Talk Morgan Forums Community The Malvern Arms getting rid of Sky?

I got rid of my TV many years ago.
The cable company wanted to increase monthly cost and would provide me with an increase in 16 channels of dermot to to choose from, an increase from 13.
As the same cable company would only sell packages of channels, and refused me to choose what I wanted, I dumped them.
Since then I have streamed on various laptops, ipads and now a nice big iMac.
Youtube is my favourite channel. Sometimes I use vpn to watch programmes on other nations broadcasting channels.
I found it rational to combine my internet surfing and TV watching in the same device.
I think it would be even better with a bigger screen than on my iMac combined with apple tv or another type of smart tv.
The cable companies are dinosaurs.

Howard,

You say you have no terrestrial signal worth a damn.

Neither did I until about 6 months ago when my friendly local aerial shop suggested I change the aerial to a more modern type with some sort of booster.

I have no idea what he meant by more modern aerial but I gave it a go and now I have very good TV reception everywhere through the aerial.

I'm keeping Sky for the F1 and a few other things but my Terrestrial signal is now very good with the new aerial.

We are in a very poor signal area for Freeview but I fitted one of these high gain broadband aerials and it's excellent. I hook it up to an aerial amplifier (TLC) as it feeds 3 rooms. You definitely need the 2" mast it's a fairly high windage aerial.

https://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Products/MXLAB450T.html

Most of the neighbours have a dish but I'm a stubborn old basket and wouldn't give in till I found something that worked. That and I hate the idea of helping Murdoch out in any way at all.

Howard, like me, will very likely be extremely reluctant to fit a broad band amplifier - they tend to amplify all sorts of other signals not in the TV and vhf fm radio broadcast bands.

So what effect would that have on anything else in the house?

So lets split that into a couple of goals.
1. Max out the channel options without costs.
2. Feed it around the house.

2 is easier so let chew on that. There is a tech called powerline data. It puts the Ethernet/data over your 3 pin power ring mains around the house. You get bridges and also WiFi extender bridges. You plug one into the power socket near our router. You place the slaves into other sockets around the house. If different parts of the house are on different fuse boxes then this is not so good but otherwise it is cheap and easy. Example of a root.wifi extender https://www.ebuyer.com/501366-devolo-dlan-500-wifi-twin-powerline-starter-kit-9085

1 is slightly difficult both to do and also to explain. Explaining this on the forum is a bit difficult and hard to understand.

Lets look at making the best of the main TV moment.
1. I am going to suggest a new TV will end up being needed for full benefit.
2. DVB+ TV, as others correctly outline perhaps a new aerial to max the signal.
3. FreeSatHD uses a traditional Sky dish/co-ax cables to give you more channels in HD for zero https://www.freesat.co.uk/whats/full-channel-list/
4. SmartTV will link to wireless/cable into router/internet. See what Apps this brings, iPlayer/All4/5onD are staple but does it offer AmazonPrime/Netflix etc, what do you want (to pay for)
5. USB Disc or SDmemory stick for storage of recordings the TV offers. Establish what the TV can do in terms of concurrent display/recordings if needed.
6. Use additional boxes (AmazonTV stick if it does not have AmazonPrime built into smart tv menus) as needed.

This results in a lot built into the TV but it is difficult to push around the house I am afraid. I am guessing this will need some additional discussion and cash.

Any comments on this ? What aligns ?





Given F1 has fallen into the hands of Liberty Media I wonder how long the rights for F1 will remain with Sky as well ? Just a thought.

We have a 3 year old Samsung Smart TV to which I have attached a USB hard disk. It gives us the ability to record programs for later viewing and also use time-shift, that is you can pause a program whilst doing something else and then watch it, fast forwarding through the adds until you catch up to live reception. It is also connected by both WIFI and ethernet to the internet (the WIFI is really redundent since it is now using the direct cable connection to the router)

Despite all that I have been looking at Android TV. There are boxes available that have either satellite dish or conventional arial connections. The beauty of these is that they can be used with a bluetooth keyboard with a touch pad incorporated. In that way you have all the advantages of Android Apps and the TV decoder of your choice. I think they can also be expanded with a hard disk for recording.

I have been looking at the Xoro HST 260
which I don not find on Amazon UK

Having said all that about Android the Humax HDR 1100S box looks pretty much what you want.

Interesting sentiments Howard, people have been ditching sky down here in their droves for much the same reasons - all I miss is the formula one , though going to work on a Monday morning feeling half dead I don't miss , the timing down here causes that. Though this afternoons one is on at a civilized hour for us so will go to the brother in laws and fire up the barbie to watch, we are still in the high 20's temp wise .

It’s becoming difficult to remember when we last watched the TV. Both and myself watch through our iPads. We can watch different things at the same time in the same room, one with headphones, one without. Catch up is great so you can watch what you want when you want. I can’t remember when we last recorded anything to watch later.

To my mind an iPad screen at arms length is as good as a 60” TV stuck up on the wall on the other side of the room - and it doesn’t matter which chair you sit in for the best view!

I am in the media industry and I have spoken many times about the confluence of TV and the internet. The imaginary moment when a consumer wonders whether to plug his television into an aerial or the telecoms socket.

Broadcast and satellite TV is a heavily curated medium - which is great if you love your curator, the BBC or Sky or whoever. However the internet is far richer in content - but currently it's a bit wild west in terms of how it is ordered.

The future will be a wider choice of curators - smart, remote, editors (apps) that let you programme your content. This is available now, but it's still rather clunky.

I have to say that the BBC iPlayer is pretty good at some of this - yes, it's ultimately a BBC curation experience, but for me it works well for watching history and the arts (for example).

My television has honestly not been watched for over a year - I am exclusively online. My kids when they watch TV (which they do occasionally), do so in another room.