Herein is how I wound up with a sweet interface running on all my Apple devices that lets me watch, pause, rewind and record live broadcast TV. As well as add all my existing movies.
I've been wanting to do this for a LOOOONG time.
Had some time off and finally
did it. Started with my displeasure at cable companies' standard practice of
charging you for cable boxes for um, approximately forever. How many times over
do you pay for this hardware without ever paying it off? Plus, the broadcast
networks send crystal-clear HD signals over the air, for free. So you can add an
antenna to your TV and watch it, no problem. Don't need any more hardware. But
watching live TV is for suckers. Because then you have to tune in when something is on. And you also have to watch ads. Sure, making ads is my career but still. I try to make my ads interesting. Most
ads are not that. So you gotta add a DVR to the equation.
Enter the Raspberry Pi, pictured above, and the Channels DVR app.
The first time I tried this I used an old Mac mini. Worked fine but the Mac was too old and too slow. But I was very impressed with the Channels DVR app. Get an intro to Channels
here. So when I saw their solution using a Raspberry Pi, I jumped on it. Here's
the link to the stuff you need.
In addition to that, you need a way to make the signal coming in from your antenna useable. For that there's the HDHomeRun,
found here. Works seamlessly with Channels. Apparently, they have their own app that's also an option but I haven't tried that and again, Channels is really impressive. You plug your antenna and Ethernet from your internet router into the HDHomeRun, install the Channels DVR server onto your Raspberry Pi (also connected via Ethernet) and it figures out most of the rest.
Wait, most of the rest? What was the hard part?
The hardest part was figuring out how to situate the antenna, which is plugged into the HDHomeRun, which needs to be plugged into your internet. (WiFi probably won't cut it here.) Routers are often situated along interior walls which block those sweet HD signals that are flying through the air. I found a cable outlet on an exterior wall so I could hang the antenna in a window so it can suck in those signals. A note on antenna placement. Go
here to find out where those HD signals are coming from so you can buy the appropriate size and powered antenna, and have some insight on where to put it in your house. You'll get a list of how many stations you'll probably have access to, and a map that looks something like this:
The color codes will tell you which stations are coming from which directions, and what kind of antenna you need to pull those signals in. The next hardest part was trying to figure out my login information when I connected the Raspberry Pi to my TV, and was confronted with a terminal-looking screen letting me know that my DVR server was running, but was also asking for me to log in. I mentioned having set all this up with a Mac Mini over a year ago, so I thought I had forgotten my credentials. Turns out, however, that you don't even have to log in on this screen. When (or if) you see this, your DVR server is already working just fine.
So walk me through the steps already.
You download the DVR system software and flash it to your USB hard drive that's going to be the repository for your recordings. You plug it into your Raspberry Pi and start it up. You plug in the HDHomeRun as previously discussed. The Raspberry Pi detects your HDHomeRun and they work together automatically. You hit a button to scan for channels, and boom, you're off and running. Download the Channels app on your Apple TV, your iPad, your iPhone and watch, pause, rewind, record live TV on all of them.
Show me what it looks like, please.
You can access a local host website to get more granular control over what your DVR is doing. Looks like this:
You get a sweet channel guide that looks like a sweet channel guide:
When you click on a show, you get the option to watch it, record it or create a pass (set up a recurring recording, decide how many episodes of Judge Judy to keep, etc.):
They also make it easy to add movies you have. You simply unplug your hard drive from the Raspberry Pi, plug it into your computer and put the files in a designated folder and re-plug it in. Name them correctly and it pulls in a movie poster, synopsis and all that good stuff:
Sounds amazing, but what does it all cost?
So, not cheap exactly. And you still need internet service. You have to do the maths for yourself - how much you pay for cable TV on top of internet, how much you pay and have paid for cable boxes over the years, how much it costs to add streaming services to give you the shows and sports you want to watch in addition to broadcast TV. But I'm digging it.
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