jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Since getting the Amazon Fire TV stick, I've subscribed to CBS All Access, at least for the two-week trial period. I've been watching Star Trek: Discovery. I'm impressed. Apparently, CBS put a lot of that subscription money into the production. The production values are very high, and the story line is good. I expect to finish watching the second season soon.

It's a shame that we must pay to watch it, though. I think it's only $10 a month, but when I add up all the "small" charges I have every month, it winds up being a huge amount every year.

Bob Mevis Loc: Plymouth, Indiana

While I'm not into Sci Fi, I'm with you on all the small charges. I just went with Xfinity last week and, I'm sure I will be shocked when I get my first bill.

elliott937 Loc: St. Louis

I'm a Star Trek super fan. But when CBS started the subscription plan, I'm reminded of when we had DirecTV. Bill was not cheap. Then we dropped it, picked up Netflix and love it. Now, if we begin adding others, like CBS All Access, then ???, we're right back up at the $100 per month. I think we'll stay happy with what we have. And "thank you" Jerry, for putting the major size temptation before me. :)

2Dragons Loc: The Back of Beyond

As an old "Trekkie" I was happy to hear that ST Discovery has been so well done. I clicked on your webpage and loved your Fall pictures and recognized the Train Rides from one of our leaf-peeping forays to NY when we lived in Vermont. You have some great shots, Jerry.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

You can watch a lot of TV for free in two weeks.

Aside from Discovery, there's no reason for me to keep All Access.

elliott937 Loc: St. Louis

Isn't there a 'legal show', with that wonderful "bitchy" lawyer? She was on a prior legal show, and I loved her role. Is this enough to describe a show you might also watch in your free two weeks?

Bison Bud

Don't forget to add in your Wi-Fi service charges as well. Internet access services have skyrocketed since folks have been "Cutting the Cord" on cable and will continue to do so as the trend continues. They will try to make up lost revenues wherever they can and since we must have internet service to stream anything, it's a logical solution for them to raise the price on the basic internet service when they are losing cable subscriptions. Pretty much a wash in my eyes unless you willing to pay extra for the special programming available like Star Trek. Frankly, I'm considering putting up a decent outside antenna and just going off air in the near future, but I still need the internet service and hate to see the price just keep going up and up!

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

Jerry, more power to you. I've not had a TV since July of 2002. I subscribed to Direct TV for one year. I found that I actually watched TV for about 50 hours over that year. It just wasn't worth it.
--Bob

lamiaceae Loc: San Luis Obispo County, CA

We have Frontier Fios for our Online, TV, and Landline, and Verizon Wireless for our SmartPhones. Between the two it is a good portion of our monthly expenses. And if I thought on a yearly basis I'd probably end 'em! I watched the very first Episode of Star Trek: Discovery free but then waited. We picked up the First Season on DVD/Blu-ray Disc. It does sound like they are putting more effort and more money into season 2. Assuming it happens, when the new Star Trek Spin-off with Patrick Stewart comes out I may just have to subscribe to CBS All Access. With all the weirdness between CBS and Viacom who knows what will happen with anything star trek.

To get another program series we wanted to see (my wife initially wanted to see) we subscribed to Nextflix but I find more of what I want to see with our Frontier TV On Demand or by having a Amazon Prime Account that comes with some free TV access. I did finally watch the entire series of all the Star Trek: Enterprise episodes with Scott Bakula. I never saw it when it was on broadcast TV. Anyway, so we will probably be ending the Nextflix as we rarely use it.

If I want to spend $10 per month I would likely go for the Adobe Ps/Lr. I might make use of some of the new features in Ps CC since CS6. And the next Camera whatever I get will likely no longer work the way I want with ACR 9.1.1.

Yes, I'm a Sci-Fi and Fantasy fan. Star Trek, Star Wars, Lord of The Rings, Harry Potter, X-files, "Star Wars" cartoons too. And many others.

elliott937 Loc: St. Louis

Bison, about putting up a TV antenna, don't you already have one up 'from those days gone by'? I do, I put it up in the attic for superb FM reception. Well ... I don't listen to any local FM stations anymore, but the antenna works superb for St. Louis area wide digital TV. To take it one step better, I bought an over the air TV tuner with DVR built in. Amazon has units like that now. Anyway, I love Dick Wolf shows, like Law and Order, which of course are gone. BUT, I now regularly record FBI, All Rise, Bull, and Blue Blood. To round it off, I've just added Young Sheldon. Since we live a somewhat unconventional schedule in our home, I don't watch any of those "live". All recorded to the DVR, so I watch it later at my convenience. LOL, I can also jump-over the commercials. And all these shows, of course, are free. So Bison, you are making a very wise move, in my opinion.

lamiaceae Loc: San Luis Obispo County, CA

That's cool, we watch those same CBS and NBC shows, plus all the NCIS versions. Wow, there have been a ton of different Law & Order shows over the years! And we also time shift with a DVR on our Fios system.

I have my Stereo Receiver connected to the roof antenna as well as the TV if I ever want to watch actually broadcast TV again. I always wanted to get a rotor for my antenna as we have channels / stations in different directions from us. We are in Pomona, CA so we can potentially get signals from broadcasts in Pasadena, San Bernardino, and Orange County. But my antenna is aimed at Mount Wilson, Pasadena for L.A. broadcasts.

elliott937 Loc: St. Louis

I tell my college students that they are the ones who won't let LP records die. And it's folks like us that won't let over-the-air TV die. Yes, there are still some really great free over-the-air TV shows. OH, I filed to mention that with the over-the-air digital tuner, you also get a bunch of .x stations. So CBS is channel 4 here in St. Louis. But most of the above mentioned shows are really on 4.1 channel. There are also 4.2, 4.3, and 4.4. The local PBS station is 9.1. But the PBS network also supplies 9.2, 9.3, and 9.4. One of those strongly features travel shows, and very informative for those of us who plan to visit parts of Europe.

Bison Bud

Unfortunately, my current home has never had an outside TV antenna installed, but it looks like it's going to get one soon. There is a lot of programming available off air locally, because I have checked it out with an indoor antenna. Unfortunately, the indoor one is simply not reliable and it's going to take a good outside antenna before I can make the total switch over. Anyway, I'm going to have a hard time giving up Discovery, History, Sci-Fi, channels, etc. However, we are now on a fixed income and a tight budget and the price for cable TV and internet services just continue to go up and up and I've pretty much reached my breaking point!

On another note, does anyone else feel like the number of commercials has gotten out of hand? While off air stations make their only income on running these ads and as an ex-broadcast engineer I understand that. However, the cable channels effectively double dip by running the excessive ads and getting their monthly subscription price as well. Seems to me that for the price of my subscription, that they could at least minimize the number of ads they run, but we all know that's not going to happen! Anyway, we too watch mostly recorded programs, so we can zip through the commercial breaks whenever possible and a DVR/off air tuner combo sounds like a real good investment with the direction things seem to be going. All in all, I guess I'm going to have to spend more time with my camera! Thanks for the input, good luck and good shooting to all.

elliott937 Loc: St. Louis

Totally off the subject ... sorry guys, but Bison Bud just "told me" I should share something new here in the world of Photography. Since I am seriously running out of wall space, for Christmas, I've requested a digital picture frame. I can then work on my new images, save to a SD card, then insert it into one of the digital picture frames. My other half insisted that I receive two of them. One 14" wide one for the wall, and a 10" one for my desk. This is totally recharging my drive in photography.

I seriously apologize, for I'm enjoying our conversation on utilizing over-the-air TV, to include DVR. Let me step out of here, and let you guys return to Over-the-Air TV.

2Dragons Loc: The Back of Beyond

A friend of mine who has Amazon Prime gets many documentaries on Amazon Prime and it doesn't cost you anymore than the price of getting Amazon Prime, $119/year and besides the documentaries they have thousands of movies and some series made for Amazon. I believe you need a Smart TV to get these, but a Firestick may work on one that isn't a Smart TV. I'm not positive, but I'm sure that other folks on UGHH may know whether this is possible or not.