Honestly, all I really want is our local tv channels streamed, so whichever service will give us the local stations in los angeles, works for me.
Thanks
There really is no such thing as "cheap" for streaming locals. (as far as I know) Unless you are in a specific market that has some local only startup or exclusive thing... like what was posted on here not to long ago, a single area launched a "Locast" like service.
The cheapest streaming service that i know of that offers TVE, is Philo, for $25 a month. Does NOT offer local channels though.
I think YYTV, Fubo and Cable Tv/Sat like Xfinity/Dish/Cox etc TVE added to Channels DVR can give you access to some Local stations via TVE, but, only if they are offered in your market. But they are not cheap.
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TVE Service is not so great in getting all the locals.
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TVE will only give CBS, ABC, and Fox. PBS and NBC are DRM-encumbered and incompatible with Channels, KTLA only offers their news feed (which is available within Channels), and other locals like KCAL and KDOC have no TVE stream.
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Honestly, unless you are near the foothills in the SGV/IE where there is nearly no reception, grab an antenna and an HDHR tuner. Streaming options for locals are slim pickings.
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Thanks, those are good ones. KTLA, Fox local and KCAL have free streaming apps, so I can get those outside of tve.
Also, we tried an expensive antenna with the hdhomerun, but sadly, huge buildings between us and the mountain where the antennas are. Get more signal from bounces than direct line of site, so it's kind of okay on clear days, but dies quickly in weather. I tossed it in a closet, it's collecting dust. Streaming would definitely be more reliable.
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Unfortunately, most cheap streaming services that offer TVE do not offer locals, such as Sling (which has horrible TVE support) or Philo.
Your best bet would be to see what the cheapest package for TV you can get from your local cable provider is. Charter/Spectrum offers a "Choice 15" where you can select 15 networks in addition to your locals, as well as their minimal "Essentials". Other cable companies may have similar limited plans for less than a full package. (A cable package may also give you the option of a HDHomeRun Prime with a CableCARD; if I remember correctly local broadcasts cannot be DRMed, but you may find that every other network is.)
If you already subscribe to Hulu and/or Disney+, you may look into the additional cost for their live TV offering which includes TVE.
Otherwise, a standalone streaming package that includes locals and TVE will probably start at $60/mo.
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You won't get CW, FOX, MyNet or syndicated programming on those apps, you'll just get local newscasts and community affairs shows.
KDOC's owners sold the station to Radiant Life Ministries 2 years ago, it now carries their TCT network 24/7.
What antenna did you try and what is the zip code?
Another option if you are not necessarily tied to Channels/linear streaming, and don't mind ads, could be the most cost efficient for you.
- Peacock (NBC) – $6/mo
- Paramount+ (CBS) – $6/mo
- Hulu (ABC & Fox) – $8/mo
With the streaming services you get most shows either later than their last live broadcast, or the next day. (Paramount+ tends to put episodes online after they air on the east coast; Hulu usually after midnight or so.) Additionally, they also offer (sometimes) livestreams of your local affiliates. But for $20/mo, you can't match that with a full (linear) streaming service.
(The CW offers their own free app, which will include ads, but give you their primetime and syndicated content. The same is true for PBS.)
(To remove ads for the paid streaming services, Peacock and Paramount each ask for $6 more/mo, and Hulu $10. So to remove ads from the streaming services, instead of $20/mo you would pay $42/mo ... still quite a bit cheaper than most linear streaming services.)
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Thanks @racameron
We've gone thru most all of those suggestions already, and they always lack in some way. We're down to Spectrum for just internet, their cable services suck extremely bad, both the cable box and their streaming service, total garbage, unstable, unreliable. Just use internet now, and do streaming.
We've been roku for years, but just bought the new apple tv 3rd gen, love it, but hate the apple tv app, always trying to upsell. My NAS runs plex, emby, jellyfin and now channels, trying them all. I'm disappointed in the channels app on appletv, it's way too basic, worse than jellyfin. Plex is the best app so far on apple tv and on roku. Have an nvidia shield too, and firesticks, but hate their interfaces.
We recently had directv stream, it's excellent actually, but man, they charge way too much money.
Oh well, tv is a very fast moving target these days, services changing left and right. I miss locast, that was great. I miss old school cable tv boxes too, instant changing channels, but they weren't even dvd quality.
What can you do, but keep trying different things every year or two. It is what it is.
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Good news, I managed to find one local news channel (KCAL) in the free pluto m3u channels from this thread:
I grabbed about a dozen channels from that feed, they all seem to work nicely.
I'll check the other free lists, there might be some other local channels available via public m3u feeds. Will take some effort, but that's okay, I'm starting to warm up to channels dvr, it's pretty cool, and works well so far.
Fox can be problematic because it has gone away in many markets even if you have a TVE provider. PBS is easily worked around with PBS feeds docker container here and you can have as many channels as you want. NBC can be handled with the HDMI or Chrome capture for channels options here (adbtuner etc.) and a TVE sub.
My TV provider, Hotwire, does not give me access to ABC or CBS. The list of systems that can use CBS is not large but does include all the big ones like Xfinity and Spectrum.
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Thousands of channels: