# TV with no cable



## bootsie (Aug 30, 2010)

Hi Interested in SWITCHINg for good from paid cable to antenna.
I am about 3 kilometres from the CN tower in toronto so dont think access is an issue.

does anyone have a good link or name of someone who can install antenna? what is the cost pproximatly?


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## Sherlock (Apr 18, 2010)

Considering your location, you should be able to get all the local stations with just a good quality indoor antenna ($50). I live in North York (fairview mall area) and with my antenna I get all Toronto stations, plus 3 Buffalo ones (17-1 PBS, 7-1 ABC, and 23-1 CW). I think you should be able to get even more Buffalo stations.

Here is a good forum with lots of discussion about this topic: http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=81


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## the-royal-mail (Dec 11, 2009)

Just be careful as I believe most stations are required to convert their signals from analog to digital this year. There have been PSAs about this lately.

I don't see why you would want to do that though. You will be so limited as to your options. At least basic cable has a couple dozen channels to flip through without breaking the bank, just my opinion though.


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## jamesbe (May 8, 2010)

Royal mail, because for free he can get all those basic cable channels!

Any newer TV will have a digital tuner. I've recently switched to antenna built my own PVR out of a Mac mini, enjoying free TV! Cost me about $400 to build the PVR with 2 tuners and my TV can tune as well so I can record 2 shows and watch one live, all for free!


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## Sherlock (Apr 18, 2010)

the-royal-mail said:


> Just be careful as I believe most stations are required to convert their signals from analog to digital this year. There have been PSAs about this lately.


What exactly does he need to be careful about? Assuming he doesn't have an ancient TV without a digital tuner, there will be no problem.



> I don't see why you would want to do that though. You will be so limited as to your options. At least basic cable has a couple dozen channels to flip through without breaking the bank, just my opinion though.


Basic cable only gives him the channels he can get over the air for free, so I see no reason why anyone would get basic cable in Toronto. I get CBC, French CBC, CTV, Global, CH, Omni 1, Omni 2, City TV, Sun, TVO, ABC, PBS, CW, and plus some religious channels I never watch, all for free. And most of these channels broadcast at 1080i which is higher quality than cable. There is no reason to have basic cable unless you live somewhere where there are few or no local TV stations.


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## clovis8 (Dec 7, 2010)

If you already pay for internet paying for cable is a waste of money assuming you are not a massive TV watcher.

I use a Boxee Box and can watch pretty much watch any show I want without cable and whenever I want. It's legal too, not torrents. 

It cost $200 one time and no monthly fees.


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## Jungle (Feb 17, 2010)

jamesbe said:


> Royal mail, because for free he can get all those basic cable channels!
> 
> Any newer TV will have a digital tuner. I've recently switched to antenna built my own PVR out of a Mac mini, enjoying free TV! Cost me about $400 to build the PVR with 2 tuners and my TV can tune as well so I can record 2 shows and watch one live, all for free!


Wow that is amazing, how do you build a PVR from a mac? Is it easy?


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## trillian (Feb 3, 2011)

With a cheap pair of indoor rabbit ears ($7 at xscargo), I was able to get CBC, CTV, CHCH, Global, OMNI, CTS, and CityTV.

With a bigger homemade antenna on my balcony, I got a lot more American channels. ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, PBS.

Although the channels do fluctuate depending on weather, it's definitely worth the savings!

I've tried a few store bought antennas with no difference, so don't think you need the most expensive antennas out there. Buy and try!

Also, try getting an amplifier (i have 20 dbc) as that helped picking up the american channels!

I live in an apartment pretty high up, so that also helps


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## leoc2 (Dec 28, 2010)

clovis8 said:


> If you already pay for internet paying for cable is a waste of money assuming you are not a massive TV watcher.
> 
> I use a Boxee Box and can watch pretty much watch any show I want without cable and whenever I want. It's legal too, not torrents.
> 
> It cost $200 one time and no monthly fees.


Clovis,

Can you watch TV shows from ABC, NBC, CBS and FOX? The USA stations won't let you access content if you are in Canada. Do TV shows get stored into the Boxee box or does it get streamed from a website? If it is stored in Boxee it should be easier to pause/Fastforward.

Thanks


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## clovis8 (Dec 7, 2010)

leoc2 said:


> Clovis,
> 
> Can you watch TV shows from ABC, NBC, CBS and FOX? The USA stations won't let you access content if you are in Canada.


