OTA Recorder

[Yespage]

My MIL is looking to drop Dish and was needing OTA DVR capabilities. I did a bunch of searching online. It seems there are three main players, Tablo, AirTV, and HDHomerun.

Tablo seems to have rave reviews for their older stuff, but not new stuff.
AirTV appears to stream well to devices, though doesn't seem to work with Apple (?), and with it connected to SlingTV, I'm a little nervous about this maybe disappearing in a couple years as Dish and Directv merge. Also, reviews seem a little mixed
HDHomerun seems to be the only device that is still quality. Need to provide an EHD, but that already exists with her recv'r. Seems more costly, and you need to pay for the guide, but it is 2024 and $100 doesn't buy what it used to.

Am I in the ball park here?

 

[navychop]

I hate to say it, but- TiVo?

 

[Mr Tony]

Get a good 4 tuner TiVo from EBay that has guide subscription already.
TiVo Roamio runs forever. I have 2 of them

 

[moonwink]

If you can find a Dish PAL, it's an OTA receiver with a built in HD. I'm sure there's still a few around.

 

[dishdude]

If you can find a Dish PAL, it's an OTA receiver with a built in HD. I'm sure there's still a few around.

omg no! Most died a long time ago from the poor quality capacitors, even if you can find one still working they are extremely buggy and woefully outdated.

 

[navychop]

I disagree. I have one in storage that I may reuse. Not buggy at all.

 

[N6BY]

Get a good 4 tuner TiVo from EBay that has guide subscription already.
TiVo Roamio runs forever. I have 2 of them

Excellent advice. But make sure it has "Lifetime" guide service and ask to see a photo of the System Information screen which proves it.

 

[Mister B]

What about the Zapperbox? It does both ATSC 1.0 and 3.0 if that if available in your area. It requires external storage which can be as simple as an SD card. The price is a bit high but so is a used Tivo with lifetime service.
There is a ton of information about this over on the avsforum.

 

[cpalmer2k]

I love my TiVos but they're on their last legs support wise and with no ATSC 3.0 support will stop working as the full conversion to ATSC 3.0 takes place. I would consider the Zapperbox as my first choice at this point because it is future proofed pretty well and is produced by a company that continues to provide regular updates and enhanced features.

 

[FTA4PA]

with no ATSC 3.0 support will stop working as the full conversion to ATSC 3.0 takes place

If the full conversion to ATSC 3.0 takes place...

 

[primestar31]

My MIL is looking to drop Dish and was needing OTA DVR capabilities. I did a bunch of searching online. It seems there are three main players, Tablo, AirTV, and HDHomerun.

Tablo seems to have rave reviews for their older stuff, but not new stuff.
AirTV appears to stream well to devices, though doesn't seem to work with Apple (?), and with it connected to SlingTV, I'm a little nervous about this maybe disappearing in a couple years as Dish and Directv merge. Also, reviews seem a little mixed
HDHomerun seems to be the only device that is still quality. Need to provide an EHD, but that already exists with her recv'r. Seems more costly, and you need to pay for the guide, but it is 2024 and $100 doesn't buy what it used to.

Am I in the ball park here?

IF you want something basically seamless, and extremely easy hands-off, where she won't be calling you all the time for help, I'd get her a 4 tuner Tivo Roamio with lifetime service. You likely can find one on Ebay for like $250, maybe less. I've owned one since 2015, (paid $400 back then) and never had any issues with it. However, it can't handle ATSC 3.0, but I bet that'll die anyway due to the idiots pushing encryption on us.

I also now have a Raspberry Pi 4b running a dedicated CHANNELS dvr system, but that's likely more than you'd want to deal with.

P.S. IF you go with the Tivo Roamio, make SURE it's a BASIC or OTA model. Basic can go EITHER cable or OTA, and OTA model can only do OTA. The PLUS model is only cable tv.

 

[primestar31]

If the full conversion to ATSC 3.0 takes place...

