On 28 Jan 2021, Ogg said the following...

I believe that was Aereo - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aereo

Whereas TiVo did the reverse - requiring the subscriber to have
set-top boxes to manage the programming.

What's interesting is that TiVo acquired Aereo's assets after they filed for bankruptcy. I wonder if they did anything with those assets, or basically just

bought them to shut them down.

I only get Global OTA (and it's not the HD digital version),
from my antenna facing east - the signal is never consistant
quality. I barely get CTV2 (Barrie) - it's the snowyiest, but
with the antenna "stuck" in the East position, that is to be
expected.

We have two antennas stacked. One facing the CN Tower and the other facing the

US. CTV is the hardest to get & keep whereas the other channels almost always work. That's the beauty of digital TV, it's usually "all or nothing" but there

are sometimes where the picture with pixelate, but usually few & far between.

Many years ago I purchased a DVR-HDD tuner/machine. Its tuner
turned out to be better than the default one in the tv at the
time. Its "live" time-shifting feature was/is very cool.

We almost never watch live TV anymore, the Tablo records the shows we want to watch and and then we can skip the commercials. You can subscribe to a service

that will automatically skip the commercials for you for CA$30/US$20 per year, but I can do that myself for free & the Apple TV makes it easy enough to do.

Plus, that price bothers me because Tablo is a Canadian company and at today's exchange rate US$20 = CA$25.44, so why are they charging us CA$30?

https://www.tablotv.com/tablo-premium-service/


Jay

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/01/26 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: Northern Realms

On 31 Jan 2021, Ogg said the following...

I remember visiting tvfool.com years ago. What a great resource!
It is amazing how they can aggregate all the antenna locations,
the topology info and produce a list based on any location you
give it.

Here is my result: URL: https://susepaste.org/86100197

Being closer to Toronto & Buffalo my list is a touch longer... ;)

https://susepaste.org/32fed849

I have this baby parked outside next to the house:

URL: https://susepaste.org/37169065

A family I knew when I was a teenager moved to North Bay & their house came with one of these. This was before the days of StarChoice & ExpressVu. I remember being fascinated with the receiver & how the dish actually moved when tuning to different stations.

It worked quit well. But the receiver sucked a lot of juice and
ran fairly hot even when off.

Our Tablo DVR is actually uncomfortably to touch. There must be something about TV tuners that generates a lot of heat. When we first got it we contacted support asking if it was supposed to be that way, and indeed it is.

There's a lot of free OTA out there - a mix of analog and
digital. I think people seemed to give up on traditional VHF/
UHF antennas too soon IMHO, swayed by the seduction of greater
things from satellite TV and cable.

We're not into sports at all, so I'm not missing out on any specialty channels for that. I know a few people at work who have cable solely for sports content.

It did seem a lot of people just gave up on antennas after the conversion from analogue to digital.


Jay

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/01/30 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: Northern Realms

Hello Warpslide!

** On Friday 29.01.21 - 15:39, Warpslide wrote to Ogg:

I believe that was Aereo - https://en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/Aereo

Whereas TiVo did the reverse - requiring the subscriber to
have set-top boxes to manage the programming.

What's interesting is that TiVo acquired Aereo's assets
after they filed for bankruptcy. I wonder if they did
anything with those assets, or basically just bought them to
shut them down.

I'm not sure how those things work out, but the options depend
on whether the outgoing company is LLC, or incorporated, or any
number of other things. Maybe TiVo agreed to pay off the debts
if they could get some of Aereo's equiment or other assets.

We have two antennas stacked. One facing the CN Tower and
the other facing the US. CTV is the hardest to get & keep
whereas the other channels almost always work. That's the
beauty of digital TV, it's usually "all or nothing" but
there are sometimes where the picture with pixelate, but
usually few & far between.

Yeah.. there is no middle-ground for digital. When it's good,
it's really good! When there is not enough signal, it's dark.