I can watch a lot of shows but not all. A few of the many I can watch;

Daily Show
weeds
top gear
mad men
Colbert
Criminal Minds
Pawn Stars
Greys Anatomy
Dancing with the Stars
Castle
Master Chef
Desperate Housewives
Conan
Deadliest Catch
Kitchen Nightmares
60 Minutes

There are way more



leoc2 said:


> Do TV shows get stored into the Boxee box or does it get streamed from a website? If it is stored in Boxee it should be easier to pause/Fastforward.
> 
> Thanks


It is all streaming. No storage. 



leoc2 said:


> If it is stored in Boxee it should be easier to pause/Fastforward.
> 
> Thanks


It is easy to FF and Rewind most content although to be fair this is sometimes a pain. 

Assuming you are willing to enter the still somewhat grey area of torrents then you can use the Boxee to watch every show on earth. Torrents are still legal in Canada, although this may change in the near future.


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## Sherlock (Apr 18, 2010)

clovis8 said:


> Torrents are still legal in Canada, although this may change in the near future.


Torrents will never be illegal in Canada. What is already illegal is downloading copyrighted material. The specific technology used to download it, whether it be torrents or anything else, is irrelevant.


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## clovis8 (Dec 7, 2010)

Sherlock said:


> Torrents will never be illegal in Canada. *What is already illegal is downloading copyrighted material.* The specific technology used to download it, whether it be torrents or anything else, is irrelevant.


I worded that poorly. What I meant is downloading copyright material is not clearly illegal in Canada at this point, as long as you are not the source. Your bolded part is mistaken. This is why no Canadians have been sued in Canada, or faced charges for P2P behavior (although a few have faced civil action in the US). 

No need to derail this thread though. This is not the place for this debate.


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## jamesbe (May 8, 2010)

Building a PvR can be easy enough. Wyeth for the mac is $99 install a tuner or two and you have a PVR in about ten minutes.

I went the complicated mythtv route which is free but took a lot more configuring in ubuntu but I got it all work with the ever important waf factor using a harmony remote. Basically using my PVR is just like using a standard cable box.


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## K-133 (Apr 30, 2010)

I bought a Boxee Box a year ago and have never looked back. It has its quirks, but I am satisfied.


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## the-royal-mail (Dec 11, 2009)

Here's what I was thinking about.

http://digitaltv.gc.ca/eng


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## bgc_fan (Apr 5, 2009)

You probably mean this page:
http://digitaltv.gc.ca/eng/1282825334983/1282825604404

It's not a big deal if your TV has a digital tuner. If not, you can always buy a digital access converter from Best Buy for $50.

Anyway, given that the OP is near the CN Tower, he should not have too much trouble getting digital and HD signals.

At any case, I am without cable and just stream things online with a computer hooked up to my TV. Nothing fancy, I just use Firefox to surf the web. Most of the Canadian channels offer shows on their website... for example, I have the following sites bookmarked: Global, CBC, CTV, CityTV, The Comedy Network, A&E, Spacecast, Showcase, Discovery, SpikeTV, TLC, TVTropolis, History Television, HGTV, and Crackle (Sony owned site with free movies and TV shows). 

They offer most shows, and you miss out on live sports (except for Hockey Night in Canada streamed on CBC). Also, on first run shows there is a delay of a day or so, but at least I watch it when I want to and not according to the TV guide.


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## jamesbe (May 8, 2010)

The digital transition is a Good thing not a bad one. And as pointed out if your tv is too old just buy a converter and you are set. Or take this opportunity to splurge n that big screen haha.


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## bootsie (Aug 30, 2010)

clovis8 said:


> If you already pay for internet paying for cable is a waste of money assuming you are not a massive TV watcher.
> 
> I use a Boxee Box and can watch pretty much watch any show I want without cable and whenever I want. It's legal too, not torrents.
> 
> It cost $200 one time and no monthly fees.


can you expaND ON THAT.. do you mean you just but this and connect to your Internet and can access free TV shows? in Canada?


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## clovis8 (Dec 7, 2010)

bootsie said:


> can you expaND ON THAT.. do you mean you just but this and connect to your Internet and can access free TV shows? in Canada?


Yep but your selection is obviously more limited. It basically gathers all the shows that all stations provide online into one place.


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## Bullseye (Apr 5, 2009)

What are you using to get all these free shows? Netflix/Hulu? O ris there something else I'm not aware of.


