Just curious because I don’t see people talk about it a lot.
r/piracy megathread all the way
Definitely depends on where you are in the world. I don’t know if you could do that here in the upper Northwest of the States. I know my parents have a little tablet looking TV receiver they used to use that would get them free TV, but I don’t think it gets free sports or my dad would absolutely flip out over that football season.
I assume this depends on where you live, though.
I’m 28 so a little older than the prompt, I have a setup i never use it. I used it a lot as a kid but it doesn’t hold up to the alternatives.
- tv & movies: the worst matchup with alternatives. In the time of the first adbreak i could add the show or movie to my *arr and get it before the ads are done. I also don’t have to tune in on the hour/half hour and can switch to my phone/pc if I want/need to go somewhere else.
- live news: i don’t like tv news generally, but if i wanted i could watch it for free on YouTube or via free app.
- live sports: the most compelling usecase. Unfortunately when I did follow sports I followed a team from the next city over, which means they get no coverage here making it useless. It also more ads than streams. Streams are honestly still pretty inconvenient and still pretty ad filled (banner ads, “this goal sponsored by” physical ads in the area). None of this is worth it to me anymore so I just don’t watch anymore.
17 here, my grandparents used it before switching 1-2 years ago. Can’t imagine the ads are any better that less people watch it and staticy stations were annoying.
I myself don’t watch TV that much, mainly YouTube or music. In the last month I’ve watched ~3 episodes of impractical jokers on the family TV, and 8 episodes of South Park on my Steamdeck before bed.
Bro is 17 in this economy 💀
You can also watch Pluto TV. No sign in or fee. Lots of 24:7 dedicated channels for shows like Midsommer Murders, MST3K, Americas Test Kitchen, etc as well as variety genre channels
Are you my wife? Since we discovered Pluto, our TVs are constantly flipping between America’s Test Kitchen, MST3K, Antiques Roadshow and Jersey Shore if we’re feeling especially rowdy.
There’s also a Mr Rodger’s Neighborhood channel that our we leave running in the mornings for kid and dogs when we leave hah.
I’m aware of it I’m also aware that I live in an area that can’t get any freaking signals at all. Not sure why that’s true though.
Have you checked signal finder sites like tvfool.com? I’ll show you what (if any) signals you should get and from where they are transmitted.
Linear TV over an antenna? Well that’s only technically free. You’d need to buy a receiving device - that costs money. You need to watch ads - that costs time.
If you have a TV, you likely already have the receiving device. Antenna can cost, or you can play around with wire length and orientation.
Well considering many paid tiers of streaming services also serve ads, I consider it free-er than that.
Also, most of the hardware is already inside your TV. You just need a $20 antenna.
I have no TV. I watch all my movies and series via a big PC screen which has no TV functionality.
Ah. Well if your PC is static, a USB tuner isn’t too much. Plus then you have a built-in DVR.
The transition from analog to digital really hurt my desire to watch OTA TV (you caught me! I’m not under 25).
With analog broadcast, any weak signal or interference produced a little bit of static, but you could still see and hear what was being said. With digital, any weak signal means dropped frames and silence or weird glitches. You completely lose what’s happening. Even with a powered antenna, I have frequent issues with weak signal. I could probably try to get a rooftop antenna installed, but there’s no guarantee it would be any better. It’s just easier to find other entertainment at this point.
I’m 26+ miles away from the broadcast antennas as the crow flies and I get great reception from an approx $100 antenna mounted in my attic. Some HOAs don’t allow antennas and people might be surprised to learn how good your reception can be from an attic.
I guarantee a large rooftop a antenna would out perform anything you have indoors or those terrible small ones. The one you linked is way too small to work properly for the wavelengths used by TV stations.
Ditto. We went from having five channels, one snowy on a bad day, plus a bonus 6th channel when the stars aligned, to two channels at best.
The broadcasters and regulators took a basic fact about digital signals “We can get a better quality signal with less transmission power” and saw it as a challenge to set up their digital transmitters with the most conservative estimate of minimum power required. I haven’t studied well enough for my amateur radio exam to know if I’m comparing apples to oranges, but I’m still shocked to see descriptions of transmitter power go from 100kW in one case to below 20kW.
I hear that. We have an attic yagi aimed directly at Seattle from 10 miles away, and we still get the occasional dropout even on our strongest signals.
Still when it works, it works really well. We watch Nature and Nova on Sundays, and the wildlife footage looks incredible.
Living in tornado alley, having a TV antenna and a weather radio is almost a requirement. If the Internet gets knocked out, OTA still works. Also, my Internet is shit so I wouldn’t rely on it if a tornado is bearing down on my location, but I do also love watching 9½ hours of nonstop tornado coverage when nasty storms might come my way.
Outside of that, I know to tune in at about :15 past the hour during newscasts to catch the weather report, which gets uploaded to their website later anyway. If the football game is on, I might catch that if I care to watch. I don’t really watch OTA otherwise.
But I’m 32 lol
You can also just pirate
"Do what you want 'cause a pirate is free
You are a pirate!"
A $10 antenna to watch NFL games is so much more convenient and better quality than any of the pirated streaming options. Broadcast TV trumps Pirating for live shit 100%. Pirate everything else.
Yeah but then you have to watch football. Why go through the suffering? Lol
Whatever, all free broadcasts are on YouTube anyways. But on demand and adblock exists
Wait, what? Are you talking about people who upload content and try to slide by the copyright filters?
Does this include american football games?
I love my rabbit ears. Watch local news and the super bowl if I care that year.
TV isnt even something i think about. Im aware of it existing, but the very few things i watch i just pirate. Ive never paid for any streaming service, cable, or even considered doing so. In fact i dont even own a physical TV. When i watch media i carry it around with me as im doing things.
To me the content on TV be that cable, or air broadcasts is too full of both ads (which i entirely block on everything so i never see), and propaganda to stomach.
i dont even own a physical TV
Damn, do you not enjoy things like watching a movie in a theater (given all the bullshit was removed besides the movie)?
I wasn’t big on watching movies for a long time, but then upgraded my sound system for music and eventually got a decent TV, if a bit outdated. This made it more enjoyable for me to watch at home what I would have seen in a theater before, but I hate the theater experience, so I found myself watching more movies.
I agree with everything else you said sucks about the experience, I’m just curious because I don’t meet many people who don’t have a TV unless they can’t afford one.
Nah not really a movie person in general, but when i do watch them i either lay in bed or am walking around, and watch on a tablet, or laptop. I really dislike the way TVs look in a sitting room too. My living room just has seating, and some decorations i think its nice to just sit in there, and disconnect. The only stationary screen i have is a computer monitor at my desk and i never watch media on that just use it when playing games or using the computer.
Sitting in a single place for long enough to watch a movie i get pretty bored too. So typically ill like start out in bed, carry it down to the kitchen and keep watching while i make food, get some chores done, etc.
I think the size of the screen doesnt really matter too because as the tablet or laptop is typically closer to you it appears a similar size in your view to like a larger screen thats far away you know?
They recently cut our cable because it’s no longer included in the rent and I’m not willing to pay extra. I haven’t even noticed.
