I'm tired of monthly bills for a stupid television set.

Between the cable/HD and Internet, I've been paying over $1600 a year.


My first thought was to throw a simple antenna on the roof...  but I keep hearing about this "Free to Air" stuff.

Anyone have "hands-on" experience with it ?  I don't want to order a pile of unknown junk from a random website unless I know what I'm getting in to.


TIA

Less than a year a simple antenna will not work period. But I havnt head of that.  Can always download the shows you wanna see.

I just learned about it from the other thread. Would like to know more also. I believe this was the link posted  

http://www.f2atv.com/

Quoted: Less than a year a simple antenna will not work period. But I havnt head of that.  Can always download the shows you wanna see.

In a year's time an antenna will work just fine, if you have a digital converter box.

Quoted: Quoted: Less than a year a simple antenna will not work period. But I havnt head of that.  Can always download the shows you wanna see. In a year's time an antenna will work just fine, if you have a digital converter box.

Which is why I said "a simple antenna will not work"

Here in the UK they have "freeview" which is about 50 channels of cable-like TV broadcast for free over the air.  All you need is in antenna and a $20 box to watch it.  They also have Sky TV, which is basically the DirecTV/Dish Network sort of setup.  You can get a sky antenna and receiver and get a "freeview" type card for it to watch a ton of FTA satellite content.  I imagine it works the same way in the US.  

I run FTA and DVB.

FTA is much better, one can get a bunch of channels if you have a motorized dish. Otherwise you must reprogram the FTA box and then it won't be so legal and you can just tune it in to 2 sats for good.


Do a search for FTA forums and do some reading. For under $200.00 one can enjoy not being a slave to the cable company.

You talking about old school satellite setup? With the big dish and motor that tracks each satellite?

Quoted: For under $200.00 one can enjoy not being a slave to the cable company.

EXACTLY my objective.

Internet access is the only reason I've been hooked to Comcast the last few years...
I don't give a rats ass about internet anymore. I spend all day on the www at work. I don't need to surf it at home too. All it does is captivate me for hours on end... and I get absolutely nothing done at home. It's like a drug addiction.

Having a wife and kids, I still need a functioning TV set though.
I don't watch it much... and as far as the cable is concerned, the cost vs reward just doesn't make sense to me anymore. I'd much rather invest in some good equipment ONCE and be done with it. I'm sick and tired of the cumulative effect of what seems like an endless list of monthly bills that keep showing up in my mailbox.

FTA is a legal "Grey area" and of course for conversations sake you are talking about the legal free to air channels and not running it to get all the dish network stuff.






All you need to know about FTA is at these forums: www.Hashhu.com they have been around before FTA was huge (DSS HU card days) and can get you all your questions answered in the newbies forum.


ETA I was into FTA for a while but ultimatley stayed with DTV because I was hooked on Tivo. If you have any specific question you can shot me a PM and I can point you in the right direction but mostly everything is at Hashhu.com I can help you filter out the info as it can be overwhelming at first.

Quoted: You talking about old school satellite setup? With the big dish and motor that tracks each satellite?

No I am talking the standard DTV and DishNetwork.

True FTA is spread all over numerous orbiting sats, not just a few.

Dragracer.....IM sent.

Even FTA and DVB through your PC ( better known as HTPC ) one can record shows with both FTA and PC.

Some brands of FTA receivers allow you to plug in an external Hard Drive and record to and playback later.


As to the PC, just hit the record button on the Remote or the Keyboard.

Then enjoy later, both the above, one is able to record and burn to DVD, but is not for anyone that lacks experience or patience.





Yes, I did stay at a Holiday Inn last night.

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Less than a year a simple antenna will not work period. But I havnt head of that.  Can always download the shows you wanna see. In a year's time an antenna will work just fine, if you have a digital converter box. Which is why I said "a simple antenna will not work"

Any tv with a digital tuner will work with a simple antenna. Mine is a 20 year old piece of junk and I pull in 15 digital channels. My friends think they are hot shit with their HD sat ups until they come over and see what I'm getting OTA.

FTA channels all suck.

ar15.com/forums/topic.html?b=1&f=136&t=707195

Check out nFusion FTA recievers....can't say enough about these things.


Really, I would lean toward an IKS box (see nFusion) as the new Nagravision 3 encryption will be out next month for Dish Network and you may see some real problems w/ other FTA recievers.




Speed


ETA: Troy is absolutely right about FTA recievers and modding the firmware. You have to manually update the firmware everytime BEV or DN decides to "re-scramble" their signal. However, the new IKS systems (see nFusion) run off your internet connection and update the box every 18 seconds or whenever you change the channel...thus, no downtime.

nFusion has been out for close to 2 years and only been "down" for a total of 7 hours in that time when the the ECM (scramble signal) hits, most other boxes are down for a day or so(untill the new files are released); these rely on emulation, not IKS from a dedicated server.

If you WANT to tinker around manually loading files on your FTA box w/ a flash drive every few weeks, get any big brand FTA box like Viewsat, Pansat, Coolsat, etc...if you just want to watch TV w/ an accurate program guide, get an nFusion

nFusion Forum

Nfusion is a good way to go now for a new FTA box. I have a Viewsat and have been happy with it.

My dad is really into the FTA stuff. He always bugs me to do it, telling me I'm throwing my money away, but I really don't have any place to put a dish. He watches DishNetwork programming.

Quoted: Quoted: ETA: Troy is absolutely right about FTA recievers and modding the firmware. You have to manually update the firmware everytime BEV or DN decides to "re-scramble" their signal. However, the new IKS systems (see nFusion) run off your internet connection and update the box every 18 seconds or whenever you change the channel...thus, no downtime. Of course, there's an excellent chance that those connections are being logged for later prosecution. Anything you do over the Internet you might as well be doing in front of a video camera.  With everything recorded forever. -Troy

Proxy option built right into the box

Plus other measures I won't go into but you can read up on yourself if your interested.


I am not saying it's right, but there is something exciting about knowing the signals are being zapped into the air for free, just get the technology to unlock them and they are yours...i guess it's just a juvenile desire because I prolly only watch about 3 or 4 hours of TV a week

IDK, it just like modding my 2 meter radio, I have no desire to talk on those freqs. but it's just cool


Speed