News I just discovered a new way to cut the cord — and there’s no subscription fee

Oct 23, 2021
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Kelly, did you not try the HDHomeRun from Silicondust? Sure it's not the cheapest option (around $110 for the base model), but it's been around for at least a decade and is super solid. Inputs coaxial and outputs ethernet. Connect your antenna, plug into your wifi router and you can watch local tv via pc/mac, tablet or phone wirelessly. They even have an app for Roku and some smart TVs. Also supports DVR, though I've never set that up. I've had two of these over the last 7-8 years and they are totally flawless.

Edit: I realize this looks like an advert, but I'm just a huge SD fanboy.
 

Rich 1944

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Aug 1, 2021
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Sling also has a product that integrates the antenna into sling and provides the ability to record. Also the Hauppage Win TV stick allows you to use TitanTV Schedule which then allow you to click on a show and automatically record it once daily, and more.
 

mjrtom

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Jul 3, 2018
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not only a cordcutter
but microsoft cutter
unless it works on a Chromebook
no thanks
i got better options for any viewing i want
all free
 

mjrtom

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Jul 3, 2018
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Sling also has a product that integrates the antenna into sling and provides the ability to record. Also the Hauppage Win TV stick allows you to use TitanTV Schedule which then allow you to click on a show and automatically record it once daily, and more.

Sling?
the last time i used sling was when CompUSA was in business, circa 2010.
Bought a Sling device there for $399.
Returned it shortly thereafter.
This was the breakthrough era of Tivo and Replay, if you even know what I refer.
 

seglertx

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Oct 24, 2008
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There's nothing new about this because digital video recorders have been around since the late 90's and at one time nearly half of the homes in the U.S. had one. What you're talking about is building your own instead of renting one from a cable TV or satellite TV company like most people do or buying a TiVo. I built my first DVR / Home Theater PC in 1999 and now have two and pull in TV stations up to 51 miles away from three directions. I used parts from old desktop computers but bought nicer cases from Silvestone and nMedia that look like audio / video receivers.

Using a USB tuner and a laptop is mainly what college kids or business travelers living in hotels do. Most of the people I know that build their own HTPC/DVR have nice cases like I do and use a 4K TV as the display, a soundbar or A/V receiver connected to surround sound speakers, and control everything with a remote control and occasionally use a wireless keyboard to install updates or make other software changes. Building your own HTPC allows unlimited storage for recording TV shows and you can keep your entire video and music collection on one system and access everything via remote control from anywhere in the house without having to get off the couch to look for a Blu-Ray disk. You just use a smart TV or streaming device connected to each TV to access your HTPC and media. All you have to do to get more storage is add another hard drive to your HTPC or media server and they come in sizes up to 16-18 terabytes now.

At one time Microsoft had a HTPC program called Windows Media Center that came out as a special version of Windows XP but was later included free in Vista and Windows 7. Most people never knew about it or confused it with Windows Media Player but it was a full blown DVR/HTPC program with a program guide included. All you needed to add was a TV tuner card from a company like Hauppauge or a networked tuner like an HDHomeRun. You could also stream videos, add an FM radio tuner, play your entire music collection, or watch a slideshow of family or vacation photos. Microsoft also had Windows Home Server that you could run on a whole home media server to store all of your videos, music, and photos but Microsoft discontinued both a while back. MythTV, SageTV and BeyondTV also came out in the early 2000's around the same time as WMC but BeyondTV is now just a commercial program. Most people now use Emby or Plex as their HTPC software on either a Windows or Linux system.
 
The point of the article is that they're looking at USB TV Tuners. I've had TV Tuners ranging from some Pinnacle unit that connected via the PC's serial port, a couple of ATI All-In-Wonder cards, an AVerMedia ATSC/NTSC card, to a Ceton InfiniTV4 card. All were fully functional, but none were portable.

The article does take some liberties in stating that you can just insert the USB into any computer. I'm sure there is some software that also needs to be installed and that may not be kosher with the owner of the PC.

-Wolf sends
 
Oct 24, 2021
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why even assign mac users to cord cutting stories? if they are dumb enough to overpay for macbooks then they should first stop overpaying for hardware and an ecosystem that most of tech doesnt support. thats your real problem. also macbook users are less than 10 percent of computer users full stop so youre already a niche within a niche
 
Oct 24, 2021
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The point of the article is that they're looking at USB TV Tuners. I've had TV Tuners ranging from some Pinnacle unit that connected via the PC's serial port, a couple of ATI All-In-Wonder cards, an AVerMedia ATSC/NTSC card, to a Ceton InfiniTV4 card. All were fully functional, but none were portable.

The article does take some liberties in stating that you can just insert the USB into any computer. I'm sure there is some software that also needs to be installed and that may not be kosher with the owner of the PC.

-Wolf sends
theres this thing called windows update. perhaps youve heard of it