I switched to an over-the-air TV antenna. I remorse nothing
After years of watching—and paying for—so-called “peak TV” on the likes of Netflix, Apple TV+, and HBO Max, my eyeballs have been beginning to glaze over.
Positive, I really like The Crown, Mindhunter, and Hacks, however true streaming gems are usually few and much between. (Sure, I do know, I must stream Severance. I’ll get to it!)
All too typically, the most recent status reveals with these marquee stars and the terrific, shiny trailers turn into bloated bores, and so they’ve all began to really feel the identical. Life is simply too quick.
Worst of all, I used to be throwing away $20 or extra each month on streaming companies I wasn’t actually having fun with—and don’t even get me began in regards to the value hikes. Couldn’t I put that money to higher use?
Time for a change
That’s when the concept of switching to an over-the-air antenna started percolating. For the price of roughly two months of Netflix, I might buy and set up a (small) yard TV antenna that may beam dozens of free over-the-air channels to my tv, without cost.
And a number of the free TV reveals being broadcast proper now are fairly engaging. Topping the record in our family was Abbott Elementary, a quick and humorous sitcom that boasts snappy writing, characters you care about, and a svelte 22-minute operating time, that means no self-indulgent filler. Why pay for Abbott on Hulu once I might get it over-the-air without cost?
Now I’ve greater than 60 free TV channels to select from.
Ben Patterson/Foundry
Then there’s the matter of establishing an over-the-air DVR, which—for me, anyway—is the place Plex got here in. In addition to being a streaming video service and a house media server, Plex may work as a self-hosted DVR when you use a supported TV tuner, supplying you with the advantages of free over-the-air TV plus DVR performance.
I already had a Plex media server operating on a Raspberry Pi 5, however I’d by no means bothered to set it up as a DVR, particularly as a result of a) I lacked a TV tuner, and b) I didn’t have a TV antenna. It was time to rectify these points.
Gathering the tools
For the antenna, I confronted a couple of obstacles. For higher or worse, I don’t personal a suburban house with an antenna-friendly roof; as an alternative, my household and I lease a ground-floor residence in a brick-and-mortar Brooklyn brownstone, with zero reception indoors. Fortunately, we do have a small again yard, and I used to be capable of set up a $38 GE out of doors antenna that faces the published towers in Manhattan. (Take a look at our suggestions for the perfect TV antennas.)
Subsequent, I wanted to decide on a TV tuner. As a result of I wished to pair my antenna with Plex, I wanted to purchase a tuner that’s appropriate with Plex’s DVR performance. Plex helps TV tuners from AVerMedia, Hauppauge, SiliconDust, and VBox, that are all strong selections.
Finally, I went with SiliconDust’s $110 dual-tuner HDHomeRun Flex Duo, primarily on the energy of our evaluate of the pricier Flex 4K. (The latter is a $200 four-tuner unit that helps the brand new ATSC 3.0 broadcast TV commonplace, which remains to be struggling to achieve momentum.)
Making the connection
Connecting the HDHomeRun field to Plex was a snap. As soon as the HDHomeRun was related to my community through ethernet, Plex detected the gadget in just some clicks, and shortly it was scanning for out there channels. As soon as the scan was full, I wound up with a group of 66 (!) stations, most of which I by no means knew existed.
Plex presents a full-on digital programming information, and it’s also possible to search or browse by TV present, film title, style, or channel. Simply click on an upcoming present to report it, or begin watching reside TV that you may pause or rewind.
There’s a catch, although. Like most different self-hosted DVR suppliers, Plex’s programming information isn’t free; as an alternative, it’s included in a paid Plex Go subscription, which received hit with a considerable value hike again in March. Following the worth enhance, Plex Go prices $7 a month (up from $5/month), $70 a yr (up from $40/yr), or $250 for a lifetime subscription (up from $120).
There are different choices for self-hosted, over-the-air DVRs, however virtually all of them value cash. Plex competitor Channels DVR costs $8 a month or $80 a yr for his or her DVR service, which incorporates an digital programming information, whereas Emby goes for $5 a month, $54 a yr, or $119 for a lifetime license.
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An exception is Tablo, the $100 over-the-air tuner and DVR that does supply a free, no-subscription digital programming information. The fourth-generation Tablo DVR lately added Apple TV help in addition to an offline mode, the latter coming after a collection of server outages that borked the unit’s TV information and left Tablo customers unable to entry their over-the-air channels and recordings.
Lastly, there’s Jellyfin, the free and open-source media server with DVR performance. Jellyfin is regularly turning into a elegant different to paid media servers and DVRs, but it surely doesn’t supply a built-in programming information. As a substitute, you’ll want to assemble and configure XMLTV-formatted information information by yourself (a tough and laborious course of) or enroll with Schedules Direct, a non-profit that provides U.S. and Canadian TV information information for $35 a yr or $9 for 2 months.
Whats up, (principally) free TV
Now, I couldn’t be happier. We have now all 4 of our community TV associates (no want at hand $83 a month to YouTube TV for ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC), tons of native channels, and some film channels that present outdated westerns and traditional movies.

My rising assortment of over-the-air motion pictures. Let the movie competition start!
Ben Patterson / Foundry
Even higher, our DVR queue is crammed to the brim with the likes of Abbott Elementary, Elsbeth, Survivor, Kitchen Nightmares, and a few selection picks from a latest Steve McQueen movie competition.
And no, there’s no ESPN, however I completely loved getting Sunday afternoon NFL video games on CBS and Fox, together with NBC’s Sunday Evening Soccer matchup.
Lastly, I can stream my over-the-air TV to my Apple TV, my iPhone, and my iPad—even once I’m away from house.
So, why didn’t I make the change sooner? Nice query.