The Budgeteers' Guide to 21st Century TV
The Budgeteers' Guide to 21st Century TV
A layman's technical companion to TV without cable or satellite
About the Book
The Budgeteers’ Guide to 21st Century TV is an independent, technical companion for those seeking TV without the “help” of cable or satellite providers. Finding practical knowledge and useful approaches can take days into weeks of internet searching and expensive shopping. It’s easy to get waylaid into doing nothing because the options look really difficult or inappropriate. Additionally, manufacturers often focus on their products and solutions in isolation, often choosing to ignore the fact that many practical solutions utilize multiple vendors and mixed technologies. By providing our readers with a systematic overview, along with some in-depth useful examples, we hope to save you time and money, make the process more fun, and increase your chances of success.
This book caters for readers of all technical levels. It isn't dumbed-down, but it also isn't full of jargon. You don't have to have a technical bent, but even if you do, you may still find out some cool new ways to watch TV.
Major themes of the book are:
- Understanding and taking control of technology you own.
- Not paying for content that is freely available.
A lot of the information in this book is specific to the United States.
About the Author
Table of Contents
Preface
Getting ready
Before proceeding...
What skills do you need?
Choosing how to proceed.
Chapter 1: Introductions
1.1 Specs and stuff
Resolution and screen size
Bandwidth — bits per second and stuff
Closed Captions
1.2 Digitally Broadcast-to-air TV
Introduction to Antenna TV
What is an antenna?
Introduction to TV tuners
Networked TV tuners
Using Networked Tuners with Multiple TVs and devices
Do you need an networked tuner?
1.3 Smart TVs
Introduction to Smart TVs.
1.4 Digital Video Recorders (DVR)
Introduction to DVRs
Networked DVRs
Integrated DVRs
Do you need a DVR?
Do you need a networked DVR?
1.5 Streaming Gadgets
Introduction to streaming gadgets
Introduction to Roku
Introduction to AppleTV
Introduction to Amazon Fire TV and FireOS
Introduction to SlingTV Air TV player
Using multiple gadgets on one TV — HDMI switches
1.6 Chromecast and AndroidTV
Android consoles and TV Boxes
Introduction to Chromecast and Android TV
Chromecast dongles
AndroidTV and the NVIDIA Shield
1.7 Personal Computers and TV
Why attach a computer to a TV?
Introduction to the Intel NUC
Introduction to the Mac Mini
Stick computers
Remote input for PCs — keyboards, trackpads, etc.
Chapter 2: Getting content
2.1 Antennas
Can you get broadcast-to-air TV at your place?
Choosing a digital TV antenna.
Getting the signal – and finding a home for the antenna.
Do you need a signal pre-amplifier?
Mounting the antenna.
2.2 Streaming
Internet streaming
"Live" Cable channel streaming services
Alternative "live" streaming sources
Sports
Movies and TV shows
2.3 Optical Disks
Optical disk formats
When to use an optical disk?
Chapter 3: Moving Content
3.1 Networks
The Home network
Streaming on the home network
Network Connections — Wires and Radios
Choosing between wired or wireless.
The Router
The Internet Service Provider
Finding and fixing streaming problems
Using multiple WiFi bands for smoother streaming
Keep it all working
3.2 Wires
"Fun" with Coax
HDMI, Display Port and other multi-media connections
HDCP and DRM
Chapter 4: Watching content
4.1 Smart TVs
Smart TV Operating Systems (OS)
4.2 Networked Tuners
Installing a HDHomeRun Connect Tuner
Watching live TV in an app
Maintaining a HDHomeRun Tuner
4.3 DVRs
Networked DVRs
Networked DVR — TabloTV
Set up a TabloTV
Using a TabloTV
PC based DVRs — MythTV, NextPVR
4.4 Streaming Gadgets
Streaming — Overview
Set up a Roku
Set up an Amazon Fire TV
What is Google Casting?
Setup Casting Receivers — AndroidTV & Chromecast
Casting from apps and the Chrome browser
4.5 PC and Mac computers
Streaming in a web browser
Troubleshooting browser streaming
Watching Broadcast TV on a PC using a tuner
4.6 Privacy
Who is watching the watcher?
