Getting rid of cable and getting peasant vision???

[sillysod]

OK so i have regular digital shaw cable with all the channels etc.

Well we were discussing over dinner last night that we never watch anything but the news since I installed our WD HD Live box.

IT plays all the crap I download off the interwebz and save on my network hard drive. My son watches Sponge Bob, GI-JOE, X-formers etc but not on TV anymore, just of the network.

My brother in law has netflix and it seems to have pretty much everything we could want -- with the exception of the news.

Anyways... question is:

Does anyone here use old school rabbit ears type tv for channels 2 & 7 etc?

if so is the picture ok, or would I need to put up some sort of antenna? does it work in the basement or only on your upstairs tv's?

Finally what all channels are available other than global (2&7) and CBC?

[Kloubek]

As far as simply USING the rabbit ears - know that as of August 31st, 2011, those broadcasts are moved to digital. So you'll still need some sort of box to convert the signal. (Or a TV with a built-in digital tuner)

http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/info_sht/bdt14.htm

[Tik-Tok]

Originally posted by sillysod

Anyways... question is:

Does anyone here use old school rabbit ears type tv for channels 2 & 7 etc?

if so is the picture ok, or would I need to put up some sort of antenna? does it work in the basement or only on your upstairs tv's?

Finally what all channels are available other than global (2&7) and CBC?

When we rid ourselves of cable tv, we tried farmer-vision for awhile, it sucked balls even up stairs. I bought a powered rabbit ears unit, which made it marginally better, but still crap. We just gave up on it.

There were 5 channels, if I remember, Global, CBC, French CBC, Access, and another one I can't recall.

[benyl]

Can you watch news online?

EZTV with utorrent setup on RSS gets all my TV now. I don't even need to skip through commercial because someone cuts them out.

I still have shaw, but only cause they charge me $10 / month for basic HD with a free PVR rental.

With netflix, wdtv (for the d/l episodes) I really have no use for shaw. I read most of my news during the day anyway.

[Tomaz]

I had peasant-vision for years living out of the city.

Rabbit ears are terrible. You need a real antenna, like this:

http://images.drillspot.com/pimages/1598/159808_300.jpg

and a digital box to receive the new signal being broadcast.


The channels I had:

2 - Global
4 - CTV
5 - City TV/A-Channel
9 - CBC
13 - Access
16 - CBC Franco - I never had this chanel where I lived, but some ppl did.

The quality is crap. Beyond crap. The one TV we had did not get signal very well. Picture was distorted, sound was broken.

Why not just get basic cable? The smallest bundle you can buy? Or get all of your important news from beyond! :D

[sillysod]

Ok... so over the air is out.

With a digital converter box would the picture be the same as cable?

I know I sound like a cheap basterd but i NEVER watch any TV other then the news.... and I do not want to sit infront of the computer and watch the news.

[bituerbo]

OTA is actually a better quality picture than Shaw, as Shaw compresses the shit out of their images. You just need a PROPER antenna, one specifically for digital signals.

Build a kickass antenna:
http://www.digitalhome.ca/ota/superantenna/

Check the channels you can get here:
http://www.tvfool.com/index.php?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=29


Calgary has 3 HD OTA stations now. Global, CTV and CityTV, with CBC still being broadcast in standard definition, and a few other channels that aren't really worth listing.

[JfuckinC]

we built an antenna out of a big hunk of hvac tin at my friends house the other night. the wind blew there dish over and broke it and all we wanted to do was watch teh flamers lose before we hit the club.

Just plug a cable into the back of your tv and touch the inner metal strand to something big and metal haha :dunno:

[polarice]

When I cut my shaw services, I had left the digital box and everything set up.

Low and behold I discovered I had ghetto digital cable.

News networks, football channel, retro teletoon, and a bunch of other ones that I cannot remember. Perhaps this would happen to you?

[pyroza]

You don't need a converter box if your TV has a digital TV tuner, which every TV made in the last few years has.

[ffmf]

I used OTA and the quality of the HD stations is great. I used it during the Olympics to get CTV in HD.

I bought an antenna similar to the super antenna posted above and placed it in my attic. Cost me about $30. If all you watch is news either on global or ctv then I would definitely use this method. Use the TV fool link above to know where to point it, the results are pretty good.

I'm all the way in the deep south btw.

[black13]

I used to have this before getting telus cable. Just used a long stripped wire and got CBC, city TV, CTV, Omni, all with pretty good picture. Global, and access have shitty reception because of their bad signal towers.

Might just go back to it once they switch to digital since 99% of cable channels are nothing but junk and I already torrent my few TV shows and listen to news on the radio at work. OTA show all the popular shows anyway.

[speedog]

Have been on peasant vision for over 13 years now - just didn't watch enough television to justify the cost of even basic cable. Have an antenna on the roof and can pick up 8 channels very well (only have 6 tuned in) - located in central NW just off of McKnight and 4th ST NW. Will also convert to digital OTA when that happens.

Channels we get are 2 - global (CICT), 4 - CTV (CFCN), 5 - CityTV (CKAL), 9 - CBC (CBRT), 13 - Access (CIAN), 16 - CBC French (CBRFT), 32 - CTS (CKCS) and 38 - OMNI (CJCO). If you don't watch a lot of sports then going to peasant vision won't be a big deal.

[sillysod]

Well if OTA is dead in 6 months no point setting up an antenna or am i wrong?

I don't watch ANY sports, I don't watch Oprah or anything but news on TV. The channel selection isn't an issue.

We have 4 TV's in the house. Large one up stairs in loft, and big flatscreen in basement and flatscreen in the garage. Those are all connected to WD HD Live / PS3 / PC's and I can get almost anything off of Netflix or my media server on those.

However, in the kitchen we have a flatscreen built into the wall over the pantry. This TV I watch the news on in the morning while I'm eating my delicious breakfast. This is the only time that the actual cable gets used.

I guess I will have to just try it out and if it's ok then I will stick with it.

Sounds like b/c all my TV's are newish they should just pull the basic channels off my coaxial cable and I won't have to actually change anything.