I assume this depends on where you live, though.

r/piracy megathread all the way

Definitely depends on where you are in the world. I don't know if you could do that here in the upper Northwest of the States. I know my parents have a little tablet looking TV receiver they used to use that would get them free TV, but I don't think it gets free sports or my dad would absolutely flip out over that football season.

I'm 28 so a little older than the prompt, I have a setup i never use it. I used it a lot as a kid but it doesn't hold up to the alternatives.

• tv & movies: the worst matchup with alternatives. In the time of the first adbreak i could add the show or movie to my *arr and get it before the ads are done. I also don't have to tune in on the hour/half hour and can switch to my phone/pc if I want/need to go somewhere else.
• live news: i don't like tv news generally, but if i wanted i could watch it for free on YouTube or via free app.
• live sports: the most compelling usecase. Unfortunately when I did follow sports I followed a team from the next city over, which means they get no coverage here making it useless. It also more ads than streams. Streams are honestly still pretty inconvenient and still pretty ad filled (banner ads, "this goal sponsored by" physical ads in the arena). None of this is worth it to me anymore so I just don't watch anymore.

The transition from analog to digital really hurt my desire to watch OTA TV (you caught me! I'm not under 25).

With analog broadcast, any weak signal or interference produced a little bit of static, but you could still see and hear what was being said. With digital, any weak signal means dropped frames and silence or weird glitches. You completely lose what's happening. Even with a powered antenna, I have frequent issues with weak signal. I could probably try to get a rooftop antenna installed, but there's no guarantee it would be any better. It's just easier to find other entertainment at this point.

The cost to move to America is quite steep, though, and there are significant drawbacks.

I don't care about cable TV. In Hungary nearly all news broadcasts over here are just propaganda machines and spitting out literal garbage content. Also the ads.

UbO + Internet + torrent goes br

I am aware. I am also aware that I haven't used cable tv over a decade and I do not regret ditching that garbage

Ads, ads everywhere.

Besides there, there is also a 4k OTA standard, ATSC 3.0. Most TVs don't support it yet, but some do. Worth googling before you buy. You can also get something like an silcondust 4k standalone tuner and plug that into your home network instead. You then load its app to watch over the air TV in 4k.

If you do buy the silicondust tuner, you can go further and get a DVR going. Plenty of free projects that will help you setup and record TV like jellyfin, and many of them will auto-skip the ads too with an application called comskip.

The ads on over the air programming are so so terrible. And even with a great antenna the many channels aren't exactly the highest quality content even if they didn't have ads.

YouTube has taken the place of over the air TV and for good reason.

You can also watch Pluto TV. No sign in or fee. Lots of 24:7 dedicated channels for shows like Midsommer Murders, MST3K, Americas Test Kitchen, etc as well as variety genre channels

17 here, my grandparents used it before switching 1-2 years ago. Can't imagine the ads are any better that less people watch it and staticy stations were annoying.

I myself don't watch TV that much, mainly YouTube or music. In the last month I've watched ~3 episodes of impractical jokers on the family TV, and 8 episodes of South Park on my Steamdeck before bed.

Yes.

https://fmhy.net/videopiracyguide#live-tv-sports

Although I don't tune in to live sports, I just share resources to find free livestreams/media with others :P

Linear TV over an antenna? Well that's only technically free. You'd need to buy a receiving device - that costs money. You need to watch ads - that costs time.

You mean OTA TV? I don't even watch sports, the rest has 10 minute advertisements. And considering it's digital, I don't find it interesting at all. Yes, a weird reason, but anyway.

What’s the password for the “UHF” wifi?

You can also just pirate

why would I use that when I have a *arr setup?

Living in tornado alley, having a TV antenna and a weather radio is almost a requirement. If the Internet gets knocked out, OTA still works. Also, my Internet is shit so I wouldn't rely on it if a tornado is bearing down on my location, but I do also love watching 9½ hours of nonstop tornado coverage when nasty storms might come my way.

Outside of that, I know to tune in at about :15 past the hour during newscasts to catch the weather report, which gets uploaded to their website later anyway. If the football game is on, I might catch that if I care to watch. I don't really watch OTA otherwise.

But I'm 32 lol

(Assuming you mean DVB-T). In some place OTA is just the standard. Where I'm from cable TV is simply unheard of and all terrestrial digital channels are free with varying degree of ads.

Another great example of how things work so different in different parts of the world

Nice try, Channel Master.