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It's the Beginning of the End of Satellite TV in the US (qz.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: "We've launched our last satellite," John Donovan, CEO of AT&T Communications, said in a meeting with analysts on Nov. 29. The AT&T executive effectively declared the end of the satellite-TV era with that statement. AT&T owns DirecTV, the US's largest satellite company -- and second largest TV provider overall, behind Comcast. DirecTV will continue offering satellite-TV service -- it had nearly 20 million satellite video subscribers as of September, per company filings. But the company will focus on growing its online video business instead, Donovan said.
It has a new set-top box, where people can get the same TV service they'd get with satellite, through an internet-connected box they can install themselves. It expects that box to become a greater share of its new premium-TV service installations in the first half of 2019. It also sells cheaper, TV packages with fewer channels through its DirecTV Now and WatchTV streaming services, which work with many smart TVs and streaming media players like Roku and Amazon Fire TV devices. The practice of getting TV through satellite dishes propped up in backyards and perched on rooftops first took hold in the US in the last 1970s and early 1980s, after TV networks like HBO and Turner Broadcasting System started sending TV signals to cable providers via satellites. People in areas without cable or broadcast TV began putting up their own dishes to receive the TV signals, and that grew into a TV business of its own.
It has a new set-top box, where people can get the same TV service they'd get with satellite, through an internet-connected box they can install themselves. It expects that box to become a greater share of its new premium-TV service installations in the first half of 2019. It also sells cheaper, TV packages with fewer channels through its DirecTV Now and WatchTV streaming services, which work with many smart TVs and streaming media players like Roku and Amazon Fire TV devices. The practice of getting TV through satellite dishes propped up in backyards and perched on rooftops first took hold in the US in the last 1970s and early 1980s, after TV networks like HBO and Turner Broadcasting System started sending TV signals to cable providers via satellites. People in areas without cable or broadcast TV began putting up their own dishes to receive the TV signals, and that grew into a TV business of its own.
TV over the Internet? That will be a HUGE Internet traffic issue.
Just like internet basically replaced broadcast TV, the reason why satellite TV will decline is in part because of the rise of wireless internet options (including satellite internet, like the satellites SpaceX plans to put up).
My mother lives fairly far out of a major city, to the point where cable is not offered - in the past few years she has gotten all internet and video options from a cellular wireless hotspot.
So why would she want to get an expensive satellite TV option when she can do anything over a fairly decent wireless internet connection?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Satellite internet just got much more valuable.
Few more lines and the /. summary would contain TFA whole.
Let me save you some time and some ad views by pasting them here:
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...should be illegal.
Just like internet basically replaced broadcast TV, the reason why satellite TV will decline is in part because of the rise of wireless internet options (including satellite internet, like the satellites SpaceX plans to put up).
My mother lives fairly far out of a major city, to the point where cable is not offered - in the past few years she has gotten all internet and video options from a cellular wireless hotspot.
So why would she want to get an expensive satellite TV option when she can do anything over a fairly decent wireless internet connection?
Why indeed? Traditional TV is an overpriced pile of crap that cannot die quickly enough and I will not be crying any rivers when it does.
Yup. With the ISP's effectively winning the war to do whatever they want...you'll soon be forced to subscribe to TV from your monopoly or suffer consequences.
I really miss when there were consumer protection laws and things in place to prevent bullshit like this from happening. I'd rather pay taxes than pay unregulated extortion rates to a private corporation.
2018: "Hey! We can cancel that expensive satellite service and force users to buy our shitty DSL service! It's brilliant!"
2021: "SpaceX's new StarLink service starts bundling cable TV channels as part of its new Internet service."
And no, not via their cell phones with data caps. I don't see satellite television going away anytime soon unless real competition arrives with broadband offerings.
Because at some point her wireless provider will either add a super high data cap or be able to throttle video traffic.
Relying on the internet when the providers are hell-bent on acting like an unregulated monopoly is a problem. People like you just rolling over and accepting it is a problem.
Plenty of sat tv is coming. However, it will be broadcast over the net, including over starlink and 1-web.
What will NOT be done, is a sat system that is devoted to TV, esp. at these prices with the lousy service.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
If you already have broadband, you could just run a directv app on your existing devices or buy an inexpensive one.
Though I did get such an app (att watch tv) bundled with my phone service and itâ(TM)s terrible... so maybe their capacity to write one is limited.
