LOCAST

[NetworkGuy]

Originally Posted by pjpjpjpj

Without digging into the LOCAST website too much, is it absolutely tied to geolocation such that you can ONLY get the locals in your area and you have to be in the "viewing area" of one of their sites? Or could you easily VPN your way around it?

The reason I ask - and this would seem to me to be a big sticking point - is rights to professional sports games. For instance, if you live in Chicago you can watch the Bears on your local CBS or Fox, but if you are a Bears fan living somewhere else, your only options to see the Bears would be paying for something like DirecTV's NFL package (premium $$$). MLB is well-known too for paying to keep cutting-edge algorithms in place to prevent people from watching out-of-market games. With LOCAST, if there was not strict geolocation, you could choose Chicago as your locals and watch the Bears or Cubs game. It would be way cheaper for sports fans to get LOCAST just for out-of-market sports than to pay for the officially-sanctioned league option.

So while they may not get shut down by the FCC, they may get sued by the NFL or MLB.

When I signed up for LOCAST, they used my IP address to assign me to a broadcast area. You can always use a VPN to spoof a different location. But the majority of people don't know what a VPN is and even fewer know how to select a different location. It is only the tech nerds like us that would even think of that.

[pjpjpjpj]

Originally Posted by NetworkGuy

When I signed up for LOCAST, they used my IP address to assign me to a broadcast area. You can always use a VPN to spoof a different location. But the majority of people don't know what a VPN is and even fewer know how to select a different location. It is only the tech nerds like us that would even think of that.

I would have agreed with that statement 5 to 10 years ago but the younger generation is tech-savvy enough to use VPN without blinking. Heck, I read a story a while back (might have been linked here somewhere) about the massive amount of bootleg sites used by viewers in the 18-25 year old range to watch sporting events (the story specifically was talking about the NBA and how the NBA is dealing with it). Bootleg sites (which the story said are widely shared on Reddit) are, of course, often bandwidth-limited, often grainy, often riddled with malware and pop-ups, and by their nature are quite delayed from real time (sometimes 90 seconds to 2 minutes behind). If you told a 22 year old kid (let's say from Chicago) who was off at college that he could have perfectly-reliable and clear stream of the Cubs and Bears for $5/month just by using VPN, I bet he'd figure it out even if he didn't know how already. Cheaper than Netflix...

[wayner]

Originally Posted by pjpjpjpj

I would have agreed with that statement 5 to 10 years ago but the younger generation is tech-savvy enough to use VPN without blinking.

This isn't as relevant for Locast but this particularly the case for folks outside of the US. For years we had to use VPNs to get access to Netflix, or other OTT services. But the streaming services have become much better at blocking folks using VPNs and other methods.

[crarbo1]

Originally Posted by nyplayer

Or if only you could add a M3U tuner in SageTV or OPENDCT. I have TVE XFINITY and Locast working on EMBY/NEXTPVR using Channels DVR as a backend supplying the M3U feed.

Can you explain how to do this (using Emby/NextPVR with channels DVR)? I have never used Emby or NextPVR before so I have no idea on how to do what you mention.

Thanks,
Chuck

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by NetworkGuy

When I signed up for LOCAST, they used my IP address to assign me to a broadcast area. You can always use a VPN to spoof a different location. But the majority of people don't know what a VPN is and even fewer know how to select a different location. It is only the tech nerds like us that would even think of that.

Living in Canada, I decided to see what happens when I hit the LOCAST site, and it detected that I was not in the US and blocked me. So I fired up a VPN and tried again, and it still blocked me. I thought maybe something was cached in the browser, so I installed FireFox and tried again with the VPN, and still blocked. Locast kept requesting my browser's GPS location and it appears to have used that. So, using Chrome I opened the debug tools and set my GPS location to someplace in the US different than my VPN location, and sure enough, LOCAST let me in. I don't intend to do anything with it, but I just wanted to see if the VPN would work, and it appears it needs the browser GPS access.

[NetworkGuy]

Originally Posted by stuckless

Living in Canada, I decided to see what happens when I hit the LOCAST site, and it detected that I was not in the US and blocked me. So I fired up a VPN and tried again, and it still blocked me. I thought maybe something was cached in the browser, so I installed FireFox and tried again with the VPN, and still blocked. Locast kept requesting my browser's GPS location and it appears to have used that. So, using Chrome I opened the debug tools and set my GPS location to someplace in the US different than my VPN location, and sure enough, LOCAST let me in. I don't intend to do anything with it, but I just wanted to see if the VPN would work, and it appears it needs the browser GPS access.

I was right, tech nerd.

[NetworkGuy]

I also confirmed that LOCAST only broadcasts in Stereo, not 5.1.

I guess I am back trying to find an antenna that will work. Maybe I will wait to see what happens with the HDHR Quatro 4K (ATSC 3.0).

[mlcarson]

Just curious if this would work with SageTV.
https://github.com/fHDHR/fHDHR_Locast
SageTV works with HDHomeruns and since this emulates one, would it just work?

[EnterNoEscape]

Originally Posted by mlcarson

Just curious if this would work with SageTV.
https://github.com/fHDHR/fHDHR_Locast
SageTV works with HDHomeruns and since this emulates one, would it just work?

Very interesting work. I might try to play with that when I get a chance.

[mlcarson]

I'm on my second month now of Locast service and am not using a VPN. I used a VPN to signup for the service but they don't seem to be actively checking/cancelling service for users with IP's that seem to be out of their service range. I'll create a new account and use a VPN if that occurs.

An antenna will potentially get you better quality (1080i vs 720p and 5.1 audio) but there are many areas where the channels are not going to be available with the best antenna. They just aren't broadcast in all areas.

So if you're somebody that likes the old shows on the secondary networks that are relegated to subchannels -- Locast is a good way of getting all of them from a single DMA.