I was under the impression that the Global-TV CIII-2 (channel 2)
station not far from my location was phasing over to digital, or
that it was already partially digital, but it does not seem to
be the case. I wouldn't be able to get it anyway since the OTA
digital stuff resides in the UHF bands, and my outdoor tower
antenna has never picked up anything in that band.

Many years ago I purchased a DVR-HDD tuner/machine.. ..Its
"live" time-shifting feature was/is very cool.

We almost never watch live TV anymore, the Tablo records the
shows we want to watch and and then we can skip the
commercials.

It was very liberating to just zip through the commercials on
OTA recorded programs.

I never heard of the Tablo before. Sounds impressive, since it
acts as a kind of server to feed the different programs it has
recorded to *any* device in the household.

Can you record multiple shows that are broadcasting in the same
time-slot?

Plus, that price bothers me because Tablo is a Canadian
company and at today's exchange rate US$20 = CA$25.44, so
why are they charging us CA$30?

The exchange rate is so fickle. Around this time of year last
year the CDN exchange rate was more than 1.5 times the USD.
It's hovering at about 1.35 for a long time now. Companies just
want to simplify those charges.


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* Origin: Ogg's Dovenet Point (723:320/1.9)
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Hello Warpslide!

** On Sunday 31.01.21 - 17:42, Warpslide wrote to Ogg:

Being closer to Toronto & Buffalo my list is a touch longer... ;)

https://susepaste.org/32fed849

Only 4 analog (VHF), and the rest digital (UHF). Just as I
thought.

That is a tonne of channels to flip through! You have no excuse
to be bored. Or.. there's a popular rock song that goes
something like "200 channels and nothing on".

I have this baby parked outside next to the house:

URL: https://susepaste.org/37169065

...I remember being fascinated with the receiver & how the
dish actually moved when tuning to different stations.

It's just a simple arc that follows the row of satellites in the
geo synchronus orbit line. I found it interesting to watch
too. During a storm, we found it useful to turn the dish so as
to minimize getting pulled out of alignment too much. The
mechanism and attachments were rock solid for the most part,
but sometimes it stuggled to stay steady during especially high
winds. I think over time, the alignment just got worse and
worse - by then, all the satellites were feeding scrambled
signals. I ripped out the cables going into the house, and
plugged up the hole, as some wasps seemed to be enjoying the
open access.

Our Tablo DVR is actually uncomfortably to touch. There
must be something about TV tuners that generates a lot of
heat. When we first got it we contacted support asking if
it was supposed to be that way, and indeed it is.

Hmmm.. is there a fan inside?

..I think people seemed to give up on traditional VHF/UHF
antennas too soon IMHO, swayed by the seduction of greater
things from satellite TV and cable.

We're not into sports at all, so I'm not missing out on any
specialty channels for that. I know a few people at work
who have cable solely for sports content.

Yes.. sports seems to be a party/gathering favourite.

It did seem a lot of people just gave up on antennas after
the conversion from analogue to digital.

And imagine all the people who could be enjoying completely free
OTA HDTV if they held on to their UHF antennas.

There was this whole media bliz about OTA analog tv going dead
(which was partially true), but they did not report that the
digital versions could be obtained with existing UHF.

--- OpenXP 5.0.48
* Origin: Ogg's Dovenet Point (723:320/1.9)
þ Synchronet þ CAPCITY2 * capcity2.synchro.net * Telnet/SSH:2022/Rlogin/HTTP

On 31 Jan 2021, Ogg said the following...

I never heard of the Tablo before. Sounds impressive, since it
acts as a kind of server to feed the different programs it has
recorded to *any* device in the household.

That was the initial appeal of it to us. We really didn't want to have yet another HDMI device connected to the TV. With the Tablo we only use the Apple TV to watch anything & everything we want. OTA TV? Tablo App. The Mandalorian? Disney+. Stranger Things? Netflix.

Can you record multiple shows that are broadcasting in the same time-slot?

Yup, they have 2 & 4 tuner models. We have the 4 tuner model because at the time we had 3 shows that were on at the same time.


Jay

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/01/30 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: Northern Realms