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Pros and Cons of Going OTA

339K views 705 replies 233 participants last post by  jsebean 
#1 · (Edited)
If I could I would drop my BEV subscription and go 100% OTA and save the monthly fee. We seldom watch specialty channels anymore, and about the only thing I'd miss would be the time shifting DVR capability on HD channels and the CFL in HD when TSN starts their promised coverage. By going 100% OTA my gear (I'd have to buy an OTA tuner since I use my BEV 6100 for that) would pay for itself in about a year.

Are you ready to go 100% OTA? What are your reasons, for and against?
 
#609 ·
I'm definitely saving money by going OTA. My cable bill was approximately $76.00 per month. I have been OTA for 25 months, so have saved $1900.00. My equipment cost so far is about $200.00, for a net savings of $1700.00 just on cable. I already had unlimited internet with TekSavvy, so no changes there. I switched my land line to them as well, and shaved about $12.00 per month off my bill. I took a look at the usage of my cell phone, and downgraded my plan for a further savings of $15.00 per month. Over the 25 month period this is a further savings of $675.00 for land line and cell. Total saved altogether by doing this is $103.00 per month for a total so far of $2375.00. I'm happy I made the changes, and the money is better in my pocket than theirs.
 
#610 ·
In a typical household with several HD TV's, you're definitely saving money.

Consider the cost of the service, plus the rental or purchase of STB's that allow you to view HD programming. Most providers then have a nominal monthly "digital service fee", etc.

BDU's tell you their basic HD channels are free, but that's not including the aforementioned fees and equipment costs.

Your HD TV already has a digital tuner built in...
 
#611 ·
Well, in my case I'm saving money. Instead of Shaw Internet + Phone + TV I have:

- Shaw Internet (they've got the best internet service in Canada)
- OTA TV (plus streaming video services)
- VoIP.ms phone (very inexpensive, very configurable)

Sure, unbundled internet costs $15 more than getting a "triple play" package, and when I price in the cheapest possible TV and Phone plan, I'm still saving $25/month.

My girlfriend and I are "dual income, no kids" and aren't very price sensitive, so it isn't saving the $25/month that is really attractive about not using Shaw for TV and Phone. The reason I don't use Shaw for these services is that what I use instead is substantially better than Shaw's offerings.

Since this isn't the VoIP forum I won't go into the ways that VoIP.ms is better than Shaw's phone service. I'll just say that I find it to be far more configurable.

OTA channels are a unencrypted high quality signal that I can do with what I please (read: use a HTPC). If I were to use Shaw I could either use their STBs that have a user interface from 1990, or the new Gateway device that apparently is extremely buggy - and much less capable than the HTPC setup that I am using today.
 
#613 ·
Yep... HD Cable is typically $70 a month or so including box rental, taxes, service fees, etc. etc. etc. Maybe $50-60 after bundling discounts. OTA is free apart from equipment costs (which can be recouped be reselling if you want to at a later date).

Wish there was more OTA in the Calgary area or I'd still be on it. Now I've got an HTPC with 2.5 Tb of storage space and two tuner cards sitting doing nothing. It's a waste... :confused:
 
#615 ·
^^^Not necessarily. Here in Ottawa we have 14 different stations broadcasting locally (8 English, 4 French and 2 multicultural), which gives us lots to choose from. Adding US stations would give us a bit more programming (especially PBS), but we don't have time to watch all that we do record.
 
#617 ·
I must admit Calgary OTA viewers are relatively disadvantaged.
For a city of our size, we have relatively few conventional OTA stations: Only six DTV OTA stations in English and one analog in French. (And our great distance from the U.S. border doesn't help. No U.S. nets is definitely a "con" for many.)
Winnipeg — with a little more than half our population — has five English and one French, all digital.
Quebec City — with about the same population as Winnipeg — has five French and two English, mostly digital.
Ottawa has extra choice because there are French channels thrown into the mix; Toronto because of its proximity to U.S. stations; Montreal for both those reasons.
 
#618 ·
You can receive at least one American station in Ottawa. I'd say that gives it a consideration as a somewhat-border region.
 
#623 ·
Most people in Ottawa don't have a hope of receiving any American broadcasts because central Ottawa is in a depression and a hill south of the city blocks LOS. My comments were base on the assumption it isn't receivable.

Calgary at least has more local stations as most broadcasts here are repeaters from Toronto or Montreal.
 
#620 ·
Not true. Queen Victoria was given two options: Kingston or Ottawa. And for reasons that she kept to herself, she chose Ottawa.
 
#621 ·
What - you can't trust what you read on the internet!

first, it was the only settlement of any significant size located right on the border of Canada East and Canada West (Quebec/Ontario border today), making it a compromise between the two colonies and their French and English populations; second, the War of 1812 had shown how vulnerable major Canadian cities were to American attack, since they were all located very close to the border while Ottawa was (then) surrounded by a dense forest far from the border;
 
#624 ·
I watched probably about 75% american networks when I lived in Grimsby. PBS for Nova and Nature, the major networks for football, simpsons, family guy, etc.

Girlfriend watched a lot of shows on the CW... Pretty much only watched CBC for Jeopardy, and Hockey night in Canada. It's so bad in Calgary we actually subscribe to cable/optical TV here! :eek:
 
#627 ·
Still a trickle of folks going to OTA?