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## clovis8 (Dec 7, 2010)

Bullseye said:


> What are you using to get all these free shows? Netflix/Hulu? O ris there something else I'm not aware of.


The channels themselves host them. CBC cityTV Discovey etc.


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## K-133 (Apr 30, 2010)

clovis8 said:


> The channels themselves host them. CBC cityTV Discovey etc.


To clarify go to cbc.ca, ctv.ca, discoverychannel.ca and you'll see that most of their shows are available to stream for free from there. Boxee organizes all of that for into a neatly organized pile.

You can download the Boxee software for free to install on your PC if you prefer to try it out that way first.


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## Bullseye (Apr 5, 2009)

K-133 said:


> To clarify go to cbc.ca, ctv.ca, discoverychannel.ca and you'll see that most of their shows are available to stream for free from there. Boxee organizes all of that for into a neatly organized pile.
> 
> You can download the Boxee software for free to install on your PC if you prefer to try it out that way first.


Oh, I thought you needed a full HTPC set up to stream those TV webcasts onto your own TV, didn't realize Boxee did this. When I did some research early this year, Boxee had many bad reviews, maybe they've improved.

I ended up with the WD Live Plus, which I use to stream Netflix, and to watch TV and movies that friends give me on thumbdrives.

So given all this, is it even worth putting up an OTA antannae these days? If you just want some local TV for news, PBS, etc, and don't care about HD, might as well just get a Boxee or HTPC??


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## trillian (Feb 3, 2011)

I don't have boxee, but I do watch streamed tv and I also have OTA. 

I could live only on the streamed tv BUT it doesn't have everything and it doesn't look AS nice as OTAHD. Plus, depending on the website, I do get buffer issues from time to time. It's WELL worth the price (free) but more options you have the better. OTA does not have to be expensive to set up. Try just a pair of rabbit ears and see what you can get. If you can easily pick up CTV/CBC (those are my strongest signals), you might get more with a bigger/better antenna.


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## Guigz (Oct 28, 2010)

Dont forget that whatever you stream uses up your bandwidth. In essence, although you are not paying for the shows that you watch online, you still pay for them (through the nose I might add) by proxy of your internet connection.

I also see OTA as a way of saving on my internet bill. Whatever I watch on OTA I do not need to pay bandwidth for. 

I get (anyway, I should August 31st) about 13 channels in suprisingly good digital quality all for the cost of 1 antenna, one roll of cable and a pre-amplifier (optional). All in, it cost about 230$ for my setup, or, 4 months of paying for cable.


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## clovis8 (Dec 7, 2010)

Guigz said:


> Dont forget that whatever you stream uses up your bandwidth. In essence, although you are not paying for the shows that you watch online, you still pay for them (through the nose I might add) by proxy of your internet connection.


Huh? I don't know about everywhere but I pay $60/month have a 50/3 connection and have never hit a cap steaming and downloading a ton.


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## Guigz (Oct 28, 2010)

clovis8 said:


> Huh? I don't know about everywhere but I pay $60/month have a 50/3 connection and have never hit a cap steaming and downloading a ton.


Where do you live?

Around here I pay nearly 77$ for 30/2 with merely 120 GB of bandwidth. Its the best price I can get (read telecom duopoly).


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## clovis8 (Dec 7, 2010)

Guigz said:


> Where do you live?
> 
> Around here I pay nearly 77$ for 30/2 with merely 120 GB of bandwidth. Its the best price I can get (read telecom duopoly).


Calgary on shaw.


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## Bullseye (Apr 5, 2009)

Why do you need such fast connections? When I first started streaming, I was on a 3mbps connection, and it worked fine for Netflix. I upgraded to a 14 Mbps, but only because I thought I needed the 60G cap. We've been running around 30G/month since June, with 4 people in house, but TV watching in summer is light, I expect to get closer to cap when it gets cold out.

I'll likely switch to TekSavvy, which has a 5Mbps 300G cap service for $32/month, when my deal is up with current provider.


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## pablito (Apr 3, 2009)

jamesbe said:


> The digital transition is a Good thing not a bad one. And as pointed out if your tv is too old just buy a converter and you are set. Or take this opportunity to splurge n that big screen haha.