Now I'm supposed to stream all my live tv too? I thought Netflix was already crushing the internet's "pipes." There are single weekends where I record 7 or 8 college and pro football games, sometimes 3 or 4 at a time. Tell me how that's gonna be possible over the internet?
confused ... how do you cut a cable when you have sattelite tv?
I wonder if the constellation could be re-purposed as a caching distribution network. At, IIRC, a few Gb/s maximum bandwidth, satellite TV is probably not enough to rent out as a high-speed downlink, but plenty if you are Akamai, Youtube, or Apple, and need to feed media to a distributed caching network. Less backbone bandwidth being gobbled up, and one upload syncs every site simultaneously.
the next way to watch TV will be on a device that uses a tape cassette. You'll put the cassette into a player and you get video out. This will be for people called "cord cutters" who don't have any type of information service coming into their houses over a cable of some kind.
Honestly, I have cable, but only for the internet. There's really nothing on television anymore making me want to sit down for an hour or more to watch.
Though I understood satellite and satellite internet are currently the only way to communicate in very rural areas.
The Kai's Semi-Updated Website Thingy
Traditional TV requires a tuner and an antenna and const nothing other than the equipment.
I used to have satellite tv. Now I have an antenna, Netflix and Prime. I'm thinking about dropping the streaming services as I've more or less stoped using them. It will cost nothing to keep my antenna on the roof.
I hate fat people.
Satellite TV is already in decline (read the article). Not "will decline".
Internet has not replaced broadcast TV. There will be broadcast channels long after we're gone. But internet TV will be far more popular over time.
Nobody is suggesting anyone purchase satellite TV if you have decent internet (wireless or not). The reason for selecting DBS was they were independent from terrible cable systems and for rural customers who had few if any options. That reason may no longer exist for many.
But television over IP (especially wireless) is not ready for primetime still. Crappy picture, slow broadband speeds, reliance on ISPs will hamper it for some time.
I guess I am doomed, we have lousy internet, only one cable carrier available and they won't or can't deliver better than 25 Mbps. We can get a DSL signal but it never gets better than 12-16 Mbps. With me working from the house, the GF watching Amazon and her kid streaming music the net connection is choppy and unreliable. Spectrum cable SUCKS, they advertise starting at 60 Mbps and up to 100 Mbps but no one in the rural area I live in gets better than 25 Mbps.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Of course at&t wants to turn off the satellite systems -- you send the data up to the bird one time, and everyone in the footprint of it can receive the data at the same time. With streaming services, at&t and other ISPs make more money on the thousands of times the same video is sent individually to each household. More data usage means more overage fees which means more revenue.
Rural users tend to have satellite TV in part because no cable or fiber-to-the-home provider serves their address. Streaming video over satellite Internet at $5 per GB is unlikely to prove economic as a substitute.
Satellite service, for all we may say about it, does serve at least one important function. In many rural, or quasi-rural, communities, there are no "high speed" internet options save DSL. I can only hope that within the timeframe satellite television providers have set to let the offering slowly dissolve, that rural buildouts to other Internet delivery methods (fiber, cable, point-to-point microwave, etc.) are made. The ubiquity and speed of Federal/State/Local assisted buildouts is lacking, and the private costs of -- say you want a cable company to string the last 25 poles to your house -- construction are prohibitive. Without Satellite to offset some of the bandwidth use, we are saying to tens of millions of consumers, watch something on your television or surf the web and read Slashdot; not both.
Sometimes I wonder if the cable/satellite companies have a master plan to push everyone to IPTV. Rates on traditional cable keep going up and up but it used to be after your promo price ran out you could call to threaten to cancel to get a new promo price. Last time I tried this they wouldn't budge even an inch, so I cut the cable and went to DirectTV Now. I feel like they are intentionally making cable a bad choice so as to force everyone to IPTV options. Seems odd, but maybe it saves/makes them more money in the end? Watch your backs, folks, IPTV might start screwing you over just like cable some day. Lets hope for as much competition we can get in that space.
What do you get from your antenna that is worth the while? I tried that a couple of years ago, and the only thing I could get were channels with preachers and soaps - plus a boatload of ads. I couldn't care less for preachers and soaps, and I just plain refuse to watch any ads. So, what material are you getting?
Subscribers to cassette rental would still need an information service in order to request cassettes from a distributor. (Source: DVD.Netflix.com) In addition, several types of live events would not be as appealing in a cassette model, such as sport matches, political announcements, and entertainment industry awards shows.
