Yes. Cable and Satellite TV has been dead to me for about 6 weeks.  

I thought I could simply use iTunes and a mac mini but I’ve been defeated by ABC and the soccer world cup which was unavailable via a decent internet feed for love of god or money.

Ahhh… but adversity is the mother of invention.  Here is the solution.

Go here:

Antenna Web

type in your zipcode and it will tell you what kind of antannae you will need and what compass direction to point in.  02116 is 265 degrees and requires Medium Directional w/ pre-amp.

So, I bought this ($98.91):

ClearStream4 HDTV Antenna

It took about an hour to setup.

I used my iphone compass app (very satisfying) to aim it.

I plugged the Antenna output into this, which I had from my DirecTV days:

Terk MBS-58 in/8 Out Integrated Multiswitch (Terk BMS58)

And made sure my old-coax was all in the right place.

I also bought this ($104.26):

Elgato EyeTV One Computer TV Tuner

it takes a coax cable and turns it into a usb connector which goes into the mac mini.

I put the Elgato installation disk in my mac mini.  installed.  let the software upgrade. and it instantly worked.

My wife and I had a fun 5 minutes using the settings panel of the software to hone the direction of the antennae.  It felt exactly like a couple of six year olds with walky-talkys - one on the roof and one in front of the projector saying things like:
” how’s it now? over” :-)

I signed up for the TVguide which is free for the first year.

I installed pyeTV (python-based EyeTV plugin for Mac OS X’s Front Row)

I now get 25 over the air channels of which 5 (ABC,NBC,CBS,PBS,ION) are absolutely, drop dead, HD gorgeous! All available from front row using the mac remote.

I even set the thing up to record a couple of things and to share the recordings over my local network.  But, I really don’t care if that works (although I will report back on that).  All I know is next world cup. I am all set!

Happy Tuesday Y’all.