I was actually considering the same thing. My biggest hangup is sports, would love to be able to get baseball, hockey and racing. Most of the channels I watch those on are not local channels so an antenna doesn't help there. Any suggestions for getting sports online easily?

 

Awesome responses guys. The wife is threatening an override on my "ditch cable" plan. The *** deal is like $80 which gets decent internet and basic HD channels. Of course it's more for a DVR and for additional receivers and for the retarded channel "packs" you have to buy. I'm gonna try to make her hold on a few months while we try other options.

I'm pretty set on getting an antenna and a Roku3 to start out. Being on base, there are plenty of spouses groups that get together for the more popular girl shows on a regular basis if there's something the wife has to see that we can't get.. Maybe get Chromecast too and try it out... for $35, can't hurt.

 

But basic channels are mostly what you get with the antenna. You should be able to use one of the antenna websites to tell you what stations are in your area and what antenna you need to get the signal from them. A quick one from my parents house shows the 43 channels they get, I think they get a couple more than that, 26 of which are in full hd the last time I checked. With the digital OTA service you get sub stations of a single station like you night get abc on channel 9.1 but you can also get ME TV on channel 9.2.

 

But football is the easy spot to watch. Your local team + about 5 other pro games a weekend and at least 4 college games will be on the local channels on the antenna. You should also get NASCAR, occasional indy races, western hemisphere F1 races + monaco, popular x-games and similar extremer motorsports, playoff baseball and saturday local baseball team games, playoff hockey and misc weekend mid day hockey games. Soccer on the Spanish channel. I had the Maine Highschool Shrine bowl on live last weekend too. And so one and so fourth.

 

Once you do, you'll wonder why anyone pays for cable these days. I wish I'd done it years ago.

 

I felt like a caveman using my WDTV after seeing all you guys using Chromecast so I just ordered one.

Yes, I would get rid of DishNetwork right now if my wife were not addicted to DIY Network and Fox News. I don't know how else to watch these.

 

Currently chilling in air conditioned workshop streaming the Blancpain 24hrs of Spa on the YouTube Nismo channel... downing my 5th Lagunitas Little Sumthin'. God I love Saturdays, Chromecast, and beer. Soon to be posting in the Drunken debauchery thread :P

 

I guess they must have improved it dramatically in recent months. After I was forced to join the 21st century last year with my new hdmi-equipped tv, I looked around to see if anything better than my old WDTV was available (now that I no longer require analog component video) and decided that no, there was not.

Admittedly, I do tend to download all of my media and play it from a local server rather than streaming from the various services like Hulu and YouTube, so perhaps Chromecast does those things significantly better. When I'm watching YouTube in the living room (which is rare) I use my phone or Android tablet as a remote (running the YouTube app) and send the video straight to the TV without any devices in between.


Also, fios ftw. They actually deliver what they advertise. I signed up for 15/5, and that is exactly what I get, no matter what time of day or what day of the week.

 

I download media and watch it on WDTV from my server like you do. I have been disappointed with WDTV's spotty youtube support lately (seems like quite a few of the videos do not work - maybe 70% of them) and that prompted the Chromecast purchase. I have been very happy with the WDTV's ability to steam my local AVI, MP4, etc files though. My box locks up from time to time if I haven't been using it but I think it is an old WIFI problem that has been plaguing me for years.

Not sure I understand how you are watching youtube on your WDTV??? Can you explain further?

 

I don't use the WDTV for YouTube, or for anything other than playing files off my server.

If I want to watch youtube in the living room, I just use the app built into the TV. But since the UI in that app is horrible (very slow to search and entering alpha on the remote is worse than texting on a 90s vintage phone), I use either my android phone or android tablet, running the YouTube app, as a remote for the TV. They are all paired via the network, so I search for what I want to watch on the tablet (using the good keyboard / UI) and then tap the icon which says "send this to my TV." If you have a network-connected TV which has the youtube app built-in, this functionality (send to TV) is natively supported by the youtube app on your android device. You just pair the two, and then anything you pull up on the phone/tablet can be sent to the TV.

In theory, I don't really need the WD box at all, since I could just play everything directly on the TV itself. But I prefer it, as the UI is vastly superior, both in terms of the software (browsing is done directly in the windows filesystem, it's fast resresponsive, etc) as well as the remote being very nice.

Edit: to be clear, the WDTV box does have a youtube app (and a hulu app, etc), I just don't use them. To access them, you select "services" from the top menu where the horses are.

 

The wife went over to a friends yesterday and got to play around with a Roku. She says "do it".

Just threw down on a Mohu Leaf and a Roku3.

 

Custom firmware? I use the WDLXTV firmware.

 

Nope, bone-stock. I don't **** with the firmware on phones / consumer electronic devices / game console anymore.

 

The wife went over to a friends yesterday and got to play around with a Roku. She says "do it".

Just threw down on a Mohu Leaf and a Roku3.

 

Again? Do you need 2 of them?

 

That's the longest delay between double posts, ever.

 

Crazy. I have no idea how many different computers, relays, networks, servers, radios, antennas, satellites, countries, cables, whatever it takes for me sitting here in my cave on a warship to be able to type something and you see it. I'm lucky every post isn't a 4hr double after my post circles the world 8 times before it ends up on your screen.

Because of Hollywood, I know for certain exactly the image a civilian has of how a modern Naval warship works... that some young kid at a console can pull up the feed on the main screen of any TV camera, radar, satellite feed, drone, whatever from across the world on zero notice, and we can drop bombs or target lasers just by moving a mouse over.

In reality, I can't even take a cold shower. That's right, our air conditioners are only as efficient as the water we pull from the sea is warm... with 90* water in the Gulf, we can only "chill" the shower water to 90*. So after running on the flight deck for an hour in 100* heat, I can't even come down and enjoy a cool shower... on a modern Naval warship.

 

What the hell is the fun in that? I bought a dash cam a couple of weeks ago - will be taking it apart this week. Not the same as firmware upgrade but I cannot seem to leave anything alone...

 

The Chromecast for youtube is pretty nice. Sometimes you dont want to dick around with using some custom (i.e. shitty) UI to find and watch a video, you just want the one you find on the net to be on your TV and Chromecast does that. You click the icon and there it is.

In other news, last week I upgraded my ancient WRT54GL beacuse it was not providing me with the ultimate satisfaction.

I was getting about 1/3 of my advertised broadband and just had general flakiness.

I replaced it with the very precious Netgear Nighthawk R7000 AC1900 because it was touted as the fastest router for big houses (not that I have a big house), because I have an 802.11ac laptop, and because newegg had it for $28 off an already rock bottom price.

Advertised is 50/25.



Alls I'm saying by posting this is that if you plan to stream to stuff like Chromecasts, this can be a bottleneck.

 

Yeah so we had some cable watching family over. They were astounded at how clear the picture was on our 8 year old LCD tv over the antenna. 1080p uncompressed broadcasts for the win.

Joe wouldnt be getting as much from a chromecast as most people because he's got one of hem new fangled security risk "smart" TVs.

And also getting what I pay for.