I went ahead and picked up an antenna for the attic this weekend. Roku TV and whatnot was fine but there were a few local things that we wanted access to and I kind of wanted a side project.
GE Outdoor HD Digital TV Antenna, Long Range Smart TV Antenna, Supports 4K 1080P HD Smart TV VHF UHF, J Mount Included for Attic or Outdoor, Weather Resistant, 29884
Amazon.com
My initial plan was to run it out of the attic and down the wall next to where the previous owner had the Dish TV and the Xfinity comes in to be distributed to the 2nd floor, but the more I looked at it that was going to be a huge PITA and way over 50’ to get it to the living room TV.
So I also picked up a
Tablo which let me put the OTA on my network and then stream it through my Roku. Took about 30 minutes to mount the antenna, drop the coax down in to my networking closet, and hook up the Tablo. Everything came up immediately.
I’m about 6 miles almost line of sight to the main broadcast ridge in West Little Rock and have no problem picking up like 57 channels. We weren’t really interested in the DVR aspect of the Tablo so not sure if we’ll use that. The actual app and device works just fine though.
I’ve read a lot of the negative reviews which mostly center around app maturity and stability, with most saying there’s a lot of promise. There is also a lot of uncertainty around ATSC 3.0 and encryption, neither of which the Tablo currently supports I believe. But for $89 it seemed like a good test and will get me some locals for the time being.