Needing a TV provider, tired of just PBS

[Josh B]

My most local stations stopped providing a local signal several years ado, apparently the law was no deterant, and PBS is ok but no local news, weather OR sports.
I just left the DISH website after speaking with an aunt about it, but all they tried to sell me was the internet, which I already get for half of what theirs is.
I'm wondering which way to go with some TV, any suggestions other than shaving my hair and moving to a monastary?

 

[Roert42]

If you already have internet, pick up an amazon fire stick.

You can link that to your internet, it plugs into your tv like a cable box. You can stream tv and movies off the internet.

There are popular streaming services that you can pay for, but they also have several free ones.

I like to use an APP called Pluto TV, it's a free one, it's setup like cable. They have a channel guide you scroll through and pick what channel you want to watch. It has regional new channels, but also various tv shows and movies too. They have plenty of commercials, just like cable, but since you don't have to pay a $100 a month for it I don't mind.



If you didn't already have internet, I would just tell you to get a library card, you can borrow DVDs.

 

[Curious Hound]

I don't Have TV. Just stream from Internet. And I barely watch anything but YouTube.

 

[scotts90ranger]

Yeah, aside from the fire stick there's also the Roku, $30 available all over the place and it works pretty good, we're using it with Hulu right now and it's better than the Netflix we had before...

 

[Josh B]

Awesome yall! If my walmart store has one I'll get one tomorrow

 

[rusty ol ranger]

I got xfinity.

Its expensive and sucks

 

[Josh B]

If you already have internet, pick up an amazon fire stick.

You can link that to your internet, it plugs into your tv like a cable box. You can stream tv and movies off the internet.

There are popular streaming services that you can pay for, but they also have several free ones.

I like to use an APP called Pluto TV, it's a free one, it's setup like cable. They have a channel guide you scroll through and pick what channel you want to watch. It has regional new channels, but also various tv shows and movies too. They have plenty of commercials, just like cable, but since you don't have to pay a $100 a month for it I don't mind.



If you didn't already have internet, I would just tell you to get a library card, you can borrow DVDs.

If it plugs into internet what will that put on my cable useage, I don't use much just sitting here typing but running the internet could put a lot on it. I get 25 GB a month for $25, past that it gets rather pricey

 

[Uncle Gump]

We dumped cable TV awhile ago. We stream everything on the TV.

One word of caution... streaming TV is data. Ensure your internet service will include the level of data you will be using. Paying them for overages of data gets pretty expensive.

 

[Uncle Gump]

If it plugs into internet what will that put on my cable useage, I don't use much just sitting here typing but running the internet could put a lot on it. I get 25 GB a month for $25, past that it gets rather pricey

Exactly what I was referring to...

 

[alwaysFlOoReD]

I use my phone for internet. I have 35Gb data per month. I dont watch much video, maybe 20 to 30 mins youtube every second day. I don't watch movies. I've seen up to 25Gb usage in a month.

 

[Bill]

My most local stations stopped providing a local signal several years ado, apparently the law was no deterant, and PBS is ok but no local news, weather OR sports.
I just left the DISH website after speaking with an aunt about it, but all they tried to sell me was the internet, which I already get for half of what theirs is.
I'm wondering which way to go with some TV, any suggestions other than shaving my hair and moving to a monastary?

Law? What law? The consolidate media companies lobbied to get rid of all those rules in the 90s and what you see now is the result of this deregulation. You aren't going to find anything better on the internet because anything that was worth anyone's time 15 years ago has been acquired by a large tech company that made it annoying because they don't have any competition. Hopefully something positive comes out of the recent antitrust lawsuits that will benefit us in the future. So, I suggest finding something you are interested in and take the time to persue that. There are a lot of things few people do today that they did in the past, like photography, building/designing things, and so on. I've been collecting ewasted hardware at work that i can use. I'm focusing on the home network. So far I've made a router out of a micro PC, acquired an old Mac Pro that I'm going to convert over to an ATX case, I'm thinking about trying to design an open source access point if I can find the datasheets for the chips with their respective reference circuits. There's a bunch of things that you can do other than watching garbage on the TV.

 

[tw205]

Unless you live further from civilization than I do local programming is free. Given that most of it is garbage or re runs it is still free. All that's required is an antenna. I get 35 channels or so. Most garbage but free. I gave up cable/satellite years ago. I do stream from my phone and mirror to my TV with an old apple TV but rarely. Firesticks and roku are an option but they require internet from your home or phone. Video will eat up a lot of your service plan

 

[Roert42]

If it plugs into internet what will that put on my cable useage, I don't use much just sitting here typing but running the internet could put a lot on it. I get 25 GB a month for $25, past that it gets rather pricey

It will use it up pretty fast if you plan on watching a lot of tv.

It doesn’t require very fast internet, but you are constantly using it while watching shows.

 

[Bgunner]

If it plugs into internet what will that put on my cable usage, I don't use much just sitting here typing but running the internet could put a lot on it. I get 25 GB a month for $25, past that it gets rather pricey

I stream everything I watch except sports, only football during the NFL season which I watch at the GF house and she has cable, and I use upwards of 300GB a month but it seems like it is always on even if I'm not paying attention to it but I also have unlimited data usage from my ISP, Rectum I mean Spectrum. I currently pay $110 a month for 500Gb down and 10Gb up but I actually get faster than that at around 610-630 down and 11-13 up.

You will not get local programing through the Roku but many of the local news channels around me do have apps/web sites that I can watch just the news broadcast on the Roku. Channels like CBS NBC around me have the news broadcast over the internet I just googled them by there channel call signs like WRGB channel 6, WNYT channel 10 ect.. This gave me my local news that I wanted. Pluto is a good spot for TV shows.

Like mentioned before streaming is very Data intensive and will eat up your 25GB allowance in a very short time. If it is a cost thing then streaming may not be for you.

 

[Josh B]

Thanks BGunner, were you a gunner? My father trained pilots in B-17s during WWII, he was sitting in a cockpit on the tarmac waiting to take off when it started coming over their radio, Japan had surrendered. He never talked about it much but I later came to understand, as he never saw combat up close, but I saw too many times how they place the caskets of those coming home along the tarmac, and although he never saw combat, he saw it coming home every day