tv's and just about anything else you can use to stream to your tv including in browser on pc as well as mobile.

really worth looking into and allows 5 streams at once with the second and up tier if i recall right. pair it with an antenna and you won't miss your cable box at all.

 

[Dark Star Balla]

The PlayStation idea is very viable one. As much as I play PS4 you'd have thunk i'd have thought about it. I'll have to look into it and see how it works with the firestick. We have one on each tv.

 

[Math Geek]

works best with a playstation. in fact to create individual profiles, it takes a playstation for some odd reason (though i think you can on firestick as well now). firestick is the second best way, then roku and the others.

with playstation and firestick you can use a channel guide like you're used to from cable. a nice grid of channels and times to show what is on live. roku and the others don't have the guide option and you instead get a tiled format of all the channels with what is on right now on that channel. at first not having a guide was annoying but i find myself now not using the guide but rather the tiled set-up.

nice thing is you set your fav channels and they are at the top of the list always. so eventually the channels you don't watch fall to the bottom of the list and you never see them each profile gets unlimited online dvr but you can only keep something for a month before it gets auto deleted so no stockpiling multiple seasons of stuff, though it is likely available through on demand so not really needed.

i have used all 3 major streaming and playstation vue is what we stuck with. sling is cheap but lacks some of what we wanted and directv is at&t and they took 1 month before beginning the bait and switch tactics we hate so much from regular cable so it's out. also lacks all the extras playstation offers.

 

[Dark Star Balla]

Yea, I'm may check that out first. Now if I can find a really fast ISP so I can dump the cable company completely.

 

[Math Geek]

good luck there. i use Verizon Fios since it is the most reliable in my area. love that my speed is what i pay for not "up to" a certain amount like most cable plans offer. i get the full 150 mb/s up and down that i pay for at all times. don't need that much speed but they offered a jump from the 50 mb i had to the 150 for an extra $5. could not pass that up and it's month to month with no contract at that price. someone was high when i signed up for that but i'm happy