Well it’s done! Just got an email this morning from Locast saying they have canceled my subscription.
I installed antennae for $35. Used RCA antennae works really well.
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Networks have already started pulling their more valuable content and put it behind their own paywall
Yep, I think broadcast media will continue to become less and less relevant until they die, unless they innovate. But for now they litigate. Either way, I don't feel obliged to fund the effort.
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I tried a $150 antenna and got one channel. Antenna is not an option for me apparently so without locast I just no longer get broadcast TV again. I canceled my Channels subscription too as there is no reason for me to have it now either, I have philo but I don’t really need channels for that so I’m back to streaming only I suppose.
While I did wish for higher quality from locast it was better than nothing!
I think the Locast ruling could open the door for other services. For instance, the main sticking point in the judge's ruling is that the money Locast made through donations exceeded their costs to maintain the equipment and that they used the money to expand. However, if Locast would've just stayed in their local market and not expanded they would've been abiding by the law. So, say if Locast were to sell the equipment they own in a particular market to someone local and that person broadcasted the channels to people for free just in that market that would be following the court's findings. But, I'm sure that isn't a cheap proposition.
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Too bad that for people like myself, an antenna is useless. There's simply no signal to receive because there's a mountain between my house and the broadcast towers. When ATSC 3 lights up it might be possible to setup a retransmission tower, which I hope they do, but with ATSC 1.0 using VSB, such things were just not possible.
The vast majority of my Channels recording were from Locast.
Agree. Locast was a necessary service. I am able to live without it through the luck of geography but others just have to do without. I would recommend writing your congressman but nothing useful gets done in that town -- unless you can hire lobbyists like the networks.
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Now that I've bought the HDHR Flex I'll mainly miss Locast when out in the travel trailer. You can get mobile data a lot more places than you can bet a decent TV signal, not to mention having to aim properly.
I've not setup or used the Channels Remote DVR function before, so hopefully that will be a good substitute.
I wonder if it might be legal for Channels users to share our antenna feed with users in the same market? There would need to be some work within the software to make it happen, but I wonder if it would be legal or if they would sue us anyway regardless.
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if it were even legal (which i'm not sure it is, although if you're not charging for it and set up a non-profit i would imagine you'd qualify for the same exemption locast was after), the main issue there would be tuner count. you'd effectively have to have 70 tuners (using the LA market as an example, i believe locast had 70 channels available) and each tuner locked on a single channel which would then pass that signal on to whoever wanted it at any given time. the bandwidth costs would also (i would imagine) be huge, not to mention if your ISP caught you doing it you'd probably have your service cut off since running stuff like this residentially is against their TOS.
I was thinking of a crowd source sort of thing. I volunteer one tuner for anyone who needs it to use. They use it to watch live or record, then they drop and the tuner is available to someone else. There would probably need to be a central server to coordinate this or maybe it can be distributed. We'd need a bunch of folks in each market, but it sounds feasible.
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This looks like a great Antenna . I ordered it for one of my clients will see how it works ... If it doesn't Amazon has a great return policy ...
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Just ordered one myself. I'm not optimistic but loosing Locast i'll try it and see. As you said Amazon has great return options.
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Try it with the AMP first at minimum and move up ... sometimes AMPS overload Silicondust tuners if it does just remove it.
Im sorry if this has been answered here or another thread:
But what other streaming services give you local channels? I used to have direct tv but when using its log in, it didn't give me local channels. Only locast did.
Los Angeles rea. Thanks.
I'm in Barstow at a hotel and just did a scan with Xfinity and got abc cbs nbc fox and 2 pbs stations from the LA market. Which is pretty good at home I only get nbc.
When you access your local TV stations via TVEverywhere, how does it appear in the guide? Do you see data specific to your region, or do you just see generic programming?
Make sure you have enabled the checkbox at the bottom of the DVR settings page, under Experimental.
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Or maybe some sort of tuner sharing would be a more strait forward add. I share one tuner of my antenna device with someone of my choosing. Possible? Likely?