Chapter 5: Example projects
Project skills and cost rankings
5.1 SmartTVs and live broadcast-to-air TV
Using an antenna with a Smart TV
The TV guide
5.2 Internet Streaming
Is this the right option for you?
Unbundling the cable TV bundle.
Making it work
5.3 Streaming "Cable Only" channels
Example: Hulu Live
Example: Playstation Vue
Sling TV Air TV Player
You can't always get what you want...
5.4 Combining streaming gadgets and broadcast-to-air TV
A networked DVR as a Roku channel
Watching Broadcast-to-air TV in FireOS
Chromecasting TV to the big screen
5.5 AndroidTV
Installing apps on AndroidTV
NVIDIA Shield — an AndroidTV console
Watching a networked tuner as a Live Channel on AndroidTV
Using a networked DVR with AndroidTV
Casting to AndroidTV
Watching Amazon Instant Video on the NVIDIA shield
Trouble shooting AndroidTV
5.6 Personal Computers and TV
Keyboards, mouse and network
Watching a Tablo DVR in a web browser
5.7 TV on Apple computers and Apple TV
A Mac Mini computer with Tablo TV
A Mac Mini computer with a HDHomeRun tuner
AppleTV and a TabloTV DVR
5.8 Plex DVR on an NVIDIA Shield
Preparation
Install the Plex client and Media Server
Configure the Plex DVR
5.9 Money saving ideas
Using less internet
Little or no internet
Thank you..
Other books by this author
The Leanpub 45-day 100% Happiness Guarantee
Within 45 days of purchase you can get a 100% refund on any Leanpub purchase, in two clicks.
See full terms
Do Well. Do Good.
Authors have earned$10,433,845writing, publishing and selling on Leanpub, earning 80% royalties while saving up to 25 million pounds of CO2 and up to 46,000 trees.
Learn more about writing on Leanpub
Free Updates. DRM Free.
If you buy a Leanpub book, you get free updates for as long as the author updates the book! Many authors use Leanpub to publish their books in-progress, while they are writing them. All readers get free updates, regardless of when they bought the book or how much they paid (including free).
Most Leanpub books are available in PDF (for computers), EPUB (for phones and tablets) and MOBI (for Kindle). The formats that a book includes are shown at the top right corner of this page.
Finally, Leanpub books don't have any DRM copy-protection nonsense, so you can easily read them on any supported device.
Learn more about Leanpub's ebook formats and where to read them
Top Books
- #1
Learning Drupal 9 as a framework
Stef Van LooverenThis course will teach you advanced concepts of drupal 9, Object-oriented PHP and Symfony components. After the course, you’ll be able to build robust and scalable software solutions of many kinds.
- #2
Continuous Delivery Pipelines
Dave FarleyThis practical handbook provides a step-by-step guide for you to get the best continuous delivery pipeline for your software.
- #3
Practical FP in Scala: A hands-on approach
Gabriel VolpeA practical book aimed for those familiar with functional programming in Scala who are yet not confident about architecting an application from scratch.
Together, we will develop a purely functional application using the best libraries in the Cats ecosystem, while learning about design patterns and best practices.
- #4
Ansible for DevOps
Jeff GeerlingAnsible is a simple, but powerful, server and configuration management tool. Learn to use Ansible effectively, whether you manage one server—or thousands.
- #5
C++20
Rainer GrimmC++20 is the next big C++ standard after C++11. As C++11 did it, C++20 changes the way we program modern C++. This change is, in particular, due to the big four of C++20: ranges, coroutines, concepts, and modules.
- #6
Introducing EventStorming
Alberto BrandoliniThe deepest tutorial and explanation about EventStorming, straight from the inventor.
- #7
Advanced Web Application Architecture
Matthias NobackThe missing manual for making your web applications future-proof
- #8
Deep Learning with PyTorch Step-by-Step
Daniel Voigt GodoyIn 2019, I published a PyTorch tutorial on Towards Data Science and I was amazed by the reaction from the readers! Their feedback motivated me to write this book to help beginners start their journey into Deep Learning and PyTorch. I hope you enjoy reading this book as much as I enjoy writing it.
- #9
Visualise, document and explore your software architecture
Simon BrownA short guide to visualising, documenting and exploring your software architecture.
