OTA TV Stuff...

[sdkid]

Somebody had a cool thread going on this yesterday, but it is gone now for some reason.

I have been without cable TV since 2017, using an antenna and signal amplifier to feed 4 tv's in the house. Of course, we also stream a lot of stuff via Prime and Netflix. Several of you mentioned some of the other cool things you are doing with integrating your setup with your network, etc. The only thing I have missed since dumping cable-tv is having a DVR...

The now-gone thread had some info about TIVO OTA DVR's--- tell me what you have and if you like it or not.

 

[The Automation Guy]

Look at SageTV. It is an open source (ie free to use) DVR system that has been around for 20 years. It originally started as it's own company, was eventually bought by Google and integrated into their Google Fiber TV service, and then like a lot of Google projects was eventually abandoned. At least Google open sourced it at that time. There is still a very active community and there are some great developers that continue to advance the program. Full disclosure - you do have to have a Schedules Direct subscription to get TV guide information into SageTV now and I think it costs about $25/yr for that service. It is free to download and use the software however.

SageTV supports a wide variety of tuners - cable card, OTA, component video encoders, HDMI encoders, recording from the internet, etc, etc, etc. Personally I have a 6 tuner cable card tuner (Ceton Infini ETH) along with a OTA tuner (a HDHomeRun Flex 4k) tuner in my system. This allows me to record up to 6 cable channels and 4 OTA channels at the same time. I pay $4/ month for my cable card rental (on top of my cable service) but I don't have to rent any cable boxes for my house. It runs on Windows or Linux, and there are even docker solutions as well. This means you will run the "server" on a computer which allows you to have almost unlimited amounts of storage. Personally I currently have about 8TB of storage which allows me to record 1800+ hours of TV. For example, during the last winter Olympics I literally recorded over 300 unique shows which was over 600 hours of recordings that took up 2.4TB of space. I didn't have to delete any of my previously recorded shows and I still had plenty of storage left. Try that on any other DVR system!

The system has a great set of features including commercial skip and even an optional automatic recording extender (called SRE - SageTV Recording Extender) which monitors live sports and will keep recording if the sporting event you are recording goes beyond it's scheduled ending time. No more recording/watching the game only to find out that the last 15 minutes weren't recorded because it went into overtime! I've never heard of this feature on another DVR and it works great.

As far as watching your recorded shows (and even "live" TV is recorded so you can pause, rewind, or even save the recording while you are watching it), there are several great options. SageTV created some of the very first DVR extenders which aren't being produced anymore, but can still be bought on the used market. The extender is basically a local media box that you connect to your TV and it pulls it's shows from the server and they were doing this years before any of the cable/satellite companies offered devices like this. But honestly today most people just use the SageTV apps available on most of the popular platforms. You can install the SageTV app on your smartTV or Amazon Firestick and watch SageTV through it even though your shows are being recorded on a computer somewhere else in your house. As I already mentioned, I don't rent any cable boxes, but I am able to view SageTV on every TV in my house and watch every one at the same time if I want (all watching the same, or different shows). It also has a web service so you can pull your system up on a phone or other device to schedule recordings, manage your system, or even watch TV. It also has the ability to pull Fanart and other media into the system to use with the guide, etc (see the image below for an example).

SageTV is literally one of the best kept secrets IMHO. It had all of these features long before they were common on cable TV DVRs. I'm happy to answer any questions you might have.

SageTV Community - Powered by vBulletin

This is a discussion forum about SageTV. To find out about vBulletin, go to http://www.sagetv.com/.

forums.sagetv.com

 

[The Automation Guy]

I should also add that while I personally like the look of the stock GUI (it's a classic "timeless" look IMHO), others may not like it. However there are several ways to "theme" the look to whatever your heart desires. That's a feature I could care less about, but that others really get into.

 

[redpoint5]

I hear more good things about HD HomeRun than anything else. My assumption is that it's moderately difficult to setup.

I run a cheap USB dual tuner attached to my Nvidia Shield TV Pro and have Plex record shows. It's probably the most difficult to configure. The Shield TV is about the most versatile streaming device though, which is why it's also the most difficult.

Easiest would be a Tivo. It's fairly expensive to buy the lifetime service or pay the monthly subscription, but it works extremely well and is the simplest solution. Tivo really pays attention to little details to make using the product a delight. My parents have a Romeo, but that's discontinued.

 

[fenderman]

Somebody had a cool thread going on this yesterday, but it is gone now for some reason.

I have been without cable TV since 2017, using an antenna and signal amplifier to feed 4 tv's in the house. Of course, we also stream a lot of stuff via Prime and Netflix. Several of you mentioned some of the other cool things you are doing with integrating your setup with your network, etc. The only thing I have missed since dumping cable-tv is having a DVR...

The now-gone thread had some info about TIVO OTA DVR's--- tell me what you have and if you like it or not.

View attachment 125755

I found the thread. It was deleted by the op for no apparent reason. I undeleted it.

Any Cord Cutters Here?

Are there any cord cutters here? If so, how long have you been without cable TV and what do you use for streaming? I have need set free from the ever rising cable bill for about 2 years now. I stream all movies and on my Nvidia Shield Pro, I also have PLEX and an HTPC. I get local channels...

ipcamtalk.com

 

[TonyR]

Somebody had a cool thread going on this yesterday, but it is gone now for some reason.

ABC (owned by Disney) hacked IPCT's server and deleted the thread....KIDDING of course!

