r/cordcutters

Hi all.. I've tried a stick style antenna from amazon followed by the Phillips style antenna with rabbit ears and I'm still having the same issue with my tablo. I occasionally get audio codec failed and the episode needs to essentially skip the fail part to continue watching episodes. Tablo says it's a signal quality issue. We do have a fair bit of trees behind our house int he direction our signals come from. I've got my antenna high up on a bookshelf as high as I can get it without going into the attic. My question is.. do I get a better antenna and just bite the bullet and install it in my attic or outside? Or should I just move the Phillips one higher into the attic and run a cable down? Either way I just wanna get this done with. I prefer diy to hiring it out.. and if it involves going on to the roof it would be hiring it out since my roof is 3 stories up and super pitched. My house has 3 smallish attics. The main one would require a long cable run to my TV but would be the full 3 stories up. There's a smaller attic above the area where the TV is in and would be about 2 stories up but would be a very short run... (I could fit a big ass hideous antenna up there if need be) Or I could zhire it out and stick it outside if I have to

.. thoughts? Help is greatly appreciated.

I have someone coming next month to help with an antenna project. We're talking about having three antennas, each directed to a different city.

Have any of you ever done this before? Some online resources suggest using a 3-channel switch to keep the cities separate and avoid interference between the antennas. Others recommend using a signal combiner (I already had a SmartKom and it was a different brand).

I'll welcome any thoughts or tips from anyone who has done this before.

Anyone having a bad streaming with FOX? I'm seeing pixels way too often. Is it the FOX streaming platform? How much internet speed do yall have?

How do I know if I am getting 4K stream or not? There used to be a 4K logo in the first few games, but I am not seeing that for the past few days. I may be tripping but the matches don't feel 4K. I have tried on LG tv, Samsung TV and Xbox series X. Don't see the 4K logo anywhere.

Update from Fox One support: They ran into technical issues and have stopped 4k streams on most platforms aside from AppleTv, Roku and Vizio.

My brother-in-law wants to ditch cable but he watches a LOT of TV. He asked me about Tablo. After doing a bit of basic research, there seems to be split opinion on Tablo and perhaps other more capable devices are available. I've always been a cable/Tivo guy so I don't know much about the OTA DVRs. One person recommended HDHomerun. Whatever I recommend for him has to be VERY simple to use, and able to stream Netflix, Disney/Hulu/ESPN, Prime, and HBOMax as well as the OTA broadcast channels. If Tivo was still making DVR hardware, I'd recommend an OTA version of that but the last generation of Tivos were pretty iffy and now out of production. You can still buy refurbed ones from Weaknees but they don't have all the required streaming apps and I'd rather not recommend multiple devices if I don't have to. The Tivo Guide (program listing, TV Guide, call it what you like) is what really sets Tivo apart from similar devices so having something similar in an OTA DVR/streamer would be a significant plus. The selected device will also need to be able to feed at least three TVs and perhaps a phone or two. I would love to hear everyone's thoughts, both positive AND negative about Tablo, HDHomerun, and any other relevant devices. Thanks.

I have a bar antenna resting on top of my TV. It has an optional amplifier. We watch two nearby stations, and their towers are visible from my house and located a couple of blocks from each other. They are on "real" channels that are UHF, their powers are 525KW and 700KW, and their neighboring antennas are at the same height, about 320 meters.

Our more distant channel is about 20 miles away, and its real and virtual channels are both 7, VHF. Its power is only 100KW, and its antenna is also about 320 meters up.

With my antenna powered, the 525KW and 100KW stations are usually fine, but the 700KW station is often pixilated or unavailable. My very amateur searching says that indicates a signal that is too strong. If I unplug the antenna power, I get the 700KW station and lose the distant 100KW one.

Can anyone suggest a solution that doesn't involve plugging in and unplugging the antenna power? I have to leave my chair and travel six feet to do that. It's like my pre-remote control childhood.

I have cable connection from my attic to the living room and two of bedrooms. The other end of three cables were all laying in the attic. I also found a Channel Master tv antenna in the attic which was left by the previous owner. So I figured I would connect them and it will work. I tried connecting the antenna to each of the cable ends one by one and connect the TV to the wall jack in each room. I could get 20 channels in each bedroom but not a single one in the living room which was a bummer.. Then, I thought maybe the cable to the living room is longer and has more loss. So I got a 1-to-4 amplifier/distributor and connected all three to the antenna. Same thing :( bedroom TVs have reception but nothing in the living room TV. Not a single channel. I thought maybe that cable in the attic is not for the living room but to be sure I got a Klein Tools coaxial tester to check the connection. To my amazement it passed! I did some sanity check with the tester in other rooms and everything was fine. I have now become clueless what else I can do.. I wanna know what could have gone wrong. I appreciate it if anyone had a similar experience or have a suggestion. Unfortunately running a new cable would be difficult because of the TV location in the first floor.

Anybody have a solution for watching world cup games, either live or relatively soon afterwards?

