Moved, switched to OTA, what to do with my extras?

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Mpgrimm2

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Moved, switched to OTA, what to do with my extras?

#1

Post by Mpgrimm2 » Sun Sep 18, 2016 4:06 pm

It's been a while, but here's my end of the work day dribble ...

Well I moved from Va to IN to SC finally for work ahead of the wife. She recently moved down and the house is up for sale still with all my installed gigabit network. :( So I have pulled out my CableCard/extender setup and boxed it up. Most everything is in storage for now.

Running my main win 7 PC at the apt with a dual Hauppauge OTA which is working well, but I sure miss having 6 tuners and a ton of channels. Even though it all worked great at these house, Comcast is just too much of a rip-off for my needs at the moment. I am getting my use out of the Netflix and Amazon plugins that still work very well!

I'm on the fence about holding on to some of this stuff that I won't use for quite a while if at all:

Ceton ETH6, Echo, and 2 registered/activated copies of win8 pro w/MCE. I had hopes for win8 but went back to win7 quickly on my two media center PC's and never updated my MCE laptop.

Being in an apartment limits my cabling options anyway other than an AC router/AC router bridge setup (I have 2 somewhere), and i only have one TV at the moment.

Maybe I will pickup a quad OTA PCIx or network tuner before there wife and I conflict over what gets recorded. I saw used Xbox 360's for $60 at GameStop the other day (mine RRoD for the last time).

Thoughts?

From my Up All Night Sleep All Day Gs7 on Tapatalk

adam1991

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#2

Post by adam1991 » Sun Sep 18, 2016 4:45 pm

First off, if you have (a) the black box recording even the OTA channels 24/7 plus (b) Netflix and Amazon, how can you possibly miss "a ton of channels"? Exactly what are you missing? You have only 24 hours in the day, and how many of those are available for TV? Of those hours, how many channels do you require to fill them?

Silicon Dust HD Homerun OTA tuners--get two or three of them if you really want 4 or 6 tuners going at once. Shoot, you could simply assign each channel to have its own tuner, and just set it up to record everything (I had a buddy who did that with single-tuner ReplayTV units--he had 10 of them, and three were dedicated to network prime time, one per network).

If it's the pay TV content itself you're missing, I can't help you--other than to say that I ditched the pay cable stuff and never once thought about going back. That's been some time ago. The world had matured enough such that Netflix and Hulu (now Hulu without ads), and now Amazon thanks to my wife joining Prime, fills in quite nicely and then some. I even kept the Netflix DVD service going, for a luxury touch for those things that just aren't on streaming at all. Although, Vudu and Amazon rentals do a decent job of even that.

I was worried about how this might impact the wife and kids, but in the end they were the least of my concerns. They didn't care.

And with all that, my costs are WAY under those of paying the cable company to shove 100 channels at me, five of which I watch and seven more that I might casually record something from just because. But really, did losing Pawn Stars or Ice Road Truckers really make my life worse? Hell no.

I say, keep the Ceton stuff. They're worth more to you than what you could sell them for (and you can use the Echo right now). If you have an Echo, why would you want an XBox 360? I guess for DVDs and you can do Netflix on them. But I just do Roku, so I've never explored that.

If you have enough signal to feed three HD Homerun tuner boxes, there's your 6 tuners. Conflict avoided.

But if you can't see living without what you used to have, then your other choice is to bite the bullet and pay Comcast. It's sad to think that something like cable-delivered pay TV would have such a stranglehold in your life, though. You have the ultimate control: just say no. Vote with your wallet.

Mpgrimm2

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#3

Post by Mpgrimm2 » Mon Sep 19, 2016 12:57 pm

The only real benefit to cable (even Basic cable) was the reliability of the signal to my main MCE box and a few select channels/shows that I liked (i.e. Walking Dead, still not current on Netflix/Amazon). Where I am at now I struggle to get some basic OTA channels because of the distance to the towers (60-80 miles), ABC is one of them. I ended up going through a few apartment friendly antennas (Mohu Leaf sucked) before I ended up with an Antennas Direct - Clearstream 2v and set it up on the porch with a few stones to hold it in place since I can't attach it. Added a cheapo RCA amp that gets me ABC fairly reliably now. May need to pick up a better Amp to see if I can grab a few more channels at some point.

