- We save over $70CAD/month from cutting cable: We are not getting the same number of stations, but for news they are identical. OTA and cable are not very comparable, I admit. On the bright side I do not feel that I am getting cheated by Rogers each and every month. My TV viewing is much more tailored to my needs now. I can download and pay for exactly the shows I want and not pay for a huge amount of channels that I dimply never, ever watch.
- OTA HD quality is really good. OTA is uncompressed, so the quality is really good. Both Bell and Rogers compress their signals, which results in some loss of quality. I can notice the loss of quality when I go to my Mom’s house, who has stuck with Rogers, or to a friend’s house where they continue to use Bell.
- Science and Technology shows: I thought that I would miss Discovery Channel but there are a lot of science and technology shows that I never knew existed on TVO and PBS. It is really amazing at what I have found that I never knew existed.
- HD Movies are excellent quality and readily available: I also thought I would miss the odd movie on cable, but really, there are a lot of movies on OTA. In fact I am watching more TV now than I was when we had cable. The content on cable was getting really stale and I was fed up.
- I can use the remote that came with the TV: The set top box that I was forced to use with cable was by far inferior to the remote that came with the TV. Most TVs come with really nice remote controls that are very useful. I did not want to give this up just so I could use cable TV, and why should I. This issue rather infuriated me. I was being denied the use of a product that I had purchased and had to pay Rogers for this privilege. I could not accept this.
- Supplementing our TV is a PC connected to the TV with wired ethernet access. This allows us to use the TV as a large monitor. I also connected the TV to our stereo system, so that when watching movies the sound would be really high quality. It has made movie watching much more enjoyable.
- Viewing Buffalo channels: There is a lot of US TV that I had not seen and occasionally there is the odd movie that is nice. I have not really explored the US channels much but I do like the option.
- Omni 1 and 2 are very prevalent on OTA and I really like this. On Omni I can watch a wide variety of ethnic shows, and this includes some Mandarin programming. Yes, it is available on cable but is still available on OTA.
- I do not need to fight with Rogers Customer Service when something goes wrong. I found I was getting more and more frustrated and therefore angry at their service, angry enough to cancel everything.
- If there is noting on TV I find it easier to simply turn it off. This may be the strongest advantage of OTA.
- Missing Content: The Little Weed misses Treehouse and a bunch of other specialty channel shows, so I need to do more work to hunt down his content. Some might be internet based. This requires more research. I see us going more to the internet for content in the future. I also miss the odd home renovation show as well as Daily Planet on Discovery. I have not yet researched getting their content over the internet and it will not be in HD at the moment. I will need to buy a new graphics card to do this. Oveall, content is not “on demand” but it is also not mind numbing.
- OTA Research: This took a long time and is not straight forward. I had to read for many hours on the subject. Relevant content is not so easy to find.
- Installation of the antenna: This requires going on top of your roof and finding a suitable place to mount the darn thing. Of course the higher the better. The antenna also needs to be pointed at an optimal direction in order to receive both US (Buffalo) and Canadian (CN Tower) channels. As the Canadian channels are so much more powerful, advice was given to point to Buffalo and you will also receive all the Canadian channels. Though the advice from digitalhome.ca was 164 degrees, my golden direction was 158 degrees, but not for a logical reason. Figuring out the optimal direction required many trips to the roof followed by a rescan of the TV. This takes time and effort.
- OTA TV is terrestrial and works on line of sight (LOS): My neighbour has a large pine tree and other neighbours have other large trees. These are blocking our OTA channels. This is a major disadvantage of OTA. I love in a heavily treed neighbourhood so the ability to go higher, higher than the local trees, is quite difficult. I would have to install a tower, which I am not willing to do.
- Number of channels varies with the seasons: OTA is much more dependent on the seasons than cable. As the trees lose their leaves I hope to be able to receive more channels. This may also require repointing my antenna once in a while. This is somewhat inconvenient and can be dangerous in the winter.
- High wind can affect reception: High wind moves trees and therefore blurrs reception. Ditto for an outdoor antenna that sways in the wind.
Disadvantages: These include not only content issues but also installation issues: Overall we are happy with OTA TV so far. With a PC hooked to the TV we have found Discovery Channel and lots of shows that we do miss. Ditto for HGTV, though their streaming video is terrible. I thought I would miss History Channel, but there is a lack of history on that channel now, so no loss there. Streaming video from the internet is a great supplement to OTA TV, but id does cost extra bandwidth. We have been monitoring the bandwidth issue very closely for the last month, and streaming video does eat up large chunks of data. This is the reason we will probably not stream a lot, buy an OTA input card nor buy a Roku box: They all eat up lots of bandwidth, which we pay for by the gig. It will cost an extra $30 for unlimited internet, and that is not really even unlimited, as after 200G they will throttle your speed down. I am pleased to cut Rogers off at the knees. We are, proudly, no longer a Rogers customer for anything. We will never return to Rogers. Addendum May 22 2014: It has been 8 months of OTA and I am please we made the switch. We do not get more channels from our original 17, but they are pretty consistent, and the picture is really high quality. Fog, which happens rarely, seems to break up some Buffalo stations but the Toronto stations come in regularly. I can also pick up one FM radio station, complete with sound, but I tune this station out. I still go on the forums and am contemplating adding another antenna, pointing in a different direction. The logistics of this are still not clear.
Addendum April 2015: I added a 10′ pole for my antenna, which helped a little. Changed the orientation of my antenna to 180 degrees, which allowed me to pick up ch 2 and ch 7 from Buffalo. Any further west and I lose ch2 but pick up CHCH Hamilton. Any further east and I keep ch 2 but lose CHCH. My db4e antenna beam width of 60 degrees cannot do both, so I bias to Buffalo. I’ve played with this twice and have settled for 178, as this allows ch2 to be a little bit stronger. If I want CHCH I’ll need to gang another antenna, pointing to Hamilton.
Addendum July 27 2016: My TV was having a hard time picking up Buffalo-based PBS, but it turned out that my antenna had shifted orientation. Up on the roof I went to point it back to usual and the stations came back. I might have to check this every 6 months. There are still the occasional outage due to fog, but not for rain or snow. The antenna and TV have been very reliable. If there is nothing on, then I do something else. I have saved about $840/yr, excluding tax, excluding price increases, by moving to OTA from cable.
Addendum 2019 Nov 26 WNED PBS Ch 17 dropped off a couple of days ago, but I don’t know why. As the weather was cooperating, I ran up the ladder and tried 170 degrees today. I’m pulling in more Buffalo stations, but not WNED Ch 17. I’ll keep it for a couple of days to see if WNED reappears.
Addendum 2022 Sep 06 The antenna really works well. Every year I go up onto my roof and check the direction. Once in a while a TV station will change their frequency, so all I have to do is rescan. The further Ch 2 Buffalo station I often cannot receive, but that’s ok. This is the 9th year of trouble free OTA tv.
OTA is by far the cheapest. Stream video on the internet and you will pay for bandwidth. I have not thought much of configuring a HTPC (home theater PC) to record OTA programs. PBS and TVO nature shows are excellent. If there is nothing on, I simply stop watching and do something else, thus reducing my TV surfing down to near zero.