- #10
R Programming for Data Science
Roger D. PengThis book brings the fundamentals of R programming to you, using the same material developed as part of the industry-leading Johns Hopkins Data Science Specialization. The skills taught in this book will lay the foundation for you to begin your journey learning data science. Printed copies of this book are available through Lulu.
- #11
C++ Best Practices
Jason TurnerLevel up your C++, get the tools working for you, eliminate common problems, and move on to more exciting things!
- #12
Functional Design and Architecture
Alexander GraninSoftware Design in Functional Programming, Design Patterns and Practices, Methodologies and Application Architectures. How to build real software in Haskell with less efforts and low risks. The first complete source of knowledge.
- #13
The Hundred-Page Machine Learning Book
Andriy BurkovEverything you really need to know in Machine Learning in a hundred pages.
- #14
CCIE SP v5.0
Łukasz Bromirski, Piotr Jablonski, and Nicholas RussoAre you striving to prepare to and pass CCIE SP lab exam? Take the opportunity and get this workbook! With the attached initial cfg files you will prepare yourself for the CCIE SP exam as well as learn SP technologies applicable to all kinds of today modern networks! This workbook covers blueprint topics and provides challenging examples.
- #15
Technical leadership and the balance with agility
Simon BrownA developer-friendly, practical and pragmatic guide to lightweight software architecture, technical leadership and the balance with agility.
- #16
The Simple Haskell Handbook
Marco SampellegriniA project-driven approach to practical Haskell development. Start from zero lines of code and finish with a working CI Server. Step by step. One type error at a time.
- #17
Atomic Kotlin
Bruce Eckel and Svetlana IsakovaFor both beginning and experienced programmers! From the author of the multi-award-winning Thinking in C++ and Thinking in Java and a Kotlin team member comes a book that breaks concepts into small, easy-to-digest "atoms," along with exercises supported by hints and solutions directly inside IntelliJ IDEA! Full support at www.AtomicKotlin.com.
- #18
Everyday Rails - RSpecによるRailsテスト入門
Junichi Ito (伊藤淳一), AKIMOTO Toshiharu, 魚振江, and Aaron SumnerRSpecを使ってRailsアプリケーションに信頼性の高いテストを書く実践的なアドバイスを提供します。詳細で丁寧な説明は本書のオリジナルコンテンツです。また、説明には実際に動かせるサンプルアプリケーションも使用します。本書は2017年版にアップデートされ、RSpec 3.6やRails 5.1といった新しい環境に対応しています！さあ、自信をもってテストできるようになりましょう！
- #19
Rector - The Power of Automated Refactoring
Matthias Noback and Tomas VotrubaLearn how to automatically and continuously upgrade and improve your PHP code base
- #20
Ansible for Kubernetes
Jeff GeerlingAnsible is a powerful infrastructure automation tool. Kubernetes is a powerful application deployment platform. Learn how to use these tools to automate massively-scalable, highly-available infrastructure.
Top Bundles
- #1
Software Architecture for Developers: Volumes 1 & 2 - Technical leadership and communication
2 Books
"Software Architecture for Developers" is a practical and pragmatic guide to modern, lightweight software architecture, specifically aimed at developers. You'll learn:The essence of software architecture.Why the software architecture role should include coding, coaching and collaboration.The things that you really need to think about before... - #2
CCIE Service Provider Ultimate Study Bundle
2 Books
Piotr Jablonski, Lukasz Bromirski, and Nick Russo have joined forces to deliver the only CCIE Service Provider training resource you'll ever need. This bundle contains a detailed and challenging collection of workbook labs, plus an extensively detailed technical reference guide. All of us have earned the CCIE Service Provider certification... - #9
"The C++ Standard Library" and "Concurrency with Modern C++"
2 Books
Get my books "The C++ Standard Library" and "Concurrency with Modern C++" in a bundle. The first book gives you the details you should know about the C++ standard library; the second one dives deeper into concurrency with modern C++. In sum, you get more than 600 pages full of modern C++ and about 250 source files presenting the standard library... - #10
EA for Programmers
2 Books
For those who want to get most of Enterprise Architects API and bejond, this bundle offers an unbeatable resource. While Scripting EA introduces the API step by step, Inside EA will dive even deeper into EA's database structure. Knowing this will let you do things that are not available through the API. Or simply you can boost the performance...
