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Cut the cord. Tivo? PCI TV tuner card?

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Cut the cord. Tivo? PCI TV tuner card?

Postby Paz_Pazzaz » Tue Feb 21, 2017 6:26 pm

When we first got cable we had all the programs, upper tier and lower tier, all the music channels, HBO, Cinemax, Showtime, four movie channels, voip telephone with unlimited long distance, and 10 something internet speed for roughly $80 per month and I was able to renew for many years as long as I called and asked for it before time expired. It seems their months are all 30 days long so eventually calling before the say, 10th day of the annual month was too late. So we dropped HBO & company, all the movie channels, etc. until we were down to the most basic package with phone and the same internet speed for about $170 per month.

Now that Charter has merged with another company and become Charter-Spectrum, they repeatedly advertise great special price deals. "Come on down. Call now. Sign up!" But not for me. Not available in my area. Why? I was already a customer.

Learned if I drop cable TV for 30 days I can join again and get a "new customer" deal. So, I got a new internet modem and signed up for 60 whatever they are speed and kept my voip phone service for $20 per month so now my total bill will be about $85.

With 60 speed, Amazon Prime shows are going to play without me having to go and flip the internet modem and wireless router switches several times, sometimes as quickly as after playing for another 3 minutes or so, every time we try to watch anything. I guess this is streaming. Anyway, the Amazon content is much better than most of what we had in our basic package.... except I suppose I will miss the guy with the hair. You know. Ancient Alien Theorists??? Him. But not $100 per month worth. I can miss him for that much.

So I dug around under the house and found the old antenna (in the attic) coaxial cable and screwed it into the TV where the Cable had been. Turns out we get ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, Create (a version of PBS) and a bunch of other channels I'd never heard of for a total of 21 channels.

I watch PBS most of the time. Nature, Nova, Masterpiece Theater. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to record Downton Abbey and the like to DVDs? Looked up Tivo. Sounded great. You even have the ability to "instant rerun" for 8 seconds so you can see it again to figure out what the character really said! And then... you have to pay a subscription! And you have to pay the cable company a subscription too. I was seriously thinking about not paying the cable company any new money for watching TV. Supposedly one can watch all sorts of things over the internet these days. Perhaps especially with apps from Amazon?

Anyhoo, then I thought, since I've watched Amazon Prime shows on my computer monitor, and the computer has the capacity to burn up to 4k CD, DVD, BVD, UBDs, shouldn't it be possible to rig up a way to record/burn special shows using my computer and then perhaps watch them on the larger TV downstairs with my Oppo BluRay player? With a TV tuner card? Would that be possible?

rambling Paz

(Oh, my TV only has one co-ax cable IN. I have a Roku but no way to connect it with this TV which has fewer inputs than my last TV. Is there anything like a USB hub that can be used to connect more than one gizmo? Even if the source has to be switched?)

thanks..
Whatever you do, don't set your coffee cup adjacent to your turps cup. :CS:
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Re: Cut the cord. Tivo? PCI TV tuner card?

Postby Peru » Tue Feb 21, 2017 7:34 pm

Paz_Pazzaz wrote:
(Oh, my TV only has one co-ax cable IN. I have a Roku but no way to connect it with this TV which has fewer inputs than my last TV. Is there anything like a USB hub that can be used to connect more than one gizmo? Even if the source has to be switched?)

thanks..


Something like these?
https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=c ... x+splitter

We get rid of cable about 20 years ago for a combination of outside and inside antennas and a DVD player.
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Re: Cut the cord. Tivo? PCI TV tuner card?

Postby Chuck Engels » Tue Feb 21, 2017 9:42 pm

We dropped DirecTV about 2 years ago now, went with just an antenna, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Roku, Netflix and Sling at a cost well below the cost of satellite or cable. We have a couple Smart TVs with 1 coax input, 3 USB inputs and 3 HDMI inputs. We have a Roku USB stick that we move from TV to TV, other than that the antenna is connected to the coax input. Is your Roku device USB or Coax?

I used to record tv shows on my computer with a TV card a few years ago when I had Standard Definition Cable. Spent a lot of time researching which TV Card to get as there were many, some good and some terrible. The cards have changed drastically and you can record and watch shows using basically a dongle connected to a TV Signal. I had excellent results using an ATI TV Wonder, Hauppauge is another good brand for PC TV Tuners. This one has very good reviews https://www.amazon.com/Hauppauge-Digita ... 300WGTPCM0
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Re: Cut the cord. Tivo? PCI TV tuner card?

Postby TreeTopsRanch » Thu Feb 23, 2017 11:37 am

Still on slow DSL here in the boonies so no option to do what you'all suggest. Called our provider and they have no intent on increasing our broadband speed. Over-the-air broadcasts are not an option here either as the mountains block the signals.
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Re: Cut the cord. Tivo? PCI TV tuner card?

Postby Chuck Engels » Thu Feb 23, 2017 3:05 pm

We have Comcast cable internet 200mbps, pretty nice. We can stream anything, have 4 phones connected, 1 tablet, 3 TVs, 4 laptops and 2 desktops, the internet never slows down :TU:
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