JerseyToughGuys
Tough Guy
thanks. I know nothing.
http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=29&q=id%3d5134fa6f4693d6
so now what?
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We've cut the cable (3 Viewers)
- Thread starter Addai's Adidas
- Start date
http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=29&q=id%3d5134fa6f4693d6
so now what?
JaxBill
Footballguy
See the color coded guide at the bottom for the type of antenna. I'd put one on the roof if you can. Point it just south of east, towards down town New York. (If you get a top of the line antenna you might try pointing it at Philly too, you might be surprised to get both cities broadcasts that way). You'll have to keep adjusting the antenna a little bit to find the best position. Use as short of coax runs as possible with good quality connections to avoid loss of signal. You'll loose 9db each time you go through a splitter too. Depending on your needs you could add an amplifier to offset the losses.
Other than that it's just a matter of trial and error.
matttyl
Footballguy
Windows 7 or newer. Lion 10.7 and higher (apple stuff). Roxu. Xbox 1. Android. Amazon fire. Chromecast. Might be others.
matttyl
Footballguy
I use a VPN to change my IP address so NFL.com thinks I live somewhere outside of North America.
JerseyToughGuys
Tough Guy
KiddLattimer
Footballguy
Or you can just get an indoor antenna, which should work especially well if you have your TV near a window. I just picked up a low profile antenna off Amazon and it works great and sits pretty well out of site.JerseyToughGuys said:
cstu
Footballguy
This is a cool site for cord cutters:
http://www.canistream.it/?_ga=1.131300042.437305499.1452120494
You can do a search and find out which service it is streaming on.
http://www.canistream.it/?_ga=1.131300042.437305499.1452120494
You can do a search and find out which service it is streaming on.
KiddLattimer
Footballguy
Very cool. Also, if you have a Roku you can search for a show on the main Roku screen and it will tell you what channel has it and whether or not there's a charge for it.
Tick
Footballguy
Can anyone get it to work for Amazon Prime streaming movies? It keeps telling me there are none.
cstu
Footballguy
Brady Marino
Footballguy
I've seen that before somewhere. What kills me is that movies still spend a time period available on DVD only before they are available for streaming, that's just lunacy.
Franknbeans
Footballguy
pollardsvision
Footballguy
Picked up the Mohu Leaf based on this thread. That thing is the ####. Within 10 minutes of opening the box, I had 25 channels. Most of which are worthless, but still. Beautiful picture, especially since I'm used to an SD picture (too cheap to pay for HD receivers).
Got 3 more on the way. Trying to see if I can get buy cutting the cable at home and the restaurant. BTW, I swear Sling TV has gotten better since I last fooled with it a month or so ago.
The problem will be, as it is for most I'm sure, teaching the women in my life how to deal with all of this (wife at home, waitstaff at the restaurant). I don't even have a complex set-up (Leaf and Roku. That's it).
Question about internet connections. At home, we still have Verizon DSL. To my surprise, that's always worked pretty well for streaming Netflix and such. But I've never tried more than 1 at a time (with some minor web browsing going on). Would I be right to assume I'm going to run into problems when 2-3 Roku's at the house all streaming at the same time?
Main other option here is Comcast (which we have at the restaurant). Is the throttling thing with Comcast really going to happen? More of an issue at the restaurant with 1 (possibly 2) Roku's streaming 13 hours a day. I'm probably not home enough for it to matter at the house.
Got 3 more on the way. Trying to see if I can get buy cutting the cable at home and the restaurant. BTW, I swear Sling TV has gotten better since I last fooled with it a month or so ago.
The problem will be, as it is for most I'm sure, teaching the women in my life how to deal with all of this (wife at home, waitstaff at the restaurant). I don't even have a complex set-up (Leaf and Roku. That's it).
Question about internet connections. At home, we still have Verizon DSL. To my surprise, that's always worked pretty well for streaming Netflix and such. But I've never tried more than 1 at a time (with some minor web browsing going on). Would I be right to assume I'm going to run into problems when 2-3 Roku's at the house all streaming at the same time?
