Anyone wanting to do this on your own should look into the combination of:
This combo brings all of the advantages of traditional cable without cable box leases. Feed as many TVs as you like with
- HDHomeRun boxes from Silicon Dust. These are boxes you can plug into your home network and stream either OTA (local) channels and/or cable to any TVs and now Amazon Fire in the home. I picked up both their Prime box (for Comcast cable programming) and their Extends (for OTA local channels & subchannels). Works great.
- The $25 Channels App. Most people look right over it because they can't imagine paying $25 for an TV app but it brings ALL of the programming from those HDHomeRun boxes together in an attractive (cable TV-like) UNIFIED, on-screen guide, merging OTA locals with Cable channels. This app allows you to put your channels in any order, set up a FAV channel list, hide any channels you don't want, etc.
- The $8/month Channels App DVR- a full-featured, traditional hardware-like DVR that brings all of those key features NOT available on virtual DVRs to any TV in the house. Your DVR capacity is then NOT limited to ANY size- just add hard drives- and the recorded programming is accessible on ANY TV or computer or mobile device.
TV as "the box." Relative to streaming service alternatives to traditional cable, all of the tradeoffs of the streamers are overcome by not completely cutting the cord.
In short: you don't have to wait for your cable company to make this happen. Look into doing it yourself.
I’m doing this too (minus the DVR subscription) with Verizon Fios. I feel like the DVR subscription is almost not necessary with so many channels having their own app on ATV that you can watch previously-aired programs from. I have my ATV’s wired vs wireless too. No more ugly STB’s, nor toggling to different TV inputs, and just one ATV remote to handle.
