I have been reading the forum for hours, and am totally overwhelmed by the vast information and choices available on this subject, and how ignorant I am about it.
We dumped all the Cable TV about a year and a half ago, and have been pretty much using an AppleTV for Netflix and a Blu-ray player for everything else video. Now we would like to watch the local news (and possibly some football
from over the air TV channels. I note that this is quite available on MC, and we have a MC server attached to the main system in the living room via HDMI.
So we ordered a "Mohu Paper Thin Leaf Indoor Antenna" some friends recommended. Very stupidly, I didn't realize that there is nothing for it to connect to except perhaps the TV itself. (The Pannie does not support Audio return (only 1.3) so we have no easy way to get sound out of it, except perhaps, to turn on the TV speakers. We have never used them before, and I expect that will be a bit of pain.
So, we started looking at TV Tuners - train wreck - I don't even understand the language behind some of this stuff, and have been burning up the Google channels looking up all the confusing terms.
Is there a thread here for the absolute TV dummy? Or is someone willing to recommend what to buy?
It seems to range from the $45 "USB TV Stick" MC is selling (does that still work since they changed the way TV is broadcast last year?) and will something like JRemote work to change the channels?
Or will MC support something like this Elgato HD HomeRun Network thingamabob?
http://www.amazon.com/Elgato-HDHomeRun-Network-Tuner-10023030/dp/B00518QSRU/ref=sr_1_34?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1327244406&sr=1-34 The Elgato looks pretty cool, but I am not at all sure will work with MC to get the picture and sound up on the screen. Plus we are cat people, and "The Cat" sounds pretty cool.
Or is there a simpler route with decent hardware that will connect directly up to an HDMI input on our AVR and just avoid all this confusion?
I think I would like to connect via MC, as MC acts (I think!) like a DVR for time shifting, but it would also be nice to watch TV on the laptops as well, if possible. I think I like the Elgato - saying Elgato to a Mac guy is like saying Happauge to a PC guy. Might not know exactly what it is, but darned if you have not heard it talked about for 10 years or so.
Thanks for advice, pointers, links, and recommendations.
-Paul