Hmmm... this depends on where you live. I'd probably feel the same if I where in Ottawa, but Moncton and other similar markets will be outright loosing the CBC and/or SRC (French) come August 31st. The CBC has decided to only upgrade its analog transmitters to digital in cities where they have a studio. Combined with the fact that the CRTC still wants the analog signal shutdown in that market means... oops, no more CBC. In Moncton, we're somewhat luckier than others in that we do have a French studio which means we'll get SRC upgraded to digital, but other markets (like St-John) will be without both.


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## Guigz (Oct 28, 2010)

Bullseye said:


> Why do you need such fast connections? When I first started streaming, I was on a 3mbps connection, and it worked fine for Netflix.


I dont need a fast connection persay. I was on Teksavvy 5m/512k 300 GB plan until a little while ago. 

This plan was fine until I decided to switch to VoIP exclusively. I was unable to sync my line at anything over 3m/128K meaning that if anything at all was using the network, I would be unable to have a normal conversation over the phone (the other person would not hear what I said). 

The main problem was that the upstream was not nearly fast enough.

Where I live, there is Bell, Bell resellers and there is one cable provider. Switching to another Bell reseller or Bell itself would not have made any difference since they would not be able to do anything about the signal quality (I would be stuck on the same plan).

This meant I had to go with cable. Cable SPEED is fine even with the lowest plan hovewer, the bandwidth allowed sucks very badly (20 Gb or something ridiculous of the sort). The only plan that combined both the bandwidth and speed I needed is the one I selected.


Sorry for going offtopic, I felt this deserved an explanation.


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## joncnca (Jul 12, 2009)

i haven't had cable for...6 years now. last year after buying a new house with my (now) wife, we got 46" lcd tv and i built a home theatre pc. invested my money in a good wireless router (for a couple of laptops around the house) and decent internet access, there is so much to watch online that i can't even get to it all...granted i've got lots of other things on the go, but there's lots of decent content to stream online. 

my personal favourites are TED talks, CBC, some of the other canadian major TV stations provide their content online, RADIO is pretty entertaining over the internet, and if you have a particular interest, there are some subscription services that charge a pretty reasonable fee that will provide you with more than enough content on a given topic. all of this, i find much more preferable to paying for cable...and really, i personally haven't found there to be much worthwhile content on cable TV....a bevy of 2nd rate reality shows...jersey shore and other mind numbing garbage (sorry if i've offended anyone who likes this stuff) =)


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## Toronto.gal (Jan 8, 2010)

joncnca said:


> jersey shore and other mind numbing garbage (sorry if i've offended anyone who likes this stuff) =)


You certainly didn't offend me as I don't watch any of it and precisely the reason we cancelled cable recently as well, though we should have done so a decade ago. 

The popularity of those 'mind numbing garbage' is stupefying. 

Congratulations on the new house/wife.


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## joncnca (Jul 12, 2009)

Toronto.gal said:


> Congratulations on the new house/wife.


Thank you very much!


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## SavingMentor (Dec 19, 2010)

Sorry guys, I'm very late in joining this party but I just came across this topic while browsing the forums and figured I could add to this discussion.

Late last year I wrote a guide to free internet TV for Canadians.

I also put together a detailed article on how to save money on TV that includes things like over the air TV, Netflix, cheap rental options, and negotiating with your service provider among others.

I've been using an HTPC for more than a year now and it has been fantastic! Unfortunately, Hulu in particular has been getting worse in that they are starting to charge for some of the content now. Fortunately it can all be accessed through other sites - it's just that Hulu was so convenient and they have the best video player that produces the best quality.


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## SavingMentor (Dec 19, 2010)

I've written a couple of good articles on this subject and wanted to link to them here because I think they are very relevant. Unfortunately, the forums think I'm a spammer and I don't think my posts will be approved by a moderator.

I haven't had cable for many years and have been using a home theater PC to stream legal TV from the internet for at least a couple of years now. I've seen the Canadian networks improve their websites from their infancy when they were practically unusable until now when almost all of them provide a high quality stream with a fully functional media player.

Unfortunately, I'm not in an area that can receive any digital channels over the air otherwise I would have done that a long time ago as well!

*Edit: looks like my posts were eventually approved.*


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## jamesbe (May 8, 2010)

I made a video today of my OTA PVR setup.

Mistakenly I held the phone vertically instead of horizontally so it kind sucks but it's 1080p so you can blow it up.

Here Is the video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qxZYOZjiMw

Here is a second easier to see video with slightly less jabbering
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkb8j1ykM6I


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