The future of streaming and password sharing

[Spider-Dan]

Nowadays, you can't get broadcast television without a cable service.  

I am doing it (in HD) right as I type this sentence, and I haven't had cable service since 2007.

edit: Big 10 conference championship game, Ohio State vs. Illinois

[Phishfan]

Nowadays, you can't get broadcast television without a cable service. 

Wrong

[ArtieChokePhin]

I am doing it (in HD) right as I type this sentence, and I haven't had cable service since 2007.

edit: Big 10 conference championship game, Ohio State vs. Illinois

Wrong

So how is it done then? 

[mecadonzilla]

I don’t have cable. I just have a cheap digital antenna that I got a Walmart. Works just fine. I can watch all the broadcast channels and even a lot of extra subchannels that can be picked up with the digital antenna.

[Spider-Dan]

So how is it done then?  

This is the antenna that I have mounted to my roof:



I get about 60 channels, though some of the farther ones have spotty reception; I'd say a couple dozen are consistent and reliable.  Of those, roughly 1/3rd are HD.

Most HDTVs have built-in digital tuners, but in my case, I use a device called a HDHomerun that connects to my antenna and plugs in to my network.  With that, I can watch broadcast TV from any computer, newer game console, HTPC, tablet, or phone connected to my network.

[Dave Gray]

I also have broadcast TV without cable.  I have an HD antenna in my attic, run down through my cable lines.

[Pappy13]

I use one all the time, without any of the problems you describe.  It's called "broadcast television," and it was the only service available for the first several decades of TV's existence.

The idea that customers have to directly pay for a service to be viable is untrue.  I've never paid for a Google search, or for YouTube, or for the vast majority of websites I visit (thanks, Dave!).   There is a model to make this kind of stuff work.

Agreed, but there are limitations. You need to be close enough to a city that broadcasts and you can only view what they are broadcasting. Not sure you can really compare that to the streaming services which provide a much larger selection of content of higher quality to a larger audience. As I said, you get what you pay for.

[Pappy13]

I get most of my music using a similar system, I also get news and sports when driving this way.  It is an even older technology called “radio”

It's funny because my daughter and I were just discussing this in the car the other day when taking her to work. She was trying to find a radio station that played contemporary pop music and she couldn't find any. Where I live there are absolutely zero radio stations that broadcast that content. There are pop stations, but even those tend to have a wide selection of pop music rather then the new artists that you can find on Spotify for instance. The world is changing and young adults are changing their viewing and listening habits and the world is adjusting to that. It's only going to continue.