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Comment by mikestew | Hacker News Reader

Needs a (2020), and that's just when it was last updated. Because the whole way down the page I was wondering, "what decade was this written?"

I was also wondering why it should be an "adventure". Yeah, back when we cut the cord some fifteen years ago, things were a bit rough. Mac Mini with a tuner dongle, and a bunch of hacks. Now it's just turn on AppleTV that outputs to unconnected TV, sorted. (Or sail the high seas if my money is inexplicably no good.)

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Yeah, I think if the article was written today it would just be an exercise in spinning up the typical Usenet piracy stack with Plex or Jellyfin.

What I do think was true back then and is even more true today is that this kind of effort just isn’t worth it. Antenna channels absolutely suck except for the increasingly rare sports events that haven’t been moved to pay TV. And that sucky experience gets even worse if you don’t live in a large metro area close to the broadcast antennas.

Television isn’t even enjoyable enough to go through all this effort. I’d rather just not watch TV at all. And honestly, I think a significant number of former TV customers may have made that exact choice - not just cutting the cord but finding other activities entirely. Gaming comes to mind, which I immensely prefer over basically any television show.

Another little note, I think a lot of cable and streaming providers have done a good job resolving the issue of streaming bitrate being inferior to antenna bitrate. My local OTA market has a grand total of one 4K demo channel and everything else is broadcasting at a bitrate that appears inferior to modern streaming platforms.

> What I do think was true back then and is even more true today is that this kind of effort just isn’t worth it. Antenna channels absolutely suck except for the increasingly rare sports events that haven’t been moved to pay TV.

I don’t watch much, but at the cost, I get enough value out of watching basically just olympic and election coverage.

Yes, There are only so many re-runs of Walker Texas Ranger. I've seen them all dozens of times on OTA TV ;)

I agree with you about gaming, Twitch and YouTube as being replacements for mindless/relaxing viewing.

Funny, I was thinking that pay TV just sucks these days. Maybe we're both right though.

For reference, I just pointed my antenna in the attic towards the nearest metropolis, picked up 108 channels, sent them to an HDHomeRun box that sends them to Plex which handles the guide data and DVR to an SMB share.

It took a couple hours in the evening, most of which was just fiddling with the antenna mount and scanning the channels. It’s a lot easier than it used to be. Granted I planned and ran ethernet to the attic years earlier, but it’s not rocket science.

How does ethernet to the attic help with this?

The versions of HDHomeRun that support 4K only have ethernet for networking. This has been a limiting factor for me in terms of reception.

Nothing a $40 wifi-Ethernet module couldn't patch up.

The coax and the network have to meet somewhere and for this person (maybe no existing coax runs in the house or to the attic?) it was easier to have them meet in the attic instead of say in a utility room or closet.

I think the only concern might be subjecting the HDHomeRun to attic temperatures in the summer.

Yes, that is where I am confused. Surely, attic temperatures are not ideal for the HDHomeRun device.

I was concerned by this and humidity also, two summers in (one extra hot) and no issues yet. It even handles the MPEG2 transcoding locally for good measure.

In a signal limited environment somewhat far from the local metropolis the coax run from the attic to wherever can make the difference between channel and no channel, fixed most simply by bringing the box to the attic. There are alternatives that sometimes work.

I ended up running coax to my network cabinet and put the HDHR there, because my attic gets significantly hotter than the maximum rated operating temperature of the HDHR.

I'm also long-term concerned about how Plex as a company is moving away from its server product and towards FAST (free, ad-supported TV), a feature I almost never use. I'd love to see Jellyfin get some equivalent features.

Yeah I am definitely not a fan of the new Plex app either

I did the same. Digital antenna in the attic with a coax to my cabinet in the basement. Been working great for years, although I don't use it for much beyond watching the bears play live.

I'm also quite displeased with plex's new direction. Would love to see some real competition.

Mac Mini(s) connected to my TVs since 2007 ... prior to finding a Mac Mini I connected PCs to TVs to enjoy all things ;-) on the Internet from a couch or place where you sleep. I do have a one Roku TV as it's a shared TV.

Finding eDonkey2000 (2002) and then later BitTorrent prompted me to connect computers to TVs. Nowadays I very, very rarely watch pirated webstreams (totally legal) just YouTube almost always; rarely use my HBO Max or Disney subscriptions. Got them again recently only because they offered a $2.99 deal. Will cancel them once they go to full price!

The studios need to put everything on YouTube it will continue to take share away from them! Im so use to watching 10 to 15 minutes clips cause of YouTube that i have hard time watching long format content unless it's in a social setting and Im old-ish lol

Yes, since I got my first TV (in 2013) I've had Mac Minis connected via HDMI, and the Minis also being the file server and BitTorrent downloading machine. Prior to that, downloaded to my MacBook or watched on YouTube.

There was never a cord for me to cut (and I refused to pay for cable when in uni since I downloaded everything anyway).

Now just have the Mini in the closet and serving files via SMB to an AppleTV connected to the TV HDMI.

Yeah, reads like my adventures in ... 2005 or so?

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