Buffalo, NY (WBEN) With the Verizon/Nexstar dispute entering its second week, some subscribers may be frustrated to the point of cutting the cord. A tech expert says you may want to look at a couple of alternatives.
Locally, the dispute affects viewers of Channels 4 and 23, owned by Nexstar. That means football fans may be shut out of this weekend's NFL and college games as well as CBS and CW programming. For frustrated viewers, an antenna or subscribing to a streaming service may be the answer.
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Heather Sidorowicz of Southtown Audio Video says getting an antenna doesn't necessarily mean climbing onto the roof. "In the more dense areas, you can actually sometimes have one just really in your window that would still pull in your local stations," says Sidorowicz. She says an in-house antenna costs as little as $25, and depending on what you need, find out how big your antenna is needed.
While you can pick up subchannels from the TV stations, Sidorowicz says you may have make some adjustments. "Recording and the ways that maybe you're used to watching the TV may be a little bit different," she notes. But there's an advantage to an antenna because there's no compression. "In your four fancy 4k TV, you're actually going to see a 4k uncompressed signal. The downfall could be that if the weather's bad, or something's kind of in the way or maybe you're just on the edge, you may pixilation while watching that station."
Sidorowicz says she's a big fan of another alternative to cable, streaming. "My secret hope is that more people will realize that this is an option that they don't have to pay their monthly cable bills," says Sidorowicz. "So if we don't all call to complain, maybe they'll realize that they're not as neat as they used to be." she says you could get a streaming device or use your Smart TV, but she recommends a third party streaming device.