 

[pete_c]

Initially used two Tivo DTV boxes which I owned and modded for saving to NAS videos. (only SD at the time).

Still have DTV (grandfathered account from the beginning of DTV) these days.

Here switched over to using Kodi / HDHomerun et al years ago from Microsoft Media Center.

I stay away from running Kodi in Android or Windows and lately using cheapo TV Boxes from Amazon to stream 4k content. (Armbian Linux).

Have a read here ==> Kodi Wiki

Installed Kodi in two automobiles with custom bus interfaces which display on the HU.

Using NFS these days instead of Samba for NAS shares of media content.

Many peers have gone to using a Plex Server which streams fine to telephones and tablets.

I do not watch television / movies on my phone or tablets and looking to move my phone over to a Linux phone.

 

[sdkid]

Initially used two Tivo DTV boxes which I owned and modded for saving to NAS videos. (only SD at the time).

Still have DTV (grandfathered account from the beginning of DTV) these days.

Here switched over to using Kodi / HDHomerun et al years ago from Microsoft Media Center.

I stay away from running Kodi in Android or Windows and lately using cheapo TV Boxes from Amazon to stream 4k content. (Armbian Linux).

Have a read here ==> Kodi Wiki

Installed Kodi in two automobiles with custom bus interfaces which display on the HU.

Using NFS these days instead of Samba for NAS shares of media content.

Many peers have gone to using a Plex Server which streams fine to telephones and tablets.

I do not watch television / movies on my phone or tablets and looking to move my phone over to a Linux phone.

That is an impressive list of tech tinkering! I will have to explore KODI...

 

[pete_c]

OTA here is via direct wire to antenna (amplified) to TV's and two HD Homerun Tuners. Kodi is just another STB and only STB on a 4 TVs.

For a long time used MythTV (still on but rarely recording or streaming). Still utilize Squeeze box server here and custom built Squeeze box players. (tabletop touchscreens)

I have disabled and do not use any SmartTV functions (no catXX or WLAN connections) on LCD TV's these days.

Personally do not watch Junk TV (wife does and records everything). I only watch recorded movies or some offered series.

 

[redpoint5]

Many peers have gone to using a Plex Server which streams fine to telephones and tablets.

I'll add that Plex is free to use on a computer, but extra for the iOS or Android app. There are many smart TVs and streaming devices that include the Plex app. The best bang for the buck streaming devices seem to be the Google Chromecast and the Amazon Firestick. My preference between the 2 being Chromecast due to better UI. Both support Plex, as do most devices these days.

 

[DavidDavid]

I have HDHomeRun (2 tuner) for a few years and it works great. I've only ever paid for cable 3 months ever, this was 13 years ago and it was a $5/month promo I cancelled at the end of the 3 months.

HDHomeRun works great for the VERY limited live TV we watch. Mainly large sporting events and the random one off cool program that comes out. The live version of A Christmas Story was fun to watch for example. We paid the $35 for the DVR the first year but cancelled it due to lack of use.

Having OTA TV available is convenient sometimes, but having it available on every Android/Roku device on the network and only one antenna mounted in a convenient location near a network switch is where it shines. You can't technically watch live TV on the android app outside of the home (even on VPN for some unknown reason) however I found that you CAN connect to VPN, copy the link for the channel you want and paste it into VLC on your phone and watch it. You'll need a pretty high upload speed (we have 25 Mbps) and high or unlimited data cap thou, but it does work.

 

[hajalie24]

I use Plex for recordings. It has features out of the box like detecting and being able to skip commercials for recordings. I have a TV Tuner for the plex computer but it also works with HDHomeRun which I also have.

However, using Plex sucks for live TV surfing, the UI is so slow after an update they made, and it takes like 5 seconds to tune channels. I only use it for recordings really.

Personally, for live tv watching I prefer having the antenna directly in the TV. The TV is quickest usually for surfing, as I have actual numbers on the remote. The only exception to this for me is if it's a Roku TV or similar where the remote is already barebones, then I'll just use the HDHomeRun app or something else.

SageTV looks interesting, I may give that a try. Though the $25/year fee for the TV guide is making it less tempting.

 

[redpoint5]

However, using Plex sucks for live TV surfing, the UI is so slow after an update they made, and it takes like 5 seconds to tune channels. I only use it for recordings really.

Do you know roughly what version of PMS was the last good version for TV surfing? I'm likely going to downgrade (again) because it keeps getting much worse each version (I'm running 1.24 and thinking to go down to 1.23).

That said, I'd never watch TV live as there's no point and it wastes your time with commercials. That's the beauty of Plex, that when the recording finishes it cuts out the commercials. Superbowl is the only exception I have to my disdain for live TV. Tivo has some limited ability to detect some commercials and allow a "skip".

 

[hajalie24]

Do you know roughly what version of PMS was the last good version for TV surfing? I'm likely going to downgrade (again) because it keeps getting much worse each version (I'm running 1.24 and thinking to go down to 1.23).

That said, I'd never watch TV live as there's no point and it wastes your time with commercials. That's the beauty of Plex, that when the recording finishes it cuts out the commercials. Superbowl is the only exception I have to my disdain for live TV. Tivo has some limited ability to detect some commercials and allow a "skip".

Don't remember, it was like 8 months ago at least. I'll see if I can find more details, I remember making a community post soon after it occurred. Of course it got no response.