1. they are trying to kill landline service in California by 2020.
2. they don't offer broadband service to my house. (so the above is a serious problem, and maybe even illegal)
3. satellite TV is the only thing that works where I live because there ain't no cable up here.
BREAK UP THE BELL TELEPHONE MONOPOLY!
Regional operators that end services and offer no alternatives do not serve their communities. States need to kick these guys out instead of permitting an abusive monopoly.
I get a lot of those BBC shows where they have all the commercials at the beginning of the show. Feels like a weird ratio of ads etc. also the worst guide. Tells me absolutely nothing about what is on and when and on what channel/tier. They just send me a prepaid bill
That's just another Musk pipe dream. Will never happen. Nobody's going to pay for thousands of VLEO sats. Musk loves to toss shit like this out there and watch his adoring fan club eat the shit up with a spoon. As with anything Musk says, run it through a reality check before saying 'what if'
don't forget however that the constellation slot is leased effectively to the highest bidder. Therefore while directv might come to a end, someone will likely want those slots.
Pair it with a DVR if you want something other than soaps in the daytime. Broadcast TV still has some good stuff in the primetime hours.
Single digit megabits per second is all you need for standard-definition video streaming, so long as the monthly cap isn't also oppressive. A decade and a half ago, the warez scene was using DivX (MPEG-4 Part 2 + MP3 in AVI) to transcode a 97-minute movie to fill one 700 MB CD at an average rate of 1 Mbps. Nowadays, WebM (VP9 + Opus in MKV) achieves comparable picture quality at an even lower rate.
On the other hand, you probably won't see acceptable streaming performance with 768 kbps DSL, or 1.5 Mbps DSL with multiple TVs.
I hardly ever watch TV these days, but there are some radio stations I love. I wonder if big media are trying to get away from broadcast, as in transmitting content without backchannels or authentication. Signal scrambling (encoding with a single key) can always be circumvented, people will hack devices and share keys. So they need individual authentication and personal keys, and of course they also want all your data they can get. They figured none of that works with broadcast, so they're ditching broadcast. Over the internet, even a feed without login can track you, and they can always start requiring registration or block clients selectively. This is the end of AV media as a public service.
... as long as your ISP doesn't impose any kind of severe usage caps.
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I set up an antenna indoors, soon hope to get a slightly larger one outdoors to improve on a couple channels' reception....
But I get all the 3 major networks, and Fox...and local PBS.
Each of those channels have extra content on their .1 .2, .3..etc. channels....PBS is really good for lots of content.
There are a lot of other channels, some in SD, but most HD, that play old reruns of shows from days gone past.
But the HD of the main channels is really about the best you can get quality wise, as you don't deal with the compression from someone sending it over a wire.
I paired the antenna with the Tivo Roamio OTA they had out, that came with lifetime guide service baked in...I think you can still get a few left on their website if you search refurbs or specials, as that it appears they now have a new OTA option that costs extra to have the lifetime guide service included.
I have that and the TIvo minis's throughout the house so I can watch that content anywhere I have a TV. I also have Amazon Fire TV units (not the usb drives) on each TV, and I run Netflix, and PS VUE to get my "cable channels"...basically covers everything I used to watch while on cable. PS VUE also had DVR capability, so I can pretty much watch anything I want any time.
But the OTA stuff is worthwhile.....
An antenna doesn't cost that much, and most TVs have digital tuners in them...do a little research on what's available in your area, get the appropriate antenna and hook to your tv just to see what's out there.
It's better than it used to be.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
I get like a dozen+ HD channels, including all major networks, typical sportsing coverage, et al.
But I live in a downtown area on an International border.
Wanna live out in the sticks, you gotta pay to live out in the sticks.
Wanna live in the city, you run the risk of HOAs and zoning boards fining you or threatening jail time for your victory garden. This has happened in Oak Park, Tulsa, Miami Shores, and elsewhere.
Because at some point her wireless provider will either add a super high data cap or be able to throttle video traffic.
She used to have a 10GB data cap (T-Mobile) which I found I could increase to 22GB, but then I found a wireless business reseller that still uses T-Mobile's network, but provides unlimited bandwidth for a lower fee than the 22GB capped service. It has a slower uplink for some reason but faster download speeds - perfect for what she is doing anyway.
or be able to throttle video traffic.
I'm not sure if they do but guess what? It turns out 720P video looks a lot better than 0p video. Also have you SEEN satellite TV?
