[AlbertCory]

I sympathize with the guy who had line-of-sight issues. Or anyone who lives in a multi-unit building, or far from the Big Antennas.

However, I just got an antenna ($80) and had it installed on my roof. 40 miles or so to Twin Peaks' antennas, no obstacles. Boom: 800 channels (some paywalled), many in languages other than English.

Next is to roll my own DVR. Should be easy, right?

[techsupporter]

> I sympathize with the guy who had line-of-sight issues. Or anyone who lives in a multi-unit building, or far from the Big Antennas.

> However...

I don't mean to be uncharitable, but the "however" you wrote is doing a lot of the work here. A lot of people are saying that Locast is pointless or not a big deal because, well, they put up an antenna and it worked so no problem.

Except that it is a problem. I used Locast from the day it became available in Seattle because, try as I might, I could not get reception from all of the TV channels. Standalone house, apartment, low to the ground, high up, didn't matter. There are three broadcasting sites in Puget Sound and the best I could do was 1 reliable, 1 iffy, and 1 not at all.

> Should be easy, right?

Should be, but isn't if you can't get signal. Locast offered that signal (Comcast charges about $19 a month for the privilege of having a plan with just local channels but also charges $19 a month as a broadcast channels surcharge) for a nice donation.

[AlbertCory]

> "I don't mean to be uncharitable, but the "however" you wrote is doing a lot of the work here"

You are, though. I'm so sorry this happened to you. It must be awful for you. I'll try to never mention anything good that happened to me, ever again.

[nickysielicki]

Look into TVHeadend for this with xmltv for epg. It's awesome. I'm more into enigma2 because most of what I consume is DVB-S, but for ATSC you can't beat TVHeadend.

[flatiron]

i pay for plex (it was $75 when i got it years ago) and it has a very good dvr and hd homerunner support. it is closed source for profit but runs well on linux

i was using locast as my "antennae" until weeks ago. my wife refuses to let me put an antennae on the roof or inside for aesthetics so its back to cable card from the darn cable company.

[kesslern]

It's not as good as a roof antenna, but attic antennas are a decent option.

[pxl]

For $80/yr the Channels DVR is a great option https://getchannels.com/plus/. I'm using it along with a HDHomeRun and it just works great!