• 2 hours

    Tell me you want to be a cable service without telling me.

    • 4 hours

      If only there were some technology where they could then distribute this over the air.

      • 3 hours

        Riiight, then you would only need like a dumb display panel that could receive the signal. Someone should patent this quick!

        • brilliant! it’s like radio but with pictures, idk if the technology is there yet tho…

  • 9 hours

    Yesterday I watched Spain - Belgium on a live stream on Prime Video. The same stream was available on Netflix and YouTube.

    It was like live TV, but properly enshitified. Instead of professional journalists and commenters, you get streamers reacting to the game, improper comments, like and subscribe notices, publicity every time the ball stops, paid viewer comments overlayed on the broadcast. A complete shitstorm.

    I realized that this is what the future of live TV looks like. So I think I’m done with it.

    • …Wow.

      “What if we took early 2000s cable, and added everything bad about YouTube and Twitch to it?”

      • I have a friend who keeps telling me I need to watch this movie. However I just realized I don’t need to, I’m living it.

        • In idiocracy the president realized he was in over his head and needed a smarter person to fix things

          So this is worse.

          • 10 minutes

            President Camacho at least tried to find the smartest people to solve the problems

      • 8 hours

        We had a few shows we liked but in general TV always sucked

        • 3 hours

          For real, watching shows you like on Netflix on demand is far superior to mindlessly scrolling through 70 channels and waiting for commercials to end, like we did in the 90s

        • 4 hours

          True, yet somehow this is even worse. There’s always a deeper level of hell.

    • I don’t have local live TV channels so I hooked up a coax antenna to my TV and I got the local Fox station so I watched it on there. Free TV!

  • 7 hours

    All we need now is to bring the feeds into our home for free. Maybe an antennae device of some sort?

  • Believe it or not, a LOT of people really want this. It’s a lot to do with “choice paralysis”. They can’t choose what to watch, but they want to watch something. I’ve gotta admit I’d like to just be able to go to a sci-fi channel and watch something random.

    • I’ve been using an app called Coax (Apple only, which will disappoint some) to do this with my Plex library and it’s glorious. Beautiful retro styled schedule grid, automated channel/schedule creation, even has a weather channel with Jazz playing. I’m rediscovering stuff that’s been sitting idle on my server for years because it’s just fun to see what’s “on” and be like, ‘Oh yeah, let’s check that out for a few minutes’ and then I end up watching the whole thing.

    • I’ve gotta admit I’d like to just be able to go to a sci-fi channel and watch something random.

      I recently discovered that Sling TV has over 500+ live TV free channels. It’s like Pluto or Tubi but way more channels.

      https://www.sling.com/freestream

      • 7 hours

        The problem I have with most of these services is that every channel is too hyper-specific, often literally just playing a single show or, at best, 2-3 shows but in multi-hour blocks. Incredibly lazy IMO.

        To me, the appeal of linear terrestrial TV is having channels that show a wide variety of things throughout the day. If I wanted to see 24 hours of non-stop Mr. Bean I’d download them and shuffle the folder.

  • 7 hours

    Y’all, the greatest joy in my media universe is the 24/7 MST3K channel that’s on one of these things. Guaranteed laugh within 2 minutes. I don’t need to select the episode. I don’t want each episode in a row. I want random.

  • I’ve recently been getting into free IPTV streams. There are 1000s and 1000s and free streams from all over the world in pretty much every language with over 2000 in English alone. Most are not geo blocked. You can find a list here: https://iptv-org.github.io/

    • Which ones are free? I clicked on a few of the links and they all wanted you to sign up for a subscription

      • I loaded this list into Dispatcharr and then went through and tested and added what looked interesting to my channel list. Right now I have 60 channels that I can watch via Jellyfin.

        These include movie channels, news channels (from several countries). music videos, comedy, documentary. Also streams dedicated to older shows like CSI, Beavis and Butthead, etc.

        Mostly I watch music video channels while I’m working or doing chores. News when I want news, and Buzzr because I like old game shows when I just want something chill.

        ETA: Here you can find links to all the lists https://github.com/iptv-org/iptv/blob/master/PLAYLISTS.md

  • 7 hours

    Next week - Live talk shows without video! You can order a special subscription package to your car. Now only currency 9.99

  • Full circle, except gated off now. I’ll count that as a win for the company.

  • 8 hours

    they’ve already had this for a bit with WWE on netflix.

    It’s just cable with Tivo. you can pause, rewind, all crap. WWE was the test case (it’s like the TV version of the porn industry) so now they’ll woo over other cable networks and sporting events. And then…oh you got cable without having to buy a tivo box. on the bright side, it’ll make pirating and restreaming live sports a heck of alot easier.

  • 9 hours

    I haven’t seen any live-tv for 30yrs now, I’m baffled they still exist somehow?

    • 6 hours

      On the rare occasion I see live TV, the commercials are a new level of terrible now.

      • 3 hours

        I can imagine…and I really really despise commercials or ads. They all try to take you for some dumb troglodyte. I long switched to piracy for movies and series. Enter name, wait 1-2 minutes, watch in 4k with no ads but in peace.

      • 6 hours

        They don’t even try to be entertaining now. Always some bold statement about the proud American tradition read by someone with a gruff voice and it’s a fucking dog food commercial or something

      • 6 hours

        Same. Never watch it but they insist and give us a deal (and then we have to call and threaten to cancel every few months when they try to take the deal away lol)

      • 7 hours

        Lol. My bill is fixed so that wouldn’t change anything. But our TV can only do jellyfin 😁