Recommend a streaming TV service

Cafe Society
1

I cancelled cable TV a while ago because Comcast was charging me an exorbitant amount for channels I did not watch. There were a handful of shows I liked, but for the most part the lineup was filled with shopping, Jesus, and cartoons.

I’ve been reasonably satisfied with Over The Air television because I get the local news, Jeopardy, and some Cubs games. But lately the reception has been terrible. I don’t know if it’s the airplanes (I’m in the direct flight path of O’hare airport), the weather, sunspots, evil spirits or what, but it’s driving me crazy. I live within spitting distance of WTTW and can’t get a decent signal. Rabbit ears ain’t worth a damn and the so called “amplified” antenna is just as useless.

I’ve been looking into some of the streaming services that are now available and my head is about to explode! All the different Services/Packages/ Add ons are more confusing than my original cable subscription. So this is where I’m seeking help from my fellow Dopers.

What I have: 2 TVs. 32" Flatscreen. Each has a Roku stick. Netflix (willing to give it up). Amazon Prime. Internet service with approx. 30Mb download speed. Home network.

What I would like: Local channels. Some news channels : I used to enjoy comparing and contrasting Fox/MSNBC just for shits n giggles. Some sports: Non OTA Cubs games, World Series of Poker, Ladies Pro Billiards (Hey, those chicks are HOT!). Home Improvement/Gardening/Craft shows. And I kinda liked some of the “reality shows”: storage auctions, house flippers, shipping wars, crab fishing.

What I don’t care about: Football, basketball, hockey, golf, zombies, sit-coms, soap operas, celebrity chit chat, cooking.

All the streaming services seem to have a month to month contract and free trials so I’m willing to gamble on your recommendations. I’d like to keep the cost under $40 month and I don’t want to buy any more equipment or devices.

2

It seems we might almost be neighbors. I’m in the letter streets near the Kennedy and under what’s likely the same flightpath but I get all 3 WTTW channel over the air 100% with a $9.99 antenna from Menards taped to the back of my TV. I wonder if you could play with the antenna some more to at least dial in the local stations.

3

I’ve been finagling with the rabbit ears and amplified antenna to no avail. If I twist n turn n move it around I’ll get Channel 2. Yay! But then Channel 7 goes wonkey. Move it again and Chennel 7 is okay, but Channel 5 is out of whack! AARRRRGGGH!

Sometimes I just want to put on my tin foil hat and believe they are doing this on purpose just to get you to pay for television.

“The airwaves belong to the people.” - Yeah. Right. :dubious:

4

When you say you “live within spitting distance of WTTW,” do you mean you live downtown near the Sears Tower where WTTW broadcasts from or do you mean you live on the North Side where their studios are (5400 N St. Louis)?

There is something strange going on. Channels 5, 7, and 11 all broadcast from the Sears Tower, so you shouldn’t have to adjust your antenna any differently to catch any of them. Channel 2 also broadcasts from the Sears Tower, but it is a VHF station, so there are different reception issues there.

You probably should not be using an amplified antenna. Regardless of which location you live at, you are close enough to get a strong signal. An amplifier can overload your tuner. Amplifiers are for fringe-reception areas.

Just for yucks, adjust your rabbit ears so that it pulls in channel 7 OK. Leave the antenna alone and switch to channel 47.1 – you should get channel 11. Then switch to 29,1 – you should get channel 5. See if that works.

5

Alley Dweller: I can see WTTW from my house! And yes, there is something strange going on. I don’t know what it is but I’m willing to pay a small fee to avoid the aggravation. That’s why I’m inquiring about the streaming TV services and seeking the best value.

6

You need to look at comparison sites to see exactly what they offer. For example:

7

Thanks for this. I am planning on ditching Dish Network soon, and I’ve purchased a Roku player to see what “cutting the cable” will be like. The links you provided helps me decide which services would be most useful.

8

Many of the channels the OP wants aren’t available on independent streaming - you have to go to one of the new “streaming cable” packages to get them. Kind of a PITA in that we had a window to ditch the whole overpriced cable model, only to have it reenter the streaming model, where it will surely come to dominate.

You can’t get most live sports at all on (open) streaming. You can’t get very much live news; you can’t get good local-channel coverage, although many networks and affiliates are building their own channels.

The cable-model offerings are being held up by technical problems with offering so many actual live-stream/continous-feed channels, and the two “dish” offerings are a subset of the full package (missing, notably, many of the networks that don’t want to give up streaming rights to such small players).

The Fox lineup is essentially unavailable on open streaming - Fox, Fox Sports, Fox News , FX, FXX are all available only within the bigger “cable” packages, or as “cable-locked” channels - you have to have them on cable before you can access the adjunct streaming channels.

It’s a crazy time, though, and things change weekly if not daily. I’ve been giving seminars on “cutting the cord” since October and I have to revise the presentation every week just to sort of keep up with the changes.

OTA TV, with a good, modern, DTV antenna in an optimum placement, is a great place to start, though. Use the FCC channel mapper to see what you can get, then put in a suitable antenna. (Reusing an old analog one, trying to get by with a set-top antenna, and generally trying to use too small or directional an antenna is false economy - good DTV antennas, including multi-directional ones, are cheap.) OTA TV is also the only place you can get true HD - all streaming and all cable video is compressed, while broadcast will deliver full HD unless it’s downscaled because of a marginal signal. Really, TV was vastly improved in 2008 and no one is or was watching, because we’d all taken down our antennas and gone to the cable feeds. It’s out there. It’s fantastic quality. It’s as much as three channels per numeric channel. And it’s free.

9

As first steps, I would do two things: get a decent OTA antenna (as mentioned above) and buy a Roku unit.

The reason I suggest a Roku unit is that it probably offers as many different channels and services as you can get anywhere (well over 200). Got a Netflix subscription already? No problem. Amazon Prime? Fine. Want to buy a few channels a la carte? Easy. YouTube is also simple.

Between a Roku and an antenna, you should have all bases covered. The real question will be, “What paid subscriptions do I really need?”

By the way, if you also have local media you want to enjoy, you can download and install Plex Server on your local computer, then use the free Plex RAR channel to stream to your TV.

10

This. And if you’re not too picky, you can get by without any subscriptions.

I urge people to buy Roku over the other choices for several reasons: they were there first with the consumer-friendly streaming box, their engineering is excellent, they keep things updated beautifully (I have a v2 I have never felt the slightest need to upgrade), and they are almost wholly neutral in the network/provider faction wars… so everyone works with them. (The same cannot be said for Amazon or Apple, who always seem to lack one major provider or another due to contract or turf squabbles.)

And they’re cheap.

And you can add the Chucky Talks to God channel. :rolleyes:

11

Just a quick clarification… You can get the Fox Lineup without subscribing to cable. The service is PlayStation Vue. It’s essentially the same thing as Sling just run by Sony. There is a PlayStation Vue channel on Roku.

I’ve subscribed to it off and on when family members are visiting that can’t stay somewhere without Fox News. What can I say? I’m a gracious host.

12

That’s not contradictory to what I said - you can ONLY get many of the standard cable channels by subscribing to the (rather expensive) “cable package” streaming services. Not for free, like many channels. Not as a separate item at individual pricing, like many more. ONLY as a cable-like package… which is the sort of thing streaming tried to move away from and is now getting sucked back into.

Playstation Vue is by far the weakest of the “cable” packages, though.