Time to cut the cord?

[Pete]

I use an old combo UHF / VHF antenna in the attic. I also made a small cardboard box antenna which is next to the combo and use a splitter/combiner as mentioned above by Uncle Michael.

To make the UHF cardboard antenna just used cardboard, aluminum foil, glue and a 300 Ohm to 75 Ohm balun. About $1.00 worth of parts and maybe 20 minutes to make it.

It is easier to point than the large antenna (6-7 foot long) and works well for HD.

I posted the DIY here on Cocoontech.

DIY HD Antennas made from Aluminum foil and cardboard

[ATTACH]65307[/ATTACH]

[sirmeili]

I use an old combo UHF / VHF antenna in the attic. I also made a small cardboard box antenna which is next to the combo and use a splitter/combiner as mentioned above by Uncle Michael.

To make the UHF cardboard antenna just used cardboard, aluminum foil, glue and a 300 Ohm to 75 Ohm balun. About $1.00 worth of parts and maybe 20 minutes to make it.

It is easier to point than the large antenna (6-7 foot long) and works well for HD.

I posted the DIY here on Cocoontech.

DIY HD Antennas made from Aluminum foil and cardboard

[ATTACH]65307[/ATTACH]

Pete, what kind of range do you think you could get off that day antenna?

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[racerfern]

However, in my research, it might be hard to get all the major networks from one direction

At my son's house the three stations are in entirely different directions, in Connecticut hills. Honestly I couldn't tell the difference when he switched channels. He's in Middletown, stations are in Hartford, New Haven and Waterbury. Open up google maps.

[Pete]

what kind of range do you think you could get off that day antenna?

Guessing at between 50-75 miles or so.

I used my wife's thicker aluminum foil for the antenna.

[TeleFragger]

so I just got an email.. and my wife is gonna be mad..

I don't have much on my xmas list and I have been buying stupid things (diodes, car thermostat switch, etc...)...

now the plex email came over and I cant wait... had to buy it..!!!!

$119.99 - 37% = $74.99 for PlexPass LIFETIME!!!!!!!!!

[Kerat]

Time to cut the cord?

Here We have cable Internet and didn't have cable TV for 5 years until my wife said she wanted regular TV. Now we have a level just above minimum HD TV (because of a channel my wife wanted). My bill used to be $60 for 200Mbps residential, now it is $120 for 6 channels we actually watch, a ton of channels we don't, and a ton of commercials built in...

I have an HDHomerun Prime tuner that sits on my LAN and has a cable card on it. It supports up to 3 synchronous streams at once.

I use Emby as our media system, and have our home videos, music, movies, and shows loaded there. I have a lifetime premier membership so no additional cost for me there (I waited for a discounted price).

Emby offers many features.
A. Media management
B. Automated meta data gathering.
C. Emby Theatre (media front end like Kodi/XBMC) apps for computer OSs, smart phones, tablets, and media streamers.
I. Some of these applications allow downloading of the movie for remote watching without Inet connectivity.
D. Secured remote access (though you need to setup a DDNS on a domain name that you can also have SSL certificates registered to.
E. User profiles for different users.
F. A live tv feature that functions as a normal cable style interface with DVR functionality.

Note: you may need premiere service for some of these features.

In order to get accurate recording times I recommend using a good guide provider, and ensure that all your equipment is using very accurate time.

1. I have a membership to schedules direct ($24 per year I think) and get my guide data from there. The guide data is really important.

2. On my network I have managed NTP (network time protocol) such that all requests are redirected to my firewall and my firewall is synchronized with 4 public NTP servers in my area. While my NTP time isn't as accurate as @Pete's it keeps all my network systems very close to accurate time and reduces NTP related public traffic requests to my firewall only.

I still get the occasional overage due to live coverage games that run over, but I pull whatever I miss from online sources if I don't record it on first aired date.

To address commercials, I use a paid software ($10 lifetime) and a custom script I put together that runs after the recording is completed to chop commercials out of my recordings. This saves one drive space, and time.

Once my wife gets tired of the doubled cost or depending on how much increased costs we incur if ending net neutrality does not get voted down in the congress (either directly by cable providers increasing costs to consumers, or by Internet based services increasing their costs to consumers due to increased overhead (fast lane billing) costs to ISPs, we will likely switch back to Internet only, and get an OTA attic antenna and a OTA HDHOMERUN tuner.

We also have a Netflix account that we use sometimes.

As for front ends, in my house we have two HTPCs. The first is in the HT room that also acts as the multi-media server. This system is beefier as it also handles transcoding for remote devices and smartphones/tabs. It runs Emby Theatre, Kodi, and a browser for YouTube/Netflix access.

