TV with no aerial. Options?

Medic-one

Medic-one

Medic-one

Associate
Joined
23 Oct 2012
Posts
265
Location
Essex
Not really up to date with the latest options for digital TV so just after some recommendations.

So we're in a townhouse, lounge on the 1st floor, which is where we have the Virgin Media internet router, as well as a VM tivo box. We also have a 2nd VM tivo box in the bedroom upstairs on the 2nd floor.

Spare bedroom has a little tv, connected to a tv aerial, and we had a tv in the kitchen on the groundfloor, also connected to an aerial.

We've now had our conservatory removed and replaced with a large extension and knocked down a kitchen wall.

Our builders said they would reroute the aerial from the kitchen to the wall in the extension where we want a new large tv, however they've now said they can't and that they need to reroute the aerial from the dish on the roof and have to get somebody in to do that. Or they said we could look at TV without aerial.

Obviously as we already have VM in the house we could just have a extra box installed downstairs and then just paid the extra £ 7.50 a month for that box, but i believe there are several other 'aerial-free' options as well.

Stuff like Now TV, a kodi-box and something called TVFox, or someone said if we get a smart tv we can connect it to the router upstairs via the wifi and watch tv like that
confused.gif


We've already got Netflix and an Amazon prime stick, but i believe a lot of the 'normal' tv programs we watch aren't on either of them.

Any recommendations or suggestions ?
I don't mind a 3rd VM box, but would just like to know what other options/idea's there are that are good. Ta
 
First off, anything "dish" won't give you Freeview. Signals coming off a dish are usually either for Sky or for Freesat.

Running your TVs without aerial feeds is possible, but be prepared for the odd hiccup, especially when adding/replacing TVs with new. The tellies kind of expect an aerial signal during setup, and sometimes have a bit of a sulk if they don't get their own way. The most noticeable irritation is the pop-up messages. If the TV hasn't seen an aerial signal but is set to Free view as one of the signal sources.

You might have had a lucky escape with the builders too. Them and electrician are usually the worst people to install aerial or satellite distribution cabling. Invariably they use the cheapest crappiest cable, and Sparked have a habit of wiring aerial sockets daisy-chain fashion the same as they wire plug sockets. Steer clear.

The bottom line is its simpler to get the local aerial guy in. Half a day and a couple of hundred quid will sort you out for 4-6 tellies if you've already got some cable run. It could even be less than that if you have a decent aerial.

Any solution off your existing boxes other than streaming services is going to tie up one box per TV. That means additional cabling and some inconvenience about who can watch and when.
 
I had no aerial cable going to my main TV for about 10 years now
I use Sky HD Box , Netflix & Amazon Prime Video's

But do have an Aerial cable going to some the other small TV's in the house (Kid Bedroom & Kitchen TV) But no one really ever uses the Aerial feed on them..
 
Last edited:
I have a dish I installed myself for freesat (main viewing, using 2009 panasonic HDD / blueray recorder) - self install is easy - dish can be near the ground!

I have an old analogue aerial feed to the kitchen - picks up freeview ok and have a "smart" TV so with wifi from virgin router can watch many channels "via freeview on demand".

I have virgin cable broadband (200MB) and have to take TV - have cheapest option - rarely watch TV via this route but useful for sky arts..

So we have 3 different ways of getting TV - but watch very little!!!! BUT we can always watch what we want via one of TVs as there are only 2 of us!
 
Cheers for the answers folks

Were not planning on changing any of the current Tv's connections. So we'll still have 2 tv's hooked up to virgin media boxes, and 1 little freeview TV upstairs

It's just this new TV that we need a solution for as currently there's no aerial cable to the new wall.

So I can watch TV via the WiFi router without the need of any aerial or cabling to this new TV? Does it need some sort of WiFi stick then?
 
The only way to watch live TV without a dish or arial, is IPTV. Can be quite effective and you can stream it via anything which can support software suitable for the IPTV steam. For example, you could install it on a FireStick, laptop, mobile phone etc.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom