Ditching Dish for OTA? You bet!

[Affejunge]

First, I understand my situation is unique. I live in "the land time forgot." Where I live we have no cable, no high-speed internet, and cell coverage is non-existent within my house (outside my cell phone may "dazzle" me with 2 bars!)

This transition started a little over a year ago. Dish does not provide my locals in HD. Frustrating, since tvfool.com showed that my locals are in HD. So, I followed these instructions and built my antenna. Now I was getting PBS in HD (which is really all I wanted.) But then I noticed something, the NBC I got over the antenna actually looked better then the HD NBC feed via Dish! This makes sense, as Dish has to compress the signal more to make room for all the channels they broadcast.

Then the final straw. Last summer, the wife and kids took a trip to Grandma's. I was home alone and could watch whatever I wanted! Finally! Saturday night, beer in hand, I plopped down to bask in the glory of my 200+ channels. You know what? I could not find a thing to watch. I realized I was paying $80+ a month for crap.

Oh, but to ditch Dish? I love the PVR, I cannot live without it. So, I looked into adding a few TV tuners to my MythTV box. I have had my eye on the HD-5500 tuner card for awhile. But 2 of those bad boys were going to run me $198. Not bad, but using the HTPC has a very low WAF.

Then it happened, TiVo closed out there older HD TiVos. So, for the same price as the two tuner cards, I got the HD TiVo. I had an old 1TB hard drive, so it was a snap to upgrade the storage.

So, now my TV costs have plummeted from $80/mo to $13/mo. I get about 26 channels, including 5 PBS feeds, I have a dual tuner PVR that supports native out (something they took way with the Premiere TiVos..why would they do this?! I cannot believe the scaler/deinterlacer in a TiVo is better than the one in a quality TV or receiver/pre-pro.)

In fairness to Dish, they did offer the Welcome Pack for 23.99/mo with locals. Not a bad deal, but I was ready to switch to the far superior DVR interface of the TiVo, Netflix Streaming, and native video output.

Now, the TiVo OTA solution is not perfect. I do not get ABC, as the nearest transmitter is in San Fransisco, 86 miles away! The TiVo's implementation of NetFlix Streaming is atrocious (the Wii does a much better job, but then again, the Wii does not do HD) To be fair, I have the worst ISP in the world. It is wireless (remember: land time forgot) so it is possible with a solid ISP, netflix would improve, but that said, its performance is much better on the Wii.

After 2 years of Dish, I don't really miss it. OTA digital broadcasts look amazing, the interface of the TiVo is much better than the one on the ViP722, and if I do move somewhere with cable, I can continue to use my TiVo and have all my recorded shows!

So, anyone else switch to OTA only?

 

[Geno]

I've had Dish for several years, and am about to switch to ATT U-Verse for everything. I'll agree that my local OTA stations look better than Dish, but not dramatically so. I just can't live without some of the cable channels, though, (Discovery, NatGeo, Paladia, etc.) I didn't think TIVO was still around, since all the cable companies and satellite outfits have their own DVRs. Glad to see there's still an alternative.

 

[m_vanmeter]

I am still amazed by the number of folks who think the "only" way to get HD programming to their HDTV's is with cable or satellite. And the mis-conception is supported by the firms that sell or resell those services.

My DishTV receivers are all older SD systems and the digital source material is fine. But when I want to watch PBS in full, glorious digital HD, I switch over to their local over-the-air broadcast. I have even converted a few of the "un-knowing" to the wonders of free broadcast over-the-air TV

 

[Pyrrho]

...
So, now my TV costs have plummeted from $80/mo to $13/mo. ...

I pay nothing per month for TV. I use the DTVPal DVR and pay no monthly fees whatsoever for TV.

You can read about the device at:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1099071

Of course, there are other places online to read about it, which you can find via a search engine using "DTVPal DVR".

Now, as a separate thing, I have a Netflix account, and I watch streaming HD from that (which is 720p), and have one BD out at a time from them. That costs me about $11 per month.

 

[indcrimdefense]

i originally did away with cable in 2006. i watch very little tv, at the time watched alot of movies, and was tired of paying for something i rarely used. i did miss hbo, history channel, espn, but quickly got over it. when i purchased my plasma in 2007, i also purchased an HD antenna from radio shack for around $50? was very happy with the picture quality, at times had reception issues but expected that as its only a 6 inch by 3 inch antenna.

when my now ex-girlfriend and i were living together, we signed up for AT&T uverse, and loved it, w/ the exception of the cost. we had 3 tv's, so had to pay for 2 additional boxes, HD was extra, and obviously we purchased movies as well so for tv/internet/phone (which was used as fax line only for home office and had HORRIBLE difficulties with) we were paying over $200 a month, which i found to be ridiculous. the internet service was fine (had lowest speed whatever that is and worked just fine, better than what i have now w/ brighthouse lowest speed but also paying much less), we only had the 100 whatever channel package, so no hbo, etc. got rid of it when we broke up. i had never had a DVR, so that was fantastic, being able to record multiple shows was a must w/ a teenager in the house, HD picture quality was very good, although at times not quite on par with what i had with antenna, and the sound and picture quality of the HD downloaded movies was very good, a step up from DVD sound quality wise but certainly not on par with my blu ray (pioneer elite BDP-09) for sound quality. actually loved everything about uverse for tv but the price.

when the brighthouse guy came to hook up internet after i moved recently, the tv was on. he asked how i was getting such a great HD picture and told him it was an HD antenna. that's better than our HD picture. no wonder you didn't sign up for cable. i laughed.

eventually going to get netflix. when i get around to it.