Relying on the internet when the providers are hell-bent on acting like an unregulated monopoly is a problem
Even with all of that possible downside, way better than relying on satellite TV providers.
What I am telling you in practice is that this is already feasible and has few downsides, and is way more flexible. It will only get better over time as wireless networks are improving constantly (the speed she can achieve is already better than it was just a year ago).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Is there any public, free, satellite TV? It sound like it would be a fun hobby and hopefully PBS / NASA / public government feeds/research-feeds/etc is out there as content
A large percentage of the homes in my neighborhood have satellite TV, because when it was built, the cable company waited almost a year to connect the neighborhood (I think they wanted 80% of the development occupied). Once people got satellite TV, they realized the quality and customer services were MUCH better than the cable companies. Cable has definitely surpassed DSL for internet (we were stuck with DSL for that time, too), but I still prefer satellite to cable for TV. Using internet for TV really doesn't compare at this point - there really aren't any good plug-and-play solutions (i.e., not a PC, and not an ad-driven streaming box) with the same consistent quality.
That's just another Musk pipe dream. Will never happen......As with anything Musk says, run it through a reality check before saying 'what if'
A) None of what I said relies on the Musk satellites working, wireless cellular will cover enough areas to have the same effect.
B) It sure seems like Starlink will happen, why wouldn't it? The plan seems sound and they can basically piggyback a lot of launches on top of other deliveries or test launches. They already have FCC approval for 7500 satellites, it's not like you can submit a napkin with crayon drawings for that. I think at this point you have to provide some pretty solid evidence they are NOT going to launch Starlink because it's obviously going ahead.
It's also not like there are not other companies trying to do something similar (read same link above) so obviously a lot of people are seeing money where you do not.
The last point is that even you do not really believe it's not going to happen - any prediction posted as an AC means the predictor has zero confidence and is usually dead wrong.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
StarLink will mean they can get all the streaming they want.
Until SpaceX launches Starlink service, it's vapor. Another Elon Musk venture recently canceled a planned tunnel dig after discovering that the locals demanded a work-to-rule on the environmental impact assessment.
Here in the UK, our family got rid of Satellite TV from Sky (BSkyB) because they accused us of having 3 broadcast receivers. This happened not long after THEY replaced a box that had failed on us.
You'd think they would have some record of this. Apparently not. (or someone was fudging the numbers for financial gain)
They continued harassing us despite explaining this, as well as saying why the receivers were not connected to the internet, which was because their shitty splitters didn't work with our line for god knows what reason. (then accused us of not setting it up properly, a person that probably knows more about telecoms than their entire call center COMBINED)
Nope. They weren't having it. Not even sending us out replacements to see if that would fix the issue, they instead sent us a bill for 3 concurrent subscriptions.
It got to the point where we just said "fuck it, cancel it then. get the legal team involved, it'll be your waste of money in the end". Gone.
I actually don't even miss it, despite generally being interested in several of the channels that are usually seen as "shit filler channels" (aka, educational) by the retarded majority.
The internet has filled that niche and more so from the early 2000s on. Hell, even the late 90s were gaining significant enough momentum to replace it.
TV, more than enough of it is online or via terrestrial broadcast these days. Anything that isn't usually isn't even worth pirating IMHO. (even though it could be done in a few minutes with ease)
I don't see satellite internet going anywhere fast.
It'd be fine for high latency tasks, but it SUCKS for anything that needs realtime communication as well as high bandwidth. The costs scale through the fucking sky at that point. OH BOY does it not scale well at all.
You thought radio-based internet was bad, you ain't seen shit son.
Satellite internet is true suffering.
Sadly it is the only viable option in some areas.
I know a guy that lives on an island who has a dish to connect to the mainland which itself ends up going through satellite. Admittedly he only uses it lightly. But it was a neat solution to the lack of internet problem.
Even though he is a hands-on getting-shit-done kinda guy, the internet is still too valuable not to have. The resources you can access in text alone are worth it, the visual stuff is worth even more. This is why I wish low-bandwidth protocols came back for simple information sharing services. Gopher NEXT when?
It's not that bad losing satellite dTv.. A friend mine worked for them on the settop box code for a short while, as one of 140 software developers. TL DR: 8800 known distinct bugs, growing by 240 bugs a month.
This is why I wish low-bandwidth protocols came back for simple information sharing services. Gopher NEXT when?