I was recently in touch with a friend in Olds, AB. He has recently asked for help in switching to OTA (reception from Calgary) having heard from his brother about the improved quality of signal over satelite and cable in Edmonton. He complains about poor value for money of the paid services.
 
#630 ·
Yes - Stampeder - my friend will try firstly using a 40 foot mast and antenna with a 15-6 db gain directional UHF antenna with CM7777 Mast head preamp. We will see what this will do. The CTV Technical Director in Calgary says this as necessary equipment. I do hear that some folks have tried it (from as far as Red Deer) and achieved a picture. Do you think that a Gray Hoverman antenna may help?

Congrats on your recovery by the way!
 
#631 ·
I'm pleased with my OTA setups. I'm reliably recording all 6 digital channels off a HD Home Run in Calgary, and I'm getting 5 digital channels at a 2 edge location outside Edmonton. I've had to give up my weakest UHF outside Edmonton so I can turn my antenna to get the two VHF channels.

Punching in a generic postal code for olds into tv fool, I think your friend has a pretty good shot at getting Calgary, with all the channels broadcasting from one location. Olds looks to have a very similar tv fool report as my Edmonton install.
 
#632 ·
Answering the original question from nearly 7 years ago:
Are you ready to go 100% OTA? What are your reasons, for and against?
I have gone 100% OTA. I did so in July 2010 after DirecTV gave me yet another $3/mo fee increase. This put my fees for a single TV with a single DVR to over $65/mo. The *ONLY* way to reduce this price was to cut out DirecTV entirely.

I bought a $600 TiVo (hardware + lifetime subscription) and an $80 antenna, which paid for themselves in about 10 months. I live near Charlotte, NC and get roughly 40 channels OTA, including CBS and FOX from the next market over. This latter is an advantage as an NFL fan, because when the Panthers play home games, the Charlotte market is only allowed to broadcast the Panthers game. But Greensboro does not have this restriction. So when that happens, I get additional games that I wouldn't get via dish or cable.

I supplement my OTA with a cable modem from Time Warner, which enables me to get netflix. I also purchased two 1TB disks to install into my linux home server, on which I run pyTivo and streambaby. This allows me to rip all of my DVDs and store them on my server. I can then play them back on my TiVo, using the TiVo interface.

I miss ESPN, NFL network and Fox sports. But those are the only real advantage that I get from subscribing to a pay tv service, and they're not worth $65+/mo. I'd happily pay $10/mo for an NFL network subscription. But that's not an option that the payTV subscribers would allow, I think.

If I were to do it again, I'd ditch the $80 antenna and build a gray hoverman. The TiVo would now cost about $500, meaning I could have cut my upfront costs by about $160. But in the intervening time, I've more than made up for it. Long and short: I'm very happy with my decision and would have an even greater incentive to do it today. In fact, I've helped a few friends cut their cords as well, with two other friends considering it.
 
#633 ·
PRO:
  • My reasons for going OTA are so simple it's crazy. No...that IS the reason -it's crazy not to!
  • Extended Basic for 1 TV has risen over the years where it now costs me $73.09 every month including taxes. That's $877.08 every year.
  • That's ridiculous but now Rogers is raising it to $76.52 including taxes. That's $918.24 per year!
  • My $100 CM4228 will be installed as soon as I can safely (and warmly) find time to get up on the roof. My preliminary test, facing it out a ground floor window got me over 20 channels, most in spectacular HD.
  • With my first year's $900 savings I will probably purchase another TV...hello economy?
  • Saving at least 1 hour per TV watching session staring at the EPG.
  • No 400 year old EPG that takes 2 minutes and 24 seconds to go through all the channels one time.
  • Like I said, it's crazy not to.
CON:
  • I might miss the clock box.
  • What could I ever spend $900 on every year after the first year?
  • What could I possibly do with an extra hour?
 
#634 ·
I went OTA 5 years ago. For the first 3 years I was quite satisfied with it. So much so that if it wasn't for my wife enjoying the specialty channels not available, I would have cancelled my Bell TV. In fact 4 people on my street went OTA right after I did, on my reccomendation. A further 2 years on I would not consider cancelling Bell and might well take down my OTA setup. My channel reception is far less reliable than it use to be. My whole system has been checked and everything is fine. No I don't have any new trees or buildings blocking things. The final straw is the change CBC made about 6 weeks ago that causes stuttering on non live events. This has been documented in the Toronto OTA status thread. I find it hard to believe that CBC doesn't know what changes were made. Maybe they don't know why it affects certain tuners but something went on and it would be nice if they at least acknowledged that. To me that indicates they really don't care about the small group that uses the OTA signal. To be honest from a business point why should they. I will give it a while yet but if things don't change bye bye OTA. As a hobby maybe it is ok. If you want to count on being able to watch,forget it. I don't even notice that big a difference in picture quality and sometimes I can't see it at all. It was fun while it lasted.
 
#635 ·
bman72s,

You're probably using the wrong pre-amp. I have the same one. Since I have a rotator, when I get overload, I can steer away from the problems. You're stuck with a fixed aim single antenna and overload especially during the summers.

From reading your post, it highlights to me that one of the cons of OTA is that you have to spend the time and money needed to do the setup right or OTA will be frustrating. Once everything works though, it becomes free and enjoyable.

Given that OTA is a free give-away from the TV stations, the only ones that you reward by getting angry at OTA and giving it up are the BDUs and the TV stations themselves.
 
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