DO YOU SWITCH BETWEEN PAY & FREE TV, IF SO HOW OFTEN ?

[gregg75]

Nothing is on DirecTV right now, so I've switched to FREE TV and am watching Route 66.

I'm not glued to the TV and often do other things while it is on, but in order to find something
interesting I sometimes switch back to FREE TV up to 4 times a day. In fact with about 5 more
decent sub channels I'd probably be willing to go totally FREE.

I don't think most people know how easy it is to get or switch to FREE TV. If they did, I think
a lot more would be doing it.

 

[nathannah]

I do both pay and free TV myself, which is thankfully very easy because TiVo can both pull the usual lineup from the cablecard and then FTA from the RadioShack antenna I have up above the TV on a shelf (the one that they sold a couple years ago that looks like the Starship Enterprise colored black ). It's really good because at times I can get the ION subchannels not offered by cable, and because of where I am in Sheboygan, summers often pull in distant stations from Grand Rapids and Lansing to give me a few more choices.

Many of the channels I get from Milwaukee and Green Bay are offered on cable, but I also like I get a usually strong signal from WFRV in Green Bay since WDJT is usually my lowest bitrate station because CBS only gets 11 MBs there, while there are no subchannels on WFRV and it blasts at a full 18 MBs, which makes that my choice to record CBS if available. Mind you I'm in a location where they usually recommend an outdoor antenna and my channel map has about 80 channels and subchannels in total, so it is easy, although those channels do waver in and out depending on weather and atmospheric conditions.

 

[visaman]

In Canada, Pay TV refers to movies that you have to pay for to watch. I guess you mean cable TV? ???

 

[gregg75]

That's right. Mrschimpf you say you can pull in other stations in the summer. I guess the
weather is so bad in the winter that you can't do that????
Here in the south, it's just the opposite. If you are pulling in signals, it would be in the winter
time when the leaves are off the trees.

 

[LibertyNT]

I frequently switch between the Antenna and Dish.
Fortunately I have the DirecTV receiver that has the antenna jack still on it, so I get a complete guide to go along with the OTA stations, and I get to select them like a regular DirecTV channel.

I noticed the new ones don't have that.

 

[TomParks]

I cut the cord when we got the subchannels. I found myself watching them more than dish network. This year we got MeTV and THIS so my pay tv days was over. 12 stations OTA, and about 30 good channels on the FTA satellite. $70.00 a month down to zero.

 

[gregg75]

Ok, my antenna is hooked up to the tv itself. But WANN (the 10 channel mostly junk sub-channel)
devotes one channel to a tv guide and that helps a lot with all the subs.

Sometimes I have to get up and move the antenna to pull in a good signal on some stations
........makes me feel so 1949. Does anybody else have a local FREE tv guide on one of your
subs? At the rate these channels are appearing I'd expect many places to eventually have one.

 

[landtuna]

Does anybody else have a local FREE tv guide on one of your subs?

No. Half the time the actual sub-channel doesn't list what's on let alone have a guide.

I use Titan-TV on the Net. It took them awhile to sort out my local subs but they've finally got it down.

 

[tripinva]

Plus, that's what stations transmit PSIP guide data for. No need to duplicate it on a subchannel.

- Trip

 

[landtuna]

Plus, that's what stations transmit PSIP guide data for. No need to duplicate it on a subchannel.

- Trip

Not sure what you mean.

What I meant was there are stations, primary and sub, which do not publish guides nor do they have 'info' (what you get when you press the 'info' button on a converter box remote).

 

[tripinva]

No point in wasting bandwidth transmitting a guide in video form when the stations themselves are supposed to be providing it in data form for the TV to handle.

- Trip

 

[gregg75]

WANN is actually using 1/3 the page for adds, so they are probably making money off it.
I personally find it easier to use the tv guides on tv and DirecTV than Titan.

So if people are willing to turn off cable and satellite several times a day to watch free
TV, should cable and satellite be concerned? I think they should. The more people who
turn them off the less who are going to see their inserted commercials. They should be
more willing in the future to add sub channels IMO.

Now we know some Tivo through the commercials, so save your breath about posting
about that.

 

[ShawnHill1]

I often switch between free TV and pay TV (in my case, DirecTV) quite a bit, maybe several times a day depending on the day and when I'm home. Usually, I'll watch switch over and watch a few programs on MeTV or Antenna TV, or a sporting event one of the network stations because the picture quality (especially the NFL on CBS) is better than that on DirecTV.

 

[nathannah]

Plus, that's what stations transmit PSIP guide data for. No need to duplicate it on a subchannel.

- Trip

The only problem with that is if you do TiVo and get out of market stations (since TiVo goes by zip code to get listings and grabs a set list of channels), you won't get those listings so you have to reference online for those distant stations. TiVo goes by downloaded guide then, not the PSIP guide info (which is fine; many of the PSIP listings are way too short and some stations just throw in an Excel file with basic details of their schedule and call it done).