I have a HDHomerun Flex 4K tuner (from SiliconDust), and it has DVR capabilities. I wanted to have it record one of the FIFA World Cup Soccer games which is being broadcast on an ATSC 3.0 channel in my area, but I've just realized that channel has DRM, which means it won't let met DRM it, and it won't even let met stream the channel to my network.. I don't think they've always had DRM enabled, because I've watched that channel before using my HDHomerun tuner. What's even the point if you can't even watch the channel using your tuner device?

Thankfully, the same channel also broadcasts an ATSC 1.0 channel in my area that isn't DRM-restricted; however, that channel doesn't have quite as good reception for me as their ATSC 3.0 channel. I do have Plex Media Server set up with DRM capability (and I also have a Hauppauge PCI Express TV tuner in that PC), and I've set that to record the game - Hopefully the reception is good and it's able to successfully get all of it.

So, I signed up for the 0.99 cent for2 months deal because I wanted to binge watch **Inspector Ellis.** However, although they listed 2 seasons available for viewing, S2 actually only had a behind-the-scenes episode and the rest were S1. again!

Do other services also do this? Are there alternate viewing menus for intro subscribers?

It seems like a bait and switch move. I’m not sure if the culprit is Acorn or Roku (if the buyout had already gone through I’d honestly blame Roku.) I am super disappointed because I’d been holding off from subscribing to Acorn until my Brit Box sub expired.

I have been using ota for years using individual antennas with each TV. The coverage has been middling with lots of dropouts. I had a pre existing cable set up in the house so I decided to try and hook up an external antenna to the coax.

I purchased the GE antenna off of Amazon (https://a.co/d/0iVGtwYS) , attached it to the side of the chimney and hooked it up. No signal came through.

I did use a coax tracer to make certain the coax was good end to end

I purchased a powered signal splitter (https://a.co/d/03ATUF42) and replaced the existing splitters. There is still no channels being found when I scan.

What am I doing wrong?

I've been watching Pluto TV for years. I have a love-hate relationship with the service. Back in the day I could only watch so much as the ads would infuriate me.

Now we live in a time where streaming services provide limited mediocre new content, falling back to buying rights to old series reruns and slapping on more and more ads to paid services. Live TV is dwindled to overpaid athletes/sports content which is the main driver charging highest premiums per channel.

Meanwhile Pluto TV sits in the background doing the same thing it's been doing for years. Still pissing me off about the volume of commercials but here I sit happily watching the same garbage with a smile on my face cuz I'm not paying for it.

Visionary

My dad is trying to get a news channel that's about 53miles away and there's a mountain almost immediately in our backyard in that direction. We have two antennas between 20-30ft off the ground and the closest we can get to getting that channel in is a pixelated nightmare.

It used to come in somewhat reliably, but either a storm or the second antenna (My dad and I can't agree on which did it) killed the signal.

Our current antennas, at least according to Gemini, are better for VHF, so my parents want to replace one with a UHF antenna. I don't know exactly which one they have picked, I just know it's one Gemini picked. I wanted to ask for suggestions somewhere with people that know more than us, lol.

Now, I don't understand jack about antennas. I picked the one I bought because there were good reviews from multiple people in a similar situation to us. Mountains and trees in every direction, the first major city hours away. That's apparently good enough to get our local news and most other channels, but the channel my dad specifically wants (PCNC. It falls under WPXI) won't come in no matter how much he fiddles with our current setup. He even had us try basically chaining together multiple amplifiers, lol. Indoor antennas also aren't an option because the trailer built into the walls almost completely kills any signals coming into the house. (parents tried this multiple times, we even broke out the wire coat hangers and aluminum foil)

And we just found out that the towers on top the mountain that we thought were TV towers (that's what dad always told me they were) got turned into cell towers.

IDK which of these is more useful, so I'm going with both, lol.
http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=29&q=id%3dc08dc2139273aa

https://www.rabbitears.info/s/2806056

I currently share YouTube TV with my stepmom, we don’t live in the same house, she pays for it but it’s become too expensive and I can’t afford $90 a month for it either. She wanted to try Hulu+ Live but I told her even if it gets offered for a discount eventually it will go back to $90 as well. I’ve been looking at services you can share and Sling Blue and Philo seem to be the closest to a cable or YTTV lineup. Those of you that have used either one or both, which did you prefer? It looks like they both offer around the same channels, give or take a few. Does the price on either got up after a year or does it always stay the same? Is customer service decent?

As a cord cutter, I assume many of us use the TV Time app to track our shows. I have for years and I am quite disappointed that they are shutting down. What app would you recommend in its place?

Local & Entertainment Plan is great for us $55/mo with unlimited DVR.

Locals, FX and basic cable channels.

So happy to ditch the endless news channels and other garbage and its $28/mo cheaper than their standard plan.

I have Hulu live but I want to cut my bill lower. All I want is local stations and NewsNation. I’ve tried an antenna and have not had much luck getting any stations.

I'm closing on a new house on Monday and don't even want to get started on cable. I'm content with my subscriptions to Netflix, Paramount+ and ESPN Select. But my wife wants access to the local news stations.

Link to my rabbit ears report is above. Any and all feedback is appreciated.