Main other option here is Comcast (which we have at the restaurant). Is the throttling thing with Comcast really going to happen? More of an issue at the restaurant with 1 (possibly 2) Roku's streaming 13 hours a day. I'm probably not home enough for it to matter at the house.
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KiddLattimer
Footballguy
I've always heard 5 MPBS per device is a good rule of thumbpollardsvision said:
Politician Spock
Footballguy
If the streams are HD, I'd say you want 7 MBs per HD stream. SD streams take up less, but I'm not sure how much less. I think I heard 4K streams take up like 20 MBs.pollardsvision said:
Internet providers are NOT fans of video streamers, so don't be surprise if they don't like what you are doing at your restaurant. 13 hours a day will produce a TON of bandwidth usage and you will quickly get on someone's radar with that amount.
pollardsvision
Footballguy
Luckily, it doesn't matter too much what we have the TV on at the restaurant. Just 2 TVs, and usually music is playing with TV sound down (not my idea, but the waitstaff prefers music). The TV's aren't as important here as they would be at a sports bar. I prefer CNN or ESPN as it's mindless topical crap going 24-7. In a pinch, OTA channels would be fine. OTA channels are actually great in the morning, and only become a problem when they switch over to ####### soaps. I'll probably keep one TV on OTA channels anyway.
So, I'm not terribly worried about Comcast throttling my internet at times. It just means the TVs get put on ABC or something instead of CNN/ESPN.
pollardsvision
Footballguy
Finally got ahold of Comcast to set up residential service (currently have Verizon DSL and DirecTV) for a better internet connection for cutting the cord and more streaming.
In the process they offered me a deal that sounds pretty good (I know that's their job). $72/mo for a 75 MBS internet service, about 50 channels on 3 receivers, and an HBOGO subscription (for a year, I think).
I mean, that's about what I'd expect to pay for a solid internet service and an HBOGO subscription, and it gives me a stupid regular cable remote for the wife. It means I've got some Mohu Leaf's that might be worthless (though I can find a use somewhere or return). Am I crazy, or does that sound like too good a deal to pass up (and see about cutting further in the future)?
In the process they offered me a deal that sounds pretty good (I know that's their job). $72/mo for a 75 MBS internet service, about 50 channels on 3 receivers, and an HBOGO subscription (for a year, I think).
I mean, that's about what I'd expect to pay for a solid internet service and an HBOGO subscription, and it gives me a stupid regular cable remote for the wife. It means I've got some Mohu Leaf's that might be worthless (though I can find a use somewhere or return). Am I crazy, or does that sound like too good a deal to pass up (and see about cutting further in the future)?
cstu
Footballguy
pollardsvision
Footballguy
pollardsvision
Footballguy
No. For 12 months, I think. I'll verify tomorrow to be sure (still jumping through hoops to get my residence, which is a freaking townhouse, released as a business address). Either way, I pretty much have to have Comcast internet, and I don't mind downgrading in the future.
I don't know if it helped or not, but I told him my plan was to have no cable access at all and stream everything. I think he's just trying to hook me into a cable sub for cheap. I'm sure they've got some plan to #### me down the line.
Politician Spock
Footballguy
The price the cable company offered me did NOT include the monthly rental fees for the cable boxes they require for the decoding card needed to decode the signal. They would show up on the bill though despite not being on the quoted price for the service. The only way to avoid these hardware rental fees is to buy your own decoding hardware that they then put their card into. Also, the taxes on cable services are pretty high compared to normal sales tax. It wouldn't shock me if that $72 per month is pushing $100 per month even in the first 12 months. It will easily be over $100 per month after the first 12 months are over.
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Uruk-Hai
Footballguy
I bought my cable modem outright for $75 knowing full-well that it's liable to crap out on me any day now. But I wasn't paying $5/month for eternity. I don't even want to go back and calculate how much I've spent renting cable/sat boxes the last 30 years. I'm sure it would make me puke.
