General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: TV antennas are making a comeback in the age of digital streaming [View all]Whether its coaxial based providers, IPTV, or satellite they are all bitrate starved I've noticed. That means picture artifacts like macroblocking are evident. That and I don't put up with commercials anymore made me cut the cord many years ago. I primarily watch TV shows and movies via Blu-ray discs that I rip to my hard drive and watch from a computer that's connected to my HDTV that uses madVR for scaling for highest possible picture quality - it can also scale 1080p to 4K.
Even before streaming providers arrived I would download and watch things commercial-free and favored this over watching on my set top/cable box. It was better quality and commercial-free to go the Home Theater PC route and I've done so since 2003. Now I have gigabit internet access.
I've no interest in non-scripted programming of any kind, especially sports, so no loss for me. Occasionally I do want live news coverage but there's ways to get CNN Go, MSNBC, etc without terrestrial TV service.
Some TV shows I get from Amazon as they have near Blu-ray quality in picture.
Never again will I watch a TV show live with commercials. And I am not going to subsidize either Fox 'News' or ESPN by subscribing to terrestrial non-a-la-carte TV service.