Question about cable/streaming/Sling TV

Get an antenna. The HD picture you can get over the air with an antenna from the local CBS, ABC, Fox, etc. is amazing.


A good one will run you about $50-$100. I think there's a thread on the Tech board for determining which antenna is best for your area/proximity to the TV towers.

Cbs puts all of their SEC games on their website to watch for free. You get the same annoying commercials every single break but it's all free. HDMI plug your laptop into the tv and you're set.

For the Digital Antennae, you need to put your address into a couple of services.

TV Fool

Antennaweb

They'll be able to tell you what stations you'll pick up with an Antennae. They'll also tell you whether a set top antennae will suffice or whether you're going to have to run something to your attic or roof.

Another option is US TV Now, which is a site intended for soldiers living overseas. It provides free streaming of network television. You just need to sign up for an account on the web. Not sure if Roku has an app for it or not, as I use Kodi/XBMC which does.

Cutting cable is liberating.

I find it crazy that xbmc is now being used to stream video. I remember having it uh my original modded Xbox. It was amazing, and basically what Microsoft ripped off when designing the Xbox 360 interface

XBMC (now rebranded as Kodi to shed its Xbox origins) is extremely powerful with a huge community around it. The amount of free development occurring for it is pretty mindblowing. I'm currently running it on a Gbox MX2 Midnight, but I may grab either a Google Nexus Player or a FireTV soon to run it as I'm not crazy about the video acceleration on the Gbox. Anyway, between the 1Channel and Genesis addons, I can watch pretty much any television show or movie I want to. Sportsdevil does an okay job for streaming live sports, but it's not always reliable and streams can be pretty poor quality.

My main problem with it is that my wife/kids have no freaking clue how to run it. So if I'm out of town, they're stuck with basically Netflix and Amazon Instant on the WiiU.

If you can use Plex, you can figure out XBMC.

It will integrate with your Plex server as well. You will need something to run it on, yes. You can use everything from a Raspberry Pi to an old AppleTV to a $500 PC.

Most people are pretty high on the FireTV integration (and it only costs $100). You just have to sideload XBMC onto it, which is pretty easy. There are tons of tutorials out there for everything, and a large community that is very helpful.

That being said, if you're a plug and play guy and don't like tinkering with stuff, it might not be for you. It definitely requires some setup and commitment to get things finetuned to your personal preferences.