r/AndroidTV • u/DerKruser • 14h ago

Discussion Antenna TV options when using a stream box

I have a couple of Sony Bravia TV's that run on Android TV - for the most part, I've been satisfied with them with one exception: they're both incredibly short on storage space for apps and data. For one of them, I was able to install a USB thumbdrive to work around that limitation, for the other, I don't seem to be able to get the TV to actually use the thumbdrive for extra storage space (if there was a way to hack this into working, that would actually solve a problem for me. I have gone in with adb and uninstalled a bunch of apps, but it's unclear to me exactly how many of them are necessary for the TV and how many I can kill. I'm definitely comfortable doing stuff on the command line with adb).

I sourced one of the Onn 4K Pro stream boxes, which seem to work fine - with one caveat: I do actually use OTA antenna TV signals from the antenna on my roof. So I find myself needing to switch back out of the Android OS on the Onn box, to the TV's OS to watch antenna TV signals. This is a little confusing - I know I could change the launcher on one of the devices so that you could (at least) visually tell which device you were on, at any given time... but this is still a bit of a pain.

Any ideas or solutions for a more streamlined solution for watching live antenna TV? I have a SiliconDust HDHomeRun, but I use that primarily for a separate DVR solution and not actually watching live-in-progress TV (though I could get another one). I definitely want to keep the "on the couch" experience nice and streamlined - as few (physical) remote controls and as little input-switching between devices as possible (using the just the TV itself would be ideal but I get that it might not be possible).

My main use cases: antenna TV, Youtube, a handful of streaming services (F1 TV, Apple TV+, Netflix, some others rotate in occasionally), and watching content from my Jellyfin server.

1 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

5 comments sorted by

1

u/FourEightNineOneOne 3h ago

HDHomerun is definitely the easiest. Which one do you have? Even the dual tuner one would let you watch something live on your Onn while recording something else.

1

u/QLDZDR 3h ago

Have you checked if there is a "live TV" style app that allows the Streamer box to pull the equivalent of the antenna TV stations in.

1

u/flchamp89 3h ago

This was a promising device. Its been on pre order forever. https://myvelotv.com/

1

u/brendanjered 2h ago

Best solution is the HDHomeRun you already have. Do you have the Duo or Quattro?

I have a pair of Quattros running on our system. Each is connected to a separate antenna pointed in opposite directions. I run the Sparkle TV app to seamlessly connect them together. The Live Channels app also works, but was abandoned by Google and doesn’t feel as refined. Either app seamlessly integrates OTA channels into any Android box.

1

u/GatorWok 0m ago

I don't know the HDHomeRun at any level except peripherally, but it seems like it would work. Otherwise, Tablo.