Trying to figure out how to cut cable...

[2littleprincesses]

How do I do this? We have a smart tv and a regular tv. I would like to just do hulu, netflix and local channels. What do we need to get local channels? We are in a suburb of a major city. Do we need an antenna or box? Thanks!

 

[RitaE]

If you are somewhere you'll get good reception, you likely just need a HD tv antenna to hook to your television for the local channels. There are several brands, some just sit next to your tv, some install in the attic, some can hang on the wall behind the tv.

If you have a wireless router in your house for internet, your Smart TV can likely connect with your router and then stream the hulu, netflix etc services. If you want to stream to your regular old tv, you will need some sort of a "streaming box" such as a Roku or an equipped Blu-Ray player or a computer.

Aereo, the company that was providing an method for people to stream local tv channels via the internet, was closed down by a Supreme Court case a couple of months ago. They currently state that they are "working" on finding an avenue to "continue" operations sometime in the murky future - but as of right now they aren't in operations.

 

[tomeaine]

Check out www.antennaweb.org to help figure out what channels you will be able to capture via antenna based on the size/ direction. People have gotten good luck with mohu antennas.

 

[cfriend416]

We have a smart TV that we use as the monitor for our desktop computer. We don't have cable TV but our Internet is cable high speed, so we got a splitter for the jack that connects to the modem for the Internet. We ran a coaxial cable from the splitter to the TV and when we want to watch TV, we just switch to TV mode on the TV. Wow, I just used "TV" four times in that sentence.

Anyway, we get several local channels for free. Probably about a dozen, including ABC, the CW, NBC, and PBS. That, along with Netflix, Hulu Plus, and Amazon Prime, suits our needs just fine.

 

[bettymae1121]

My husband put an aerial antenna up on the roof with little trouble, he just pointed it the same direction as all the other aerials in the neighborhood and that worked fine! If there are no antennas up around you for reference, point it towards the city, likely that's a safe bet. Unless you are in the far out suburbs you should pick up the local stations from the city with no problems.

 

[2littleprincesses]

Thanks for all your help! Does an indoor antenna do as good of a job? From that one website, it looks like I could get 29 channels with an outdoor antenna, but wondering if I could just get an indoor one.

Also, so our SMART TV requires an adaptor to get WIFI--our router/Apple is in there other room. Do we get the router which is $90+ or get a roku or apple tv or chrome?

THanks again!

 

[scrapshappen]

My cousin put our antenna in the attic. It's the same kind that would normally go on a roof, it's just attached to a beam up there instead. I don't know all the particulars but he sets up home entertainment systems for a living so I told him what I wanted to do and he figured out how to make it work.

We also stream with the cheaper of the roku boxes. Works well for us. And we save a small fortune every month.

 

[Kies99]

Also call your cable company and tell them you want just your local channels. We did this with Comcast about 2 years ago and we pay $15 a month with all taxes and fees. We get all our local channels and a couple others (Weather, TBS, CNN, and a bunch of music channels). This also gives us On Demand so we can catch any network shows we missed. We also do Netflix.

 

[seashoreCM]

Thanks for all your help! Does an indoor antenna do as good of a job? ain!

On average an outdoor antenna picks up stations better because it is installed higher above ground.

On average an outdoor antenna picks up stations better because it has many more fins than an indoor antenna (but the outdoor antenna needs to be rotated to be aimed at the station transmitter).

Only the 4 to 8 inch fins are used to receive stations with actual channel numbers 14 and above (the vast majority of TV stations nowadays). The 2 to 3 foot fins receive stations with actual channel numbers 13 and below. Many cities don't have any of these in which case an antenna without any 2 to 3 foot fins works fine. The actual channel number is usually different from the number in the station's logo.

 

[NYEmomma]

Thanks for all your help! Does an indoor antenna do as good of a job? From that one website, it looks like I could get 29 channels with an outdoor antenna, but wondering if I could just get an indoor one.

Also, so our SMART TV requires an adaptor to get WIFI--our router/Apple is in there other room. Do we get the router which is $90+ or get a roku or apple tv or chrome?

THanks again!

We started with an antenna that we just set up behind the TV. It got fairly good reception but we were missing a couple major channels... like CBS & one of the PBS channels we get.

So DH mounted one to the satellite that we no longer needed. Works great! That one PBS channel is still a little sketchy on bad days but other than that, perfect.

 

[ellochka]

You may want to try this trick. May or may not work for your provider. Cable is a "dumb tube", essentially, it's either on (any service active) or off, and it is controlled by a physical device called "trap". If you have your internet through a cable company, your cable is "on". The first thing I would check is whether you can get your basic channels right out of the wall (same outlet as the internet). Use a newer TV (made after 2006) to see digital channels. For that reason, I would ask the cable guy to activate the outlet closest to your TV and put the router on it. If no luck, then try a over the air antenna. Again, you will need a TV with a digital tuner, i.e. later model.