Based in rural Minnesota, Brian Burgess worked in IT for 10 years before finding his passion for writing about consumer technology.
Brian earned his degree in computer and network technology in 2000. He held various IT positions, including help desk support, router installations for IBM, database administration, and other associate network administration roles.
He's been a personal technology journalist for 18 years and has written thousands of articles about Microsoft products and services, Android, iOS, streaming, and more. He has written for notable tech sites including XDA, InformationWeek, How-To Geek, Byte, groovyPost, and others.
When he is away from the keyboard, you will hear him playing guitar, working outdoors, and watching Star Trek.
Cable and streaming TV services like Hulu Live and YouTube TV are monthly expenses I don't need. I don't watch much on cable channels anyway. I would rather put that $90 to $100 toward the rising cost of storage. I added a cheap network tuner to Jellyfin to get live TV throughout my home and canceled my streaming TV subscription.
I created custom, commercial-free channels from my self-hosted library that appear alongside the over-the-air (OTA) channels in Jellyfin's TV guide. Now I have a better live TV experience than any service can provide. I can also record as much as I want for free, and my recordings aren't deleted unless I want them to be.
Connecting my antenna and tuner
I placed it in a spot with the best reception and used a Wi-Fi extender
For my setup, I needed to put my antenna and network tuner in the part of my home with the best reception. That was in my den, far from my router, which the tuner needs to plug into. I had a Wi-Fi extender nearby with an open Ethernet port, so I plugged the tuner into it to connect to the network. I didn't intentionally add the extender; it was already there. However, if you need to place your antenna far from the router, this is a good way to connect it to your network.
My tuner is a refurbished HDHomeRun, and I checked its documentation to make sure the tuner would work when plugged into my extender. It did; however, the Wi-Fi extender needed to support Wi-Fi-to-Ethernet bridging since it doesn't have Wi-Fi. It can't be a port that only works for an incoming access point connection. It can also work with a wireless bridge or mesh node. The Wi-Fi signal also needs to be strong enough to carry the TV streams.
Adding live TV to Jellyfin
Streaming live TV to all screens in my house
Once I connected the tuner to my network, I dialed in, updated the firmware, and scanned for channels. I live in a rural area and don't get many, but I get the ones I need. In fact, I used streaming TV for local news and sports, and to record NFL games, because OTA reception was poor. But with my strategically placed antenna, tuner, and Jellyfin, I no longer needed streaming TV.
Adding the OTA channels to my Jellyfin server was straightforward from the dashboard. Adding a guide takes some configuration, including an XMLTV file and a script to keep it updated. It's more work than Plex, which automatically creates and updates the channel guide. But once I had mine working, I set Task Scheduler to run the script that updates the channel guide.
I also made my own commercial-free channels from my media library using Tunarr that run alongside the live channels. It's a fun project that lets me create channels from my self-hosted content, using any content I want. I created channels for movie genres, music videos, documentaries, and a music channel that plays the FLAC files I ripped from CDs — just like cable music channels. All the channels I create play 24 hours a day on a schedule I set, or I can let them play automatically. So, in the end, I always have something to watch.
Ditching streaming TV
It seems much less important and not worth it if I can't keep my recordings
Streaming TV is cool to a point. It provides decent streaming quality for local and cable TV shows and makes recording easy. However, most services automatically delete recordings within nine months or less. I subscribed to Hulu Live and recorded content, but after a set period, certain shows vanished when I wanted to revisit them. Paying for virtually unlimited recording is great, but not being able to rewatch shows I am paying to view is annoying.
You never really own the recordings. However, when I record shows with Jellyfin, they save to my server. I can keep them as long as I want. I can move them to a flash drive or another device and use them how I want. There are a few caveats, of course. OTA recordings take up a lot of storage space, and you don't get as many top channels as streaming. For me, that's not a big deal; my tuner gives me what I need. But if having tons of channels and recordings is a priority, streaming TV could be a better option.
Free channels are a better combination than paying for streaming TV
A mix of free over-the-air TV and channels with my own content in a guide works better for me than a streaming TV service, which can cost more than $100/month depending on the plan. Plus, I can keep my recordings. It's cost-effective as well. I got a cheap HDHomeRun tuner and would rather flip through a channel guide with free television and content I already own. Plus, once I record a show, I can keep it for as long as I want.
