Since the pandemic, like most people I spent a lot of time in front of the TV. It made me realize the costs for cable TV and streaming services have gotten out of control while the quality of service is getting worse. Having had enough of this subpar experience, I ventured to find cost-saving alternatives.
Over The Air (OTA)
The simplest replacement for cable TV is a pair of rabbit ears attached to the TV. Whatever local channels your antenna has reception to is what you get. If your household has more than 2 television sets, it’s better to go with an attic/roof antenna.
A good approach to selecting the right antenna is to run a signal search for your specific location through RabbitEars. The information provided through this tool helps you find the right equipment and setup instructions for the best channel reception. You can either run coaxial cables to the TVs or use a network attached tuner to connect the TVs through your home WiFi. Here’s my signal reception in the Twin Cities north metro.
Over The Top (OTT)
This is the new way for media outlets to reach a younger, aka more broke demographic who is always on the Internet. In the context of this post, I’m focusing on the Free Ad-supported Streaming TV (FAST) services such as Tubi and PlutoTV that provide live TV streaming of local channels: Fox9, KARE11, and WCCO for the Twin Cities, MN market. You need a smart TV in order to download and run these apps.
These services also provide streaming of free shows and movies. They are not great and more of a distraction than entertainment. One unintended benefit of many FAST apps is that the live TV programs have very little to no commercials. It makes you realize how much of local TV programming is just ads in different disguises.
Streaming Devices
This may sound like a stupid idea, buying a streaming stick when we already have a smart TV. Are we not trying to save money? Well, the goal is to not only save money, but also improve quality of service. The most basic version of a streaming device is smarter and more capable than the majority of smart TVs. You can use it to unlock a whole host of content big media doesn’t want you to know about.
Recommended Streaming Devices
- Nvidia Shield Pro
- AppleTV 4K*
- GoogleTV Chromacast 4K
- Amazon FireTV Cube
Ad-Free Youtube
The amount and frequency of ads on Youtube have increased a lot in the past few years. Youtube is pushing people into buying its Youtube Premium for ad-free access. With a streaming device such as Chromecast Google TV or Fire TV Stick, you can install an ad-blocker player called SmartTube Next. Not only does this App block ads, it also skips over sponsored content within a video.
I understand one benefits of Youtube Premium is a revenue share for content creators. This is unclear in terms of accounting, so it’s better to give Superchats or purchase merchandises with your favorite Youtubers directly. If you must subscribe to Youtube Premium, I’d recommend “traveling” to lower cost countries such as Argentina or Vietnam. For example, a family Premium plan in Vietnam is 150,000 VND which is about $6.50 USD for up to 6 accounts.
Peer-to-Peer
Plex is my preference for peer-to-peer media streaming apps. If you’re technically inclined, you can set up a media server to host TV shows and movie files for streaming within your household or share over the Internet between friends and family. If you’re like me and have no friends or family with a Plex server, you can pay someone who does. For less than $10/month, they will let you connect your TV to their Plexshare. Good providers have the latest TV shows and movies from all streaming services.
Internet Protocol Television (IPTV)
Internet Protocol television (IPTV): Many Television networks around the world broadcast their channels globally through IPTV. Here is a collection of publicly available IPTV channels. I’d recommend an app called Tivimate to watch these channels. If you want more than these free channels, there are IPTV providers that charge about $10/month for thousands of premium channels.
My Streaming Experience
Through the Plexshare/Plexsub service, I could stream any TV shows and movies, from the latest release to the oldest of content I could think of (currently binging on Dawson’s Creek). It’s way better than the fragmented experience when finding what to watch through many different apps (Netflix, HBOMax, Hulu, Amazon, Disney+, Apple TV+,…)
With a paid IPTV service, I watched the World Cup 2022 games and Super Bowl in 4K resolution with Dolby Atmos surround sound. One of the best uses for IPTV is watching multiple streams of concurrent sports events/views such as motorsports. This level of quality is something Xfinity has not been able to provide.
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