Send HTML over HTTPS with no images or script, and you'll have a fairly close approximation.
Why are there no over the air repeaters?
i bought their basic package, but what they dont tell you is that peppered throughout the channel line up is every other channel is 24/7 infomertals peddling crap, and channel surfing is slow so when you switch a channel you have to wait a few seconds for each channel to display on the TV, i promptly canceled after a very short time, i did not pay them to load my TV with all those spammy infomertals,
i just dont watch TV anymore, its just not worth the annoyances to watch
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Slowly abandon one service into another where you not only get charged for TV, but also for the extra Internet overage charges to wath TV. Or is that racketeering?
I looked into Channel Master, and actually looked at a set up a friend of mine opted for.
At that time, it didn't seem to offer the capabilities that Tivo offered me...I didn't like the guide, and ability to stream from internet also seemed lacking on the channel master AND...the main thing is, that you could not seem to DVR all the local channels on the CM, or at least I recall there were a lot of things you could not DVR off the channel master.
Of course, this was a few years ago, so if getting a new system, by all means....research and see what fits you best.
But I compared them head to head and at the time with the Tivo Roamio OTA system, like only about $299 and included lifetime menu/guide service, it was a much better deal for me to hook to my antenna for all my OTA/DVR needs.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Sports bars / books need it or very good internet with no caps
Will Att run fiber to an bar at the same cost as they pay for TV? and that fee has free internet at least 50-100 down (no caps). Or with give them LTE / 5G with no caps, no deprioritization and no Throttling.
Guess they are just screwed. I know you city dwellers that never leave the city, don't get why people live in "flyover country", but there are a TON of potential customers that will be out of all television. Most live too far away for over the air, now that all the signals are digital and their power to reach is very limited. I do a lot of traveling in the midwest. Satellite dishes are EVERYWHERE. Someone will come along to take over that market.
Back in early 2000 I made bucket loads of cash when I made a bootloader to re-enable their h-card.
People sent me cash and blank post office checks through the snail mail
TV is a drug more powerful than fentanyl
Just because AT&T says they are going to move away form Satellite TV doesn't mean its the end for it. Not unless Dish Network also exits the market (something I have seen no signs they intend doing)
that tunnel was sued out of existence.
Exactly why I mentioned they already had FCC clearance, the only external force that was going to possibly delay them - with that cleared, just what do you think will happen to stop them? Are the Moon-Men going to sue them?
Nothing like constantly shifting your argument to ever more stupid positions.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
What would you do if someone wanted to dig under your back yard? Would you just give them the AY OK? It's ok because it's big
Business.
Fuck off, if you want to dig, do the environmental survey that everyone has to do.
"What do you get from your antenna that is worth the while?"
Typical clueless 7-digit UIDers.
In my area, 40+ primary channels, each with 2-3 subchannels. So there's a whole fucking cable package, OTA, FREE.
On the other hand, you probably won't see acceptable streaming performance with [...] 1.5 Mbps DSL with multiple TVs.
good luck if someone in your home wants to do something else at the same time.
Exactly. But in a situation like this, you could try quality of service (QoS). When the connection is congested, set your router to give each device a 1.5 Mbps slice of the downstream. With current congestion control policies that U.S. cellular ISPs are implementing, such as T-Mobile's Binge On, streaming providers will recognize this and not try to send any HD video. If your router does not support QoS, replace its firmware with a third-party firmware that does, or purchase a router that supports third-party firmware.
I could try a pole with an antenna on top, which worked great at my last home, except my current HOA won't allow that.
It looks like your HOA is imposing rules about TV antenna mast height that "preclude reception of an acceptable quality signal". If the mast required for NBC affiliate reception is less than 12 feet tall, put it up anyway and tell your HOA to forward its complaint against you to the FCC.
My mother lives fairly far out of a major city, to the point where cable is not offered - in the past few years she has gotten all internet and video options from a cellular wireless hotspot.
What option would that be? Everyone is complaining about their 1TB Comcast caps... What does the cellular wireless hotspot offer that is even in the same league?
So why would she want to get an expensive satellite TV option when she can do anything over a fairly decent wireless internet connection?
LOL everyone thinks they are going to stream TV in realtime over wireless. Let me get some popcorn this is going to be fun. But..but..but... 5G!!!!!! LOLLLL
As others said already on here, many of the people who live in rural areas are interested in satellite television, at least until the day comes when they're all able to get broadband fiber or cable. Judging by the lack of interest in the monopolies in the U.S. to roll out service to new areas, I'd say satellite still provides a viable alternative for people for a LONG time.
AT&T is probably just not so interested in hanging onto the DirecTV service in its long-term plans. That hardly means satellite TV is dead, though. It just indicates they'll sell it off to somebody else. Right now, people still have Dish Network as an alternative option, even if DirecTV went offline tomorrow.
If the cable providers don't stop with the greed about capping monthly bandwidth usage, too? People will find it more economical to keep a cheap satellite subscription vs. chewing through their data allotment with nothing but streaming.
But in any case, satellite TV has the mobility advantage. You can slap a dish on your RV and roam around the country, and always have TV service wherever you go. That doesn't work with cable TV and is only spotty with an LTE cellular service.
What do you get from your antenna that is worth the while?
Well let's see. For me it's: local news, some sporting events, and re-runs of shows I enjoy (Frasier, That '70s Show, etc). Paired with a MythTV backend and several Raspberry Pi front-ends running Kodi as the PVR front-end, it's a really enjoyable setup for free, over-the-air content.
There's still DISH network.
I thought the problem in Seattle was Director's Rules, where both the owner of the property adjacent to the node and 60 percent of other nearby property owners need to vote yes for any utility improvements, and not voting (such as an absentee landlord or a vacant property) was counted as a "no" vote. (Source: "What Happened to Seattle's Gigabit Network?" by Colin Wood)
So why would she want to get an expensive satellite TV option when she can do anything over a fairly decent wireless internet connection?
She wouldn't, but there are an awful lot of parts of the country where wireless is minimal or absent, and satellite is pretty much it. Not very many people in them, of course, but services like this have been a huge boon to RV'ers and hunting camps across the country. They will be sorely missed.
dish network does not have NFL ticket, MSG, yes, ESPN College Extra.
What do you get from your antenna that is worth the while? I tried that a couple of years ago, and the only thing I could get were channels with preachers and soaps - plus a boatload of ads. I couldn't care less for preachers and soaps, and I just plain refuse to watch any ads. So, what material are you getting?
In many areas you can get all of the major broadcast networks (CBS/ABC/FOX/NBC/ION/CW/PBS..etc) with an antenna.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Yes they are full of shit and ads but that's what DVR software is for. Load it up on a spare Linux box and set it to record the few things you want. Commercials can be fast forwarded / skipped either manually or automatically using commercial detection software. It's better than nothing for the price (FREE) and way less annoying than any legal Internet streaming thing at the same cost that will be loaded with DRM, data collection malware and ads that can't be bypassed. OTA is a no brainer if you can get it in your area.
A lifetime PLEX subscription and a tuner on a 5-year-old Linux box will get you free DVR for life, too.
Guess they are just screwed. I know you city dwellers that never leave the city, don't get why people live in "flyover country", but there are a TON of potential customers that will be out of all television. Most live too far away for over the air, now that all the signals are digital and their power to reach is very limited. I do a lot of traveling in the midwest. Satellite dishes are EVERYWHERE. Someone will come along to take over that market.
Dish, no doubt. In addition, as 5G rolls out it will be a viable option as well; and a lot cheaper to run than ghaving a satelite option. I think satelite TV will be dead in 5 years or so. As oteh roptions become more readily available compaiies will look to dump the costs assocuiated with satellite and won't care about the small fraction that lose TV all together. They'll wait until it is small enough to avoid a political backlash when people compalin the their representatives.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
I paired the antenna with the Tivo Roamio OTA they had out, that came with lifetime guide service baked in...I think you can still get a few left on their website if you search refurbs or specials, as that it appears they now have a new OTA option that costs extra to have the lifetime guide service included.
The proper way to do TV is following standard three tier model.
Data source (HDHR)
Middleware (TVH,STALKER,WGET...etc)
Client/Display (VLC,KODI,etc...)
If you only have a TV nothing is more trivial to install than Libreelec and 4k hardware to run it costs $50
I expect better from slashdotters than buying all in one commercial puke appliances that cost too much, limit what you can do, are actually harder to use once setup, suck and spy on you while expecting you to pay a monthly fee for something that is totally free had you just not have been such a clueless consumer on the front end.
Hint the program guides are broadcast over the air... you don't need no stinkin subscription. Yes its only 24 hrs at best but that's good enough to set a bunch of regular expressions to auto record the shit you want. Failing that guide data can be scraped from numerous websites across the world with a few minutes of your time to install and configure software and a cron job.