The second an HTPC is an ITX based system running an Intel core 2 Duo with on board video, 4 GB RAM, and an SSD. Again it runs Emby Theatre, Kodi, and a browser for YouTube/Netflix It is pretty peppy.

I also have an android TV in our master bedroom that runs the android Emby app, Netflix app, and YouTube app.

We have 2 tablets and two smartphones as well.

For remote access to our videos, shows, music, and movies the two tablets and smartphones are configured to be able to access the system via my public domain that has a DDNS record that points to my house's public IP. I use multiple CNAME record to divide my publicly accessible services and have a reverse proxy that sits in front of the back end servers. When my family goes on vacation we generally get to continue watching our shows.


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[sirmeili]

so I just got an email.. and my wife is gonna be mad..

I don't have much on my xmas list and I have been buying stupid things (diodes, car thermostat switch, etc...)...

now the plex email came over and I cant wait... had to buy it..!!!!

$119.99 - 37% = $74.99 for PlexPass LIFETIME!!!!!!!!!

yes, and note that if you have been paying yearly, they will prorate you for your current "subscription" as well. At least they did this for me. I was paying yearly (to test it for a year) and I got a similar deal, it made the switch to lifetime really easy.

[happnatious1]

so I just got an email.. and my wife is gonna be mad..

I don't have much on my xmas list and I have been buying stupid things (diodes, car thermostat switch, etc...)...

now the plex email came over and I cant wait... had to buy it..!!!!

$119.99 - 37% = $74.99 for PlexPass LIFETIME!!!!!!!!!

The email I saw said it only applies to yearly

[TeleFragger]

The email I saw said it only applies to yearly

not mine...

[scg]

"I have an hd home run"

Plex just have an update for Plex Pass users. It now skips tv commercials when using Home Run DVR to record. Please note I think the show has to be recorded not watched live to skip commercials.

Plex Pass subscribers using Plex Home can rejoice! You can now enable access to Live TV for everyone in your Plex Home setup. This means you can enable the ability for anyone in your Plex Home to watch Live TV (including different parts of same show!), from any client, anywhere. If you're looking to cut the cord, get a Plex Pass (along with an antenna and tuner) to pair Live TV with DVR: you'll be set to record the newest episodes of the most popular shows on TV.

Not feeling the holiday spirit? If you want to curl up and marathon sub-par holiday-edition movies, you're not alone. Get your BAH HUMBUG on with with 25% off an annual Plex Pass now through Wednesday, December 27, 2017. That means $29.99* yearly! With a Plex Pass, get THE MOST that Plex has to offer, including the latest features below. BONUS: You don't even have to spread any holiday cheer, just enter PLEXIVUS at checkout.
*Price in USD, local currency may vary. Offer only valid on new subscriptions.
Expires 11:59 PM PST on Wednesday, December 27, 2017.

I hope this helps!

[TeleFragger]

wonder if you pause say a football game... for 20 minutes.. then start it.. if it will let you FFW?

[sirmeili]

wonder if you pause say a football game... for 20 minutes.. then start it.. if it will let you FFW?

I would hope so, if not that's kinda crazy. It should let you fast forward to when it's live

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[happnatious1]

Thanks for all the great responses! It seams there are a lot of options out there for potential cord cutters. I have ordered an antenna to try in my attic to see what king of free programming I can pull in and I've also got an hdhomerun duo coming to go with it.

I was leaning towards Plex as the DVR but after some reading on-line I'm a little nervous about their privacy policy. I find it creepy that when I do a search for an oil filter for my lawn tractor that I will immediately start seeing advertising for new tractors on every site I visit. Call me paranoid but I am the owner of a security company so if I wasn't, I Wouldn't be doing my job.

In the running are Plex, Emby, and MythTV at this point. Time to start firing up Virtual Machines. If there are other PVR's (must be Linux) please don't hesitate to recommend.

Again, thanks for all the great feedback!

[Pete]

Yes here still have a PlayOn TV license (Windows only) but do not use it anymore.

The quality of OTA is way better than Direct TV. Even early on before HD Direct TV would throttle bandwidth.

I do see private channel OTA HD broadcasts these day in the midwest and most likely in the future the major networks will probably charge to watch OTA.



Have left MythTV at Ubuntu 14.04 as I tried to upgrade to Ubuntu 16.04 and broke it. Doing a combo internal card thing (OTA and Satellite) and using HDHomerun.

[farfromuman]

I have used SageTV for for ages and it works well with HDHomeruns and OTA antenna. I find that I get most of my programming this way. All my Blu-ray and dvd tips also play through the SageTV client boxes. Anything else gets streamed through roku or fire tv.

SageTV is open source now and runs in windows and Linux.




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