How To Connect TV Antenna To Wi-Fi Router – Using Your Tv Antenna With Wi-Fi Internet

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Thanks to the digital TV era, your home’s Wi-Fi internet connection is now capable of sharing signals from your TV antenna to network other devices wirelessly. With this capability, you will eliminate the need to use different kinds of cables and cable splitters. This connectivity will require some specialized equipment, including the external tuner attached to the wireless router. With the connection of your TV antenna to a Wi-Fi router, you may see a significant boost in your TV’s signal strength.

So, how do I Connect a TV Antenna to Wi-Fi Router?

You can connect a TV antenna to a Wi-Fi router by connecting the coaxial cable to one end of the N-connector and the other end to the coaxial cable of the computer’s wireless card.

The Importance And Benefits Of Connecting TV Antenna To Wi-Fi Router

The benefit of connecting your TV antenna to a Wi-Fi router is that you can stream many channels for free. This will help you reduce your cable fees significantly, and you can also watch your favorite shows while you are on your computer.

You want to take advantage of free broadcast on TV with antenna and Wi-Fi connection, but you don’t want to deal with issues like running cables and installing splitters that are cumbersome and may be time-consuming to set up. In addition to having to install many cables, you will have to acquire some skills.

Another benefit of digital TV with a TV antenna to Wi-Fi connection is that it offers better picture and sound qualities. With this type of connection, you will be able to stream TV signals directly from the broadcast towers over the Wi-Fi signal without needing an internet connection. This connection will even allow you to access stations like Fox, NBC, CBS, and ABC devices anywhere within your home.

How Do I Connect My TV Antenna To The W-Fi

If you have your HDTV antenna installed already, you can connect it to your Wi-Fi, whether the antenna is indoor or outdoor. You will need an external ATSC (Advanced Television Systems Committee) tuner device for this setup purpose. This is the standard for all digital transmission in the United States of America and several other parts of the world. The ATSC is a particular type of set-top box.

Your current TV may come with its ATSC digital tuner to convert over-the-air signals captured by the antenna into a digital picture and sound. Your TV shouldn’t be an analog one and use a converter box.

You need to plug your TV antenna coaxial cable into the back of the external tuner, just the way you will do on your TV set. Plug the tuner inside the tuner into the Wi-Fi router using the ethernet cable that comes with the Wi-Fi.

With this simple connection, the devices connected to your home Wi-Fi network should view all broadcast TV, especially with an app that comes with the tuner.

What Are The Best External Tuners You Can Use To Connect TV Antennas To Wi-Fi?

There are several external tuners you may consider today, but two of the best are the HD HomeRun HDTC-2US-M EXTEND from SiliconDust and Tablo Dual LITE OTA DVR. Both external tuners work similarly by allowing you to attach your HDTV antenna’s coaxial cable to any device and also to connect your home’s Wi-Fi to stream any over-the-air TV subscription on the network.

Though these external tuners work similarly, there are some significant ways they defer.

1. HD HomeRun HDTC-2US-M EXTEND

This network-connected external tuner comes with all the necessary features you will desire in an external tuner. These features allow the tuner to stream live TV from the antenna to your TV’s and other devices through your home.

There are slight differences among the models of this tuner available; some units, for instance, may contain two tuners and others four. Choose according to your needs because the four-tuner models may be more expensive. Remember that having multiple tuners can allow you to watch and record more than one show simultaneously. Your viewing habits and the size of your household should determine the number of tuners you will need.

If you purchase the HD HomeRun HDTC-2US-M EXTENDED with four tuners, you should be able to watch and record up to four different channels simultaneously.

The DVR type is another feature that can differentiate between one tuner and the other. All the models of this tuner come with optional DVR capabilities that may cost extra. One of the benefits of the DVR is that it can offer more than 100 hours of cloud storage; hence you can record digital content from different channels and watch it later.

Keep in mind that, to activate the DVR capabilities, You must connect your tuner to a computer put on at all times. Alternatively, you can run it with a Network Attached Storage (NAS) or an NVIDIA shield. Keep in mind that you will need to disable your computer’s sleep mode when using your computer to record contents being broadcasted; this will ensure that the computer hard drive will not go off as a result of inactivity.

This tuner also comes with a transcoder for better compression of contents. The H264 transcoder is in-built into many models of this tuner, and it will compress videos in real-time, thus providing much lower bandwidth usage. With this feature, you can stream more video over less network space. While this transcoder is more suitable for streaming over wireless connections and to portable devices such as phones and tablets, it can add quickly to the final price of your tuner.

The HomeRun EXTEND model is particularly great for users who use multiple TVs with Wi-Fi spread across the home. The tuner works with the HD HomeRun app that is free to download and also provides access to a broadcast electronic program guide. With this app, you can pause a live TV for up to an hour or rewind up to 5 minutes of content.

If you choose to expand your capabilities with the DVR, you should consider the bandwidth limitation and the caps on internet data that your Wi-Fi subscriber may impose. DVR capabilities are even better with the Tablo Dual LITE NOVA DVR.

2. Tablo Dual LITE OVA DVR

Just like the HD HomeRun, Tablo Dual LITE NOVA DVR will allow you to stream over-the-air HDTV to any device by connecting your TV antenna to Wi-Fi.

There are two tuners here, and they will allow you to play multiple videos or broadcasts simultaneously. It comes with an in-built DVR, and this feature allows you to watch, pause, and record live antenna TV to any capable device within the home. You can skip commercials with this feature.

Unlike the standard Tablo dual, the Lite version doesn’t come with internal storage; hence it is cheaper than Tablo dual. This tuner improves greatly over its predecessor with a better 802.11ac Wi-Fi connectivity.

The Tablo Dual LITE supports all the basic live TV recording features alongside the playback features without a subscription. If you want some advanced DVR capabilities on this tuner, you may want to subscribe to its premium features that include; automatic commercial skip, out-of-home streaming, and content fast-forward.

The Tablo Dual Lite comes with an easy-to-navigate TV channel guide for your live TV. This tuner can allow the user to search content based on genres, program type, and channels.

It comes with a robust scheduling menu for all recording activities. This means you will receive alerts of conflicts of interest between family members when choosing the channels to watch.

This tuner also comes with a TV app just like the HD HomeRun that allows you to control all the functions on the TV, even from your smartphone and tablet.

Keep in mind that each device comes with its own unique app; hence one app will not work for another tuner. You can install these apps from Apple IOS, Android Google Play store, or Windows play store, depending on the tuner’s operating system. The apps are designed to help you navigate through the user interface and customize your viewing experience.

Both of the tuners described here can be used in conjunction with other streaming devices at home. You can also find the Tablo dual Lite app on NVIDIA Shield TV, Xbox, Amazon Fire TV, Roku, and Android TV.

You can also find the third-party DVR solutions very helpful when it comes to enjoying the content on your antenna to Wi-Fi connectivity. These third-party DVR service providers