The only thing worse than the people who think OTA = dinosaur knee jerk are those of you who know better but get packaged commercial shit because they can't be bothered to screw with shit.
Sat TV broadcast over the net? You been sitting to close to the cell tower again? It's frying your brain. That's not what sat TV means.
But I compared them head to head and at the time with the Tivo Roamio OTA system, like only about $299 and included lifetime menu/guide service, it was a much better deal for me to hook to my antenna for all my OTA/DVR needs.
Program guide data is transmitted over the air for free. For $300 you could buy a four tuner home run and three separate 4k SBCs running Kodi.
Unless the TV provider encrypts all video on demand with HDCP/DTCP and the "copy never" flag.
indeed, "cable" and "satellite-TV" is rife with commercials, and why pay for that?
At least terrestrial shit TV does not have a user fee. The best high bandwidth connection between any two fixed points is FIBER.
It is also good for digestion. Portable 3G, 4G and 5G. Fixed positions FIBER. Satellite and Terrestrial for fixed points is sub optimal.
Satellite is O.T. (old technology) crap in comparison to FIBER.
AT&T bought DirectTV just as the technology was becoming obsolete, They used to send me a flyer every two days for years, I swear.
Sorry AT&T, you old fogies are brain dead, massive FIBER bandwidth will clean up that O.T.
Wireless don't have the capacity for FIBER bandwidth, in any practical sense.
I am glad OTA is working for you.
But this "But the HD of the main channels is really about the best you can get quality wise, as you don't deal with the compression from someone sending it over a wire" is inaccurate.
https://www.universetoday.com/140539/spacex-gives-more-details-on-how-their-starlink-internet-service-will-work-less-satellites-lower-orbit-shorter-transmission-times-shorter-lifespans/
We know exactly why you guys live in the middle of nowhere. The bitch is that you fuckers want us to subsidize your communications, but when we want you to subsidize our pet project, you tell us to fuck off. Capitalism says you guys should cover your own damned costs, and if you can't, your business SHOULD fail. You guys are the first to wave that Capitalism flag when it suits you, so kindly, fuck right the hell off.
Pay more to burn up your bandwidth. Can always upgrade to gigabit internet so that 4K is smooth like puddin'... oh, but that's also paying more to burn up your bandwidth. Cox does let you pay an extra $50/mo for unlimited tho!
Chewbacon
The Bible is like Wikipedia: written by a bunch of people and verifiable by questionable sources.
Satellite TV doesn't run up against some ISP's bandwidth cap.
If I wanted to watch shit TV 24/7, 365 days a year I can do that.
This isn't an option for broadband connected streaming services.
Your local ISP ( via your wallet ) gets to determine just how much you get to watch.
If they find some competing service is cutting into their own revenue, they'll just lower the caps and exempt their own.
One of the reasons 4K hasn't taken off is because of how fast you'll hit your data caps.
8K ? Riiiiiiight. . . . Don't make me laugh. Never happen in the US.
TBH though, there really isn't much worth watching anymore anyway.
Maybe I'll go outside. Into the sunlight and see if I catch fire or not.
It was accurate for the time period when cable was transcoding those MPEG2 broadcast streams to lower bitrate MPEG2 variants to cram them into their bazillion channel offerings.
It may be less true if any cable operators are actually using MPEG4 or better codecs, and obviously for internet streaming where you can get some things at higher than 1080i. It is a shame if US OTA broadcast is stuck at MPEG2 forever, rather than having had a migration plan in place to allow codecs to be upgraded periodically.
Self-imposed death though. There were better solutions available to cater to their core customers, and they decided to not rock the boat.
It's ok... competitors are bracing to take over. Great waste of money, ATT.
who didn't see that coming? Oh ya, Congress and the FCC. Well, they probably saw it but were paid to look the other way.
It's not inaccurate. Cable/Satellite providers don't recompress an uncompressed feed. They get the OTA-ready MPEG-2 transport stream. They may not add much in the way of additional compression artifacts, but it's inevitable.
I liked my DirecTV when I had it. It was digital and so much better than the crappy analog cable I could get by default, and half the price of the digital cable option. Then after a couple years it integrated with Tivo and was awesome, vastly better to any other set top box DVR I've seen. I only got rid of it because over time I was watching less and less television while the price had slowly been creeping up.