I don't actually watch a lot of TV regularly, but since I work 3rd shift, I like to have some shows/news lined up to watch on my nights off (and after work in the AM) so I don't have to watch a bunch of Infomercials or "retroTV" into the wee hours (Sun/Mon night can be quite boring).

The Echo worked well, but I was spoiled using the xBox360 that I got for free and had fixed 2 or 3 times for the RROD. It did everything the Echo would do plus had a DVD player and various streaming Apps such as Netflix, amazon, hulu, crackle, etc for it as you mentioned.

I must say that I like not paying the extra for TV to Charter Cable (I mix them up with ComieCast). CableCo's have definitely gotten greedy for what they offer. I can't believe their lowest internet tier costs $50/month here. I get 60Mb DL for that, but I have never needed more than 10-15Mb DL. I was getting basic cable and 15 MB for $50/mos in Indiana (and NTSC on the outlet if you can believe it). It's not so much a stranglehold, its more about getting the basic channels reliably where I am at and the physical layout/limits of where I can put things in the apartment which has proven a bit of a challenge.

At the very least, I think I will go ahead a post up my 2 copies of Win8/MCE in the for sale section since I don't see myself ever using them (won't work with the Echo anyway).

Thanks for the feedback.

mdavej

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#4

Post by mdavej » Mon Sep 19, 2016 1:47 pm

I've found PS Vue to be an excellent cable TV replacement. For $30/month you get about 95% of a typical mid-tier cable package plus a cloud DVR of sorts. That plus OTA, and you're not missing much of anything.

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mcewinter

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#5

Post by mcewinter » Mon Sep 19, 2016 2:09 pm

mdavej wrote:I've found PS Vue to be an excellent cable TV replacement. For $30/month you get about 95% of a typical mid-tier cable package plus a cloud DVR of sorts. That plus OTA, and you're not missing much of anything.
Is the audio in 5.1?

mdavej

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#6

Post by mdavej » Mon Sep 19, 2016 2:52 pm

mcewinter wrote:
mdavej wrote:I've found PS Vue to be an excellent cable TV replacement. For $30/month you get about 95% of a typical mid-tier cable package plus a cloud DVR of sorts. That plus OTA, and you're not missing much of anything.
Is the audio in 5.1?
Beggars can't be choosers.

adam1991

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#7

Post by adam1991 » Mon Sep 19, 2016 3:10 pm

I'm looking at upgrading to a Clearstream. Thanks for the info.

Mpgrimm2

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#8

Post by Mpgrimm2 » Mon Sep 19, 2016 4:58 pm

adam1991 wrote:I'm looking at upgrading to a Clearstream. Thanks for the info.
Your welcome. I would be tempted to get a Clearstream 4v for the nominal price difference just to maximize signal but Walmart didn't carry it when I was going back and forth exchanging antennas. Pretty impressed with the 2v for a unit without an included amp.

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mcewinter

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#9

Post by mcewinter » Mon Sep 19, 2016 6:24 pm

mdavej wrote:
mcewinter wrote:
mdavej wrote:I've found PS Vue to be an excellent cable TV replacement. For $30/month you get about 95% of a typical mid-tier cable package plus a cloud DVR of sorts. That plus OTA, and you're not missing much of anything.
Is the audio in 5.1?
Beggars can't be choosers.
So no? You're not begging, you are paying with real money.

My Comcast bill is $99.00 for TV w/HBO and internet. How much of my bill is internet? If we say $50 then that means I pay $50 for TV with HBO. That's about twenty dollars more than PS Vue and I get a complete channel line up in 5.1 sound that I am free to record from. You get what you pay for still applies.

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#10

Post by mdavej » Mon Sep 19, 2016 7:15 pm

I agree with you. That's one of many reasons I still have cable too. But for my parents who couldn't care less about 5.1, it saves them $50/month over a comparable cable TV package. Sounds like the OP is also looking for a bargain.

That being said, $100 for TV, HBO and internet is almost certainly a temporary promo deal. Regular prices for most of us are far higher than that. I'm paying a similar low price for my bundle. But when that expires, if I fail to negotiate another good deal, I'll be going the PS Vue and OTA route myself. I get 5.1 on the big 4, HBO and Netflix regardless, so losing it on regular basic cable content via PS Vue is no big loss.

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