 

[manofsteel2397]

I've had Dish for several years, and am about to switch to ATT U-Verse for everything. I'll agree that my local OTA stations look better than Dish, but not dramatically so. I just can't live without some of the cable channels, though, (Discovery, NatGeo, Paladia, etc.) I didn't think TIVO was still around, since all the cable companies and satellite outfits have their own DVRs. Glad to see there's still an alternative.

dont switch to U-verse they have a horrible problem with digital 5.1 sound there are audio drops some more noticable than others but they are bad it has been going on for at least 2 years now and no fix in sight. the only fix is to set the audio to stereo instead of surround but then you can only listen in pro-logic and dolby 5.1 surround......and while there PQ is decent in HD you will loose the pop or wow factor that HD has.

 

[jostenmeat]

So, anyone else switch to OTA only?

Yep. While it was only about half a year ago that I bought an antler for the attic with a ATSC tuner for my PJ, I haven't paid for programming in years.

I don't get ABC either. I do get a LOT of channels, of course many I don't care for, a bunch of foreign, many channels that are in SD usually.

I do get the news, TV series (not that I care), but most importantly, things like the Winter Games, Final Four basketball, every NFL game, local NBA games.

The best part? The best TV signal one can get, but for free.

I've been spreading the good word, telling people just to add an antenna to their existing sat/cable, so that they can always access the better feed when it's available. I don't think anyone has yet followed up on my advice.

One or two are interested in dropping service to save money, replacing with OTA.

 

[lsiberian]

I know what you mean. In DFW we have plenty of stuff on that I don't need cable. Especially with espn3.com. Still for sports it is nice to have. I just don't see a need to pay 100 bucks for TV that's no better than the free stuff. But we have a ton of channels.

 

[Pyrrho]

I know what you mean. In DFW we have plenty of stuff on that I don't need cable. Especially with espn3.com. Still for sports it is nice to have. I just don't see a need to pay 100 bucks for TV that's no better than the free stuff. But we have a ton of channels.

That reminds me of something. Back when cable was new, I noticed something quite interesting. Back in those days, TV Guide had a listing of all of the "4 star" (supposedly best movies) playing that week, and the number of them did not seem to increase in my area with the addition of cable channels (i.e., before cable, there was the same approximate number of them from week to week as after cable became available). But the number of lesser movies increased dramatically for those buying all of the cable channels. Of course, some of the "4 star" movies were then shown on cable, so cable caused a degradation of quality on broadcast TV, as far as the TV Guide ratings of movies is concerned.

I personally have never wanted to pay for a lot of garbage, and now, for them degrading HDTV picture quality. There are some good shows on cable, but with my Netflix subscription, I can watch quite a few of them streaming (with no commercials), and others I can watch on BD or DVD being sent to me. Of course, I cannot see the latest shows that way, but there is more than enough made in the past that I have not seen to keep me occupied. (Besides, I often waste a lot of time online [as well as doing other things], as my post count indicates by itself, and obviously, I do things online other than posting here. It would be impossible to watch everything [not that one would want to do that, as there is plenty that is not worth watching].)

Others may really want to see the latest offerings on cable, and they will have to pay for it. But I only pay about $11 per month for my Netflix, which allows me to get BDs sent to me as well as the streaming video. (It obviously would be more expensive to get the streaming video if I did not pay for high speed internet anyway, but I pay for that regardless of whether or not I want Netflix.) But to each his own. Others may do as they please.

The simple fact is, for most people in the U.S., they can watch HD without a monthly fee, and have a DVR recording shows for them, allowing them to "pause live TV", etc. All they need is an HDTV, an antenna, and a suitable DVR. And the picture quality will be unsurpassed, excepting only BD (and those with the old HD-DVD).

 

[Affejunge]

I pay nothing per month for TV. I use the DTVPal DVR and pay no monthly fees whatsoever for TV.

I looked long and hard at this device. I do like it and it was on my "short list". But TiVo won out since I knew I would be able to add a larger drive to it, I knew I could pull shows off it, decrypt them, and put them on my DLNA server, and finally it has netflix streaming (and pandora whenever they get around it it!) in one box (less equipment means WAF++) Plus I can schedule recordings from work.

But I agree, the DTVPal DVR is very nice.