Politician Spock
Footballguy
I was offered $19 per month for basic cable on top of my internet, but the rental fee for the decoder box was $12.95 per month. After taxes it was around $35 per month, and that was just for basic, no ESPN. For $39 per month I could get a cable package with ESPN, but again it required the $12.95 rental, and after taxes was around $56 per month.
Sling TV on the other hand was $20 per month, works with my Roku and the taxes are like $1.50 per month.
$56 versus $21.50. Rental fees and cable TV taxes suck!
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prosopis
Arizona Chupacabra
I am trying to do the same thing. I am really not understanding any of this. I am going to venture into tvfool forums and unabashedly show how ignorant I am.
pollardsvision
Footballguy
That makes sense. I'll check to see what box rental fees and taxes will be. I'm sure this will end with me getting roped into some plan that balloons out of control when all I wanted was a damn internet connection.
Walk into an Xfinity store if you want to bypass the salesmen. Like Spock said that offer requires a contract and a bunch of hidden fees. Before you know it your 12 months will be up and you'll be in the exact same spot with the same song and dance you have right now with Directv.
Tick
Footballguy
There are some places where you can stream movies, TV shows, and even live sports feeds for free (like http://www.vodlockerx.com/). These are pretty much just websites, so you need a way to get them onto your TV. Kodi allows you to install different channels. These channels point to the streaming sites.
So, on my Fire stick, I install Kodi. In Kodi, I add a channel called Genesis. In Genesis, I see some browsing and search tools that I can use to pick what I want to watch. When I pick what I want to watch, Genesis gives me a list of the different streaming sites I can watch it from plus an idea of the quality. I click on the stream I want to watch the movie from, and it plays (or doesn't - they don't always work). If it doesn't work, I try the next stream on the list. Most movies list around 15 streams of various quality levels.
https://forums.footballguys.com/forum/index.php?/topic/586089-weve-cut-the-cable/?p=18656885is where I pointed to some videos on how to set it up. I was able to find installation instructions for everything I wanted on Youtube, and was able to install everything fairly smoothly.
ETA: There's another name, XBMC - not sure if Kodi is the successor or a subset of it.
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prosopis
Arizona Chupacabra
prosopis
Arizona Chupacabra
prosopis
Arizona Chupacabra
No. There are versions of Kodi for just about every OS for your PC or HTPC, Android, IOs (jail broken) and reaspberry pi. One reason the fire sticks are so popular is because they are open to third party app development. You can get one for just $25 on sale and mess around with stuff like Kodi. There is a ton of info online and just ask questions in here. Kodi excells for movies and tv shows/series. For movies, if it's available digitally (torrents/Usenet/DVDs) you'll be able to find it on Kodi and unlike some of the other methods you aren't downloading the media, you're just watching a stream. Tv shows are the same, you just have to be willing to watch the next day after it airs in most cases. Kodi isn't so good for live tv (sports/news); the streams are hit and miss for reliability and often not in HD, but, the streams are there.
Kodi is the replacement name for the former XbMC and is open source.
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Craig_MiamiFL
Footballguy
Disagree with live sports being 'crap'. Sports are the only thing I watch live. They're great & gave up Sling for the very reason 6 months or so ago. I can't think of a single live sports stream I've used in the past 6 months with Kodi that wasn't in good quality. Kodi is my go to for daily live sports.
If you're not willing to play around with Kodi, it's probably not for you
If you're not willing to play around with Kodi, it's probably not for you
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Share the knowledge brother.Disagree with live sports being 'crap'. Sports are the only thing I watch live. They're great & gave up Sling for the very reason. I can't think of a single live sports stream I've used in the past 6 months with Kodi that wasn't in good quality. Kodi is my go to for daily live sports.
If you're not willing to play around with Kodi, it's probably not for you
I don't play around nearly as much as I'd like to because I'm hella busy and get the live sports I do care about on the cheap.
Make this thread worth while and tell us all how you're getting good live sports!
pollardsvision
Footballguy
That salesman never called back, so this time I got a Comcast salesman that just kept it simple (25 Mbps service for $39/mo, then jumps to $69 after promotion). Fine with me. Though, I still have to go through it again to see if they can set up the modem without a pro install (modem doesn't arrive until today or tomorrow. Arris 6183). Is an Xfinity store the same as a Comcast Service Center? There is one of those in town that I might try to use instead, if I can get there during business hours.
Luckily, the wife is starting to be able to do this on her own a little better, so we might just be able to pull this off.
Question about Mohu Leaf positioning.
Tried an initial set-up at the restaurant and the essentially got nothing (only Fox and a couple Fox related stations).
Restaurant is about 5 miles from home (where I get 25 awesome channels). 5 miles towards the heart of the city, but also 5 miles further from the larger city that I assume most of our broadcast signals come from (Roanoke). I suspect the main problem at the restaurant is that it's a brick building with the only windows by the front door on the other side of the building from the TVs (and where I initially tested the antenna). I assume the brick part matters too (home is crappily built townhouse, where I assume signals have an easier time carrying through drywall).
Question is, and it may be a really stupid one, do I pretty much need to get this Leaf over to a window to have a real shot at getting some channels using an indoor antenna in a brick building? To do it, I'm looking at somewhere around 50 feet of coax cable. Maybe more like 75 to keep the cord really out of the way. How much will that distance weaken whatever signal I can get?
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prosopis
Arizona Chupacabra
No, you will get the same salesmen type people at a service center. It has to be an xfinity store.
Yes line of sight matters. Anything between you and the signal weakens the signal (mountains, trees, brick buildings).
It shouldnt weaken the signal too much if you stay less than a 100 feet or so of coax. Certainly less important than line of sight.
Zasada
Footballguy
Which services are you using in Kodi? Because all the ones I have tried (SportsDevil, etc) have been crap. Maybe our standards are different, but none were in HD.Disagree with live sports being 'crap'. Sports are the only thing I watch live. They're great & gave up Sling for the very reason 6 months or so ago. I can't think of a single live sports stream I've used in the past 6 months with Kodi that wasn't in good quality. Kodi is my go to for daily live sports.
If you're not willing to play around with Kodi, it's probably not for you
I pay for NFL2go (which is has a Kodi app and truly is great quality) but all the free services suck. Maybe you know one which is better?
While Kodi sometimes gets a bad rap as software which facilitates piracy, it is awesome for totally legitimate purposes. I ripped all my DVDs and BDs to my home server and Kodi now manages/streams those across the house. I got a HDHomeRun and Kodi has an app that will let me stream OTA all over the house using it. It also does photos, music, etc.
I also use Kodi to stream ESPN3 (CFL football in the US). It does a pretty good job with that as well.
Craig_MiamiFL
Footballguy
I only use SportsDevil. The only ones I know for certain are in HD are UFC PPVs (which I use the specific overseas channels themselves -- English w/ Rogan/Goldberg). Perhaps our standards are different -- for free I'm not expecting 1080p (whatever the latest and greatest is). I do know there isn't significant difference to my 1080p locals and the live sports streams I'm watching.
The one thing that's come the farthest over the last 6 months or so IMO is live sports streams. I've experienced zero lags, no grainy pics / clear pics on everything for probably 6 months now. It's been 1 click and go (which for me wasn't the case 12+ (?) months ago) when I was using my laptop for most of viewing. The little regular season NFL I did watch this year the streams were fine but I can't speak as a whole on them as I simply wasn't able to watch much of them (I'm talking more live basketball which I watch nearly daily and UFC)
The one thing that's come the farthest over the last 6 months or so IMO is live sports streams. I've experienced zero lags, no grainy pics / clear pics on everything for probably 6 months now. It's been 1 click and go (which for me wasn't the case 12+ (?) months ago) when I was using my laptop for most of viewing. The little regular season NFL I did watch this year the streams were fine but I can't speak as a whole on them as I simply wasn't able to watch much of them (I'm talking more live basketball which I watch nearly daily and UFC)
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I couldn't get UFC #195 on Sportsdevil for some reason. I found a feed on Pheonix, it was a good feed but it stalled for 5 seconds every couple of minutes. Good to hear they are improving, I'll keep trying Sportsdevil.
Tick
Footballguy
Where on SportsDevil? I tried using it to keep up with Oklahoma football this year and had pretty poor results. During the semifinals game, I tried every feed on SportsDevil that listed the game (probably 100 different spots). Most wouldn't start, some were poor quality and skipped frequently. I gave up after the first quarter and signed up for a free week of Sling to watch it in very nice quality.
Even European soccer is hard on SportsDevil, and that's what they have the most of. If I want to just find any old game, I can find one that's watchable, but if I want to watch a specific game, I don't have much luck - same response as the OU game where most list it but don't work and others are choppy.
Sling worked great for the week I had it.
Craig_MiamiFL
Footballguy
For basketball, I've been using FirstRow with no issues pretty much daily. One click and go. I can't really comment on football. Don't watch college & probably only watched a dozen of so hours of pro football live and had no issues. Sling may be your best bet if having issues. It is great for college basketball from my experience (assume same for CFB too)
I did reinstall Kodi probably 6+ months ago (as I ran into a lot of dead links even with latest updates, etc..). After I did so, it completely stopped. I'm not tech savy whatsoever so I really don't know why things suddenly changed for the better. I do make sure to clear cache and make sure Kodi is updated.
I have no advice other than maybe doing a quick search of the specific overseas channel the soccer (etc..) game is on. (Instead of going to the LINK1, etc.. of the game listing itself). It's what I did for a popular combat sport and have a HD no lag stream everytime.
I did reinstall Kodi probably 6+ months ago (as I ran into a lot of dead links even with latest updates, etc..). After I did so, it completely stopped. I'm not tech savy whatsoever so I really don't know why things suddenly changed for the better. I do make sure to clear cache and make sure Kodi is updated.
I have no advice other than maybe doing a quick search of the specific overseas channel the soccer (etc..) game is on. (Instead of going to the LINK1, etc.. of the game listing itself). It's what I did for a popular combat sport and have a HD no lag stream everytime.
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Politician Spock
Footballguy
Another OTA channel was added to our market this week. Just found it today. It's broadcasting the American Sports Network.
Looked at their website it looks like they broadcast a lot of live college sports. Not the big name schools, so I don't see myself dropping ESPN anytime soon.... but this is a GREAT sign, as I hope someday as more and more people prefer to watch shows on demand, local broadcast stations realize that the only thing people want to watch being broadcasted is sports. That will turn local broadcast channels into local versions of ESPN, or perhaps ESPN starts buying local broadcasting stations and tells cable and satellite companies to get bent. At that point cable and satellite companies have nothing. Those making movies and shows can just stream directly to users and sports is broadcast local. At that point there's nothing for cable and satellite to deliver. And that's all they are is a delivery mechanism. A dying one at that.
Looked at their website it looks like they broadcast a lot of live college sports. Not the big name schools, so I don't see myself dropping ESPN anytime soon.... but this is a GREAT sign, as I hope someday as more and more people prefer to watch shows on demand, local broadcast stations realize that the only thing people want to watch being broadcasted is sports. That will turn local broadcast channels into local versions of ESPN, or perhaps ESPN starts buying local broadcasting stations and tells cable and satellite companies to get bent. At that point cable and satellite companies have nothing. Those making movies and shows can just stream directly to users and sports is broadcast local. At that point there's nothing for cable and satellite to deliver. And that's all they are is a delivery mechanism. A dying one at that.