You almost do need a DVR with it. I haven't tried it because when I got rid of my satellite it meant that the DVR went with it. I was watching so little television on broadcast channels that it wasn't worth buying a brand new DVR just for that purpose.
The problem with broadcast is that you just don't get a lot of stuff, and what you do get is on fixed times and without repeats at alternate times. So if you get stuck in traffic then you miss your show. Even back in the 90s I was using a VHS to automatically record stuff. Ie, if you want to see the Big Bang Theory, example only, then tbhe new episodes are only on for one hour on one day of the week. Even the extremely crappy CBS now, the worst streaming service ever, is better than that for watching TBBT. (well almost, since it won't play on my computer at all anymore, even with all filters blocked and privacy disabled)
I tried dropping traditional TV and at the same time I upgraded to a gigabit line. I could make sure no other devices in the house where connecting to the Internet or each other, shut most everything down, and yet... I still got poor streaming quality at random intervals. I called and talked to my benevolent provider and they suggested that, in my sparsely populated area, that there was interference. The closest neighbors, over 150 feet away, are using the default channels on their company provided routers, while I used a WiFi analyzer to select my channel for my own personally purchased WiFi router based on it being the quietest. We will ignore every speed test that showed me getting nearly 970 megabit per second throughput to wired devices and 640 megabits to wireless devices that were run 802.11AC. The interference apparently only struck while watching Netflix, Hulu and Sling and never while I worked with them... Fucking liars were throttling and wouldn't admit it. A mostly empty gigabit line couldn't stream HD quality from Netflix consistently. Things have improved now that I have TV service again, and they gave me a hell of a deal to come back. Huh...
Which is why you are crazy to think it's coming back.
AT&T is blowing smoke out of its exhaust. It doesn't matter if AT&T closes down its satellite TV business. SpaceX has plans to bring the internet to remote regions of the world via satellite. SpaceX can easily provide TV channels for the customers that AT&T will be losing.
The fact is, once you have a dish, using the service is free. A lot of people are using pay tv services with proprietary receivers, but nowadays tv sets with a terriestrial and a satellite tuner are available and not too expensive. Don't know in the US side, but in Europe with Astra and Eutelsat satellites there a re a lot of interesting channels, normally in lots of different languages, but is reasonable to find some sports events, news, cartoons and serials to watch. Actually I startet to watch satellite TV while learning English and French. For pay TV cable television is not very different from satellite, and what happens is that people is leaving pay tv service, because they are not very interesting anymore and bad commercial practices make it worse.
I"m not that familiar with Kodi, the only brushes I've had with that, were folks using it to download illegally, or tuning in live channels from russia, etc....didn't know it could be used with an OTA signal, etc.
I played in the past with MythTV, and it was fun, but it was a PITA to keep up and running.
When I want to set DVR settings or channel surf, I don't want to have to grab out the keyboard, and have to do a lot of effort for things, I just want a 'normal' remote control, simple and easy guide to look at visually, click a button to record shows that may be coming in in the future (longer than 24 hours...like a month in advance), etc.
And it has to be simple enough for a non-tech visitor or house guest could use readily without having to be sat down and show how to do a lot of commands, especially a keyboard.
I have disposable income, so convenience for something as utilitarian is easy for me to weigh as a major factor.
I used to have the patience for doing stuff like that in the past, but these days, I've got plenty of other things for my time, and I just want quick, simple for TV.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
It's useful for learning Spanish.
My job involves maintaining commercial TV systems. Most of the sites have some combination of sat/cable channels, IPTV, streaming services, plus local channels over antenna. The clients typically want the major network affiliates - NBC, ABC, FOX, etc - so I don't see too much interesting in their local lineups.
However, I am confident saying this. Your antenna matters bigtime. Especially with the digital switchover and FCC moving spectrum allocations around. I don't want to recommend a particular model (haven't done enough comparison) but you might spend $100+ on a solid DTV antenna.
If you are near a majorish metro area you should pick up at LEAST 10 channels on antenna. Probably more like 30. There is a lookup tool you can use to check the reception:
https://www.tvfool.com/?option...
You put in an address and the height of the antenna and it will give you a list of TV stations you can pick up, plus which direction to point the antenna... it takes into account topography and all kinds of neat stuff.
Watching TV on Sundays only?
I wish att would just shut up and provide a big fat pipe like they are suppose. They are always 10 years + behind the curve. Innovation goes to die at att.