I installed my firestick this morning and I'm already loving it. I can't wait for October when my 2 year contract with direct TV ends and I can tell them to come and get their ugly ass dish or I'm chucking it in the lake.
@Cripplecreek Your next step will be to dump the firestick and buy a ROKU,a HD antenna,and if you are like me and miss TIVO,a tuner. I can now pull in over 4,000 channels for $8.99 per month,which is the monthly ROKU fee.
One of those channels is Direct TV for $35 per month if you want to go that way. You can also get HBO,Showtime,etc,etc,etc for additional money,but less than you were paying. You stream them all over your internet connection or your HD antenna. Don't ask me to explain how I stream you tube and other channels through your tv antenna,but I do. It is probably related to my Channel Master tuner,but I don't know this to be a fact.
I recommend the $4x.xx RCA HD antenna sold by Amazon. I have one for my house and one for my workshop. The nearest tv station to me is 52 miles away,and I pull in 39 channels in the house,and 43 in the workshop. The antenna on the workshop is mounted higher. The HD antennas are MUCH smaller than the traditional tv antennas. I think mine weigh around 4 lbs each,so it's no problem climbing a ladder with one.
Once you get an antenna,go to
www.tvfool.com and type in your home address,and it will list every tv station in your area and give you compass readings to them so you can turn your antenna to dial it in for the best reception.
Out of the 4,000+ channels I can view,only a handful involve me paying a fee. I highly recommend Netflix for $10.66 per month. I also get Amazon Prime for free if you are a Amazon Prime member. I also get HBO,Showtime,Hulu,and Starz,as well as a couple you have probably never heard of,like Brit Box. I'm a huge Dr Who fan and you can view EVERY SINGLE Dr Who episode at Brit Box since Season 1,episode 1,as well as other British tv series.
Out of the 4,000+ channels you will get for free,you wouldn't watch most of them unless someone were pointing a shotgun at you and demanding you watch or die. By the second day,you might be begging for the sweet release of the shotgun. Don't let that scare you. There are enough free channels available that regardless of what you enjoy viewing,there just isn't enough hours in the day to view all the shows you really want to watch. There are entire channels dedicated to war movies,science fiction,horror,romance,comedy,and every other subject you can think of and probably some that never occurred to you.
I currently run a 1TB removable HD attached to my Channel Master turner for recording,but will be trying to adapt one of those home surveillance recorders with 4 channels to my smart tv to see how that works. They are a lot cheaper than tv recorders,and have high definition,rewind,etc,etc,etc. If worse comes to worse I will just use it to monitor my home and yard.