EPG on a TV with no aerial. Is possible?

[Beagle 2]

Here's the problem I am trying to solve:

We subscribe to BT TV. It's fine. More than fine actually, the simplest and cheapest TV service I've subscribed to. Only, we use a telly in a different room now. A room underground. A room underground without an aerial connection where it would be a real pain in the arsehole to route an aerial through to.

Yes it's a Smart TV. Yes we have all the shitty TV apps. But I just want a standard EPG with live telly, because I'm old, I'm time poor, I want to put the telly on and watch what's on the telly just like it's the before everything went shit times. Even if I know what I want to watch, and I know it's on BBC1, that 12 seconds of logging in and selecting the streaming channel takes years off my life. And I don't know what's on! Yes I can look at my phone. Don't want to.

So, you can sort of do this with the Freeview Play app, which is an EPG at least so you can see what's on, even if it does then go and launch it in the respective app. But it's a Samsung TV and they don't carry Freeview Play. Really cool.

We're actually resorting to watching Samsung TV Plus here lads, it's that desperate. Hey, maybe I can hack it so that Samsung TV Plus carries channels that aren't shit? I mean definitely no but imagine if yes!

It doesn't seem like it should be this hard. Just Freeview, but through the internet. We'll make millions. 

[steveh]

You want Freeview's new Freely net-delivered TV service, launching next year.

https://www.techradar.com/streaming/what-is-freely-the-new-bbc-itv-and-channel-4-smart-tv-platform-explained

[Sebastian Cobb]

Do you have a set top box for the BT TV? Maybe a solution could be to move the box to where the aerial is, and use either a wireless or over-ethernet hdmi extender.

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

You could always try an indoor aerial for your sex dungeon television. It probably won't get a signal, but it's worth a try.

[Gurke and Hare]

Indoor aerials seem to be a lot better than they were, I borrowed one from  friend when I'd moved into a new place a while back and it was just a flappy piece of plastic but it gave a great signal.

[White Dog Poo]

If everything else doesn't work there's a very technical/fiddly solution for streaming Freeview channels via Wi-fi though you will still need to somehow display the streamed channels on the basement TV. Ideally requires a Raspberry Pi 3 or 4 (but not 5) with a Raspberry Pi TV Hat plugged in and connected to the TV aerial, running LibreELEC 10.0.4 on a MicroSD card but not the latest version since that version doesn't support the TV Hat. The Raspberry Pi ideally also requires a separate power switch just incase it crashes. When the hardware/software is up and running you need to install Tvheadend Server 4.3 (via Add-ons) to stream Freeview channels plus Tvheadend HTSP Client to watch them via the Raspberry Pi if you want to do that as well.

https://www.raspberrypi.com/

https://libreelec.tv/downloads/raspberry/

[seepage]

You want Freeview's new Freely net-delivered TV service, launching next year.

https://www.techradar.com/streaming/what-is-freely-the-new-bbc-itv-and-channel-4-smart-tv-platform-explained

But as Samsung TVs don't have Freeview Play, presumably they won't offer Freely either (I assume it's to save money).

BBC app has live TV with pause, ITVX & Ch4 apps have live TV but no pause

[Sebastian Cobb]

It looks like BT TV actually does have IP Fallback already.

https://www.bt.com/help/tv/does-bt-tv-work-without-freeview-#:~:text=If%20you%20do%20not%20have,wi-fi%20or%20Ethernet%20cable.

The BT TV Box Pro and BT TV Box Mini will work without an aerial connected, but you'll miss out on some free-to-air channels, including Dave. You can check which channels are available here.

If you do not have an aerial then you will need to connect your BT TV Box to broadband in order to watch free-to-air channels and On Demand content. BT TV Boxes can be connected to your broadband either by wi-fi or Ethernet cable. We recommend the use of Ethernet cable for the best experience. There will be an

[seepage]

BT TV to become EE TV in December, as the EE brand is more familiar with the kids. Will you need to return the BT box and get an EE one in exchange, or will they mail an EE badge to stick over the top instead? 

[Beagle 2]

It looks like BT TV actually does have IP Fallback already.

https://www.bt.com/help/tv/does-bt-tv-work-without-freeview-#:~:text=If%20you%20do%20not%20have,wi-fi%20or%20Ethernet%20cable.

That is very fucking interesting, thank you!

If everything else doesn't work there's a very technical/fiddly solution for streaming Freeview channels via Wi-fi though you will still need to somehow display the streamed channels on the basement TV. Ideally requires a Raspberry Pi 3 or 4 (but not 5) with a Raspberry Pi TV Hat plugged in and connected to the TV aerial, running LibreELEC 10.0.4 on a MicroSD card but not the latest version since that version doesn't support the TV Hat. The Raspberry Pi ideally also requires a separate power switch just incase it crashes. When the hardware/software is up and running you need to install Tvheadend Server 4.3 (via Add-ons) to stream Freeview channels plus Tvheadend HTSP Client to watch them via the Raspberry Pi if you want to do that as well.

https://www.raspberrypi.com/

https://libreelec.tv/downloads/raspberry/

That is absolutely baffling, but thank you!

[Pranet]

How did watching the tv become so complicated?

[Gurke and Hare]

How did watching the tv become so complicated?

It was always quite complicated without an aerial.

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

How did watching the tv become so complicated?

🎶 The telly in the basement of my house gets me frustrated 🎶

[canadagoose]

Can you buy a BT TV Box Mini from BT? That streams via Wi-Fi. I assume you've got it sorted by now, though.