It won't. At least not as long as they insist on forcing DRM/Encryption on it. That's already fully stalled the roll-out, and perhaps is enough to sink the whole thing.

 

[arxaw]

If the full conversion to ATSC 3.0 takes place...

This. ☝️

They got out the big coffin nails; DRM, internet requirements, viewer tracking, ridiculous patent fights and no tuner mandate. Oh, and not enough OTA programming anymore to even make it worth the average consumer's time, trouble & expense.

And 4K was just an empty pie-in-the-sky promise all along. Broadcasters want that bandwidth for more junk channels, not better picture and sound quality. Look at what they did to ATSC 1.0. Nothing but fuzzy 480i sub-channels and smeared blocky 1080i & 720p on the bandwidth-starved so-called "HD" channels.

 

[TNGuy84]

Take a look at Lon TV's latest video on ATSC 3.0. The (expected) head of the FCC made a speech about auctioning off more TV spectrum in return for a move to 3.0. It was a speech made 4 years ago, but he probably hasn't changed his idea in that amount of time. He's still on the FCC and is expected to be promoted. He's also made statements about broadcasters using their spectrum more for high speed Internet rather than TV. OTA TV as we know it will probably die off as cellular companies get greedy for more data. The only band they probably won't touch would be VHF, but that band is plagued with so many interference issues that nobody would want it anyway.

 

[N6BY]

I think that when some of the broadcasters first heard about ATSC 3.0 they thought they could transform OTA TV into paid subscription services. But one of the main reasons for a viewer to install an OTA TV antenna is to save money by getting free ATSC 1.0 TV (as it is now).

Initially I was excited about ATSC 3.0, mainly because I might be able to watch everything in 4K. But I am not aware of any stations in the US currently broadcasting in 4K. Or if they ever do, maybe it would require a subscription?

I don't think that this big ATSC 3.0 experiment is going to win over enough viewers to be successful.

 

[Mister B]

Many of us would not be on this forum is TV reception was also something of a hobby in addition to a necessity. Myself, I have been interested in it since I was a kid in rural Florida mounting rabbit ears outside my bedroom window.
Of course I was excited about ATSC 3.0 and even briefly owned a TV with the built in tuner. I thought the picture was slightly better than 1.0 especially considering they had to squeeze in the channels that were moved to make room for 3.0.
I am loosing interest in 3.0 due to the complexity of DRM and uncertain future. The one change that could turn me around would be if all the digs-nets were to be offered in at least wide screen 720p rather than "too blurry to watch" 480i.
The internet is less than ideal where I live and streaming is unreliable. At this time I am on the least expensive package with DirecTV but I can not justify that expense forever. I suppose it is a hobby in itself trying to keep up with the available and ever changing options.

 

[comfortably_numb]

Perhaps all is not lost..

The Future Of Television Is Broadcast & Streaming: Here’s Why

The recently completed NBA media negotiations is an indication of television's future, a combination of broadcast TV and streaming.

www.forbes.com

According to a CivicScience survey, in-home traditional or digital antennas are the fastest growing method viewers are using to watch television today. Presently, 30% of U.S. adults use an antenna, which enables U.S. households to receive over-the-air transmitted by local stations at no cost. The survey found that 17% of households say they use their antenna “often”

 

[TNGuy84]

I don't see anything too exciting from the news. They mention viewers of broadcast, but they don't mention viewers of 3.0 specifically in their stats. The more I think about it, the more that it makes sense that if the FCC does go this route of selling up all but a few channels, then the lighthouse concept won't go away. Think of it this way, each market gets up to 2 or 3 broadcast channels to lighthouse the stations in the area. With 3.0's compression being dramatically better, they could cover an entire broadcast area with just a few towers with content stacked up from the major networks. The interference would probably be outrageous from nearby markets, so if you're between markets, you'd probably have trouble getting either market. My guess would be that they would go this route by the 2027 cutoff. That would give them a few years and a batch of frequencies ready when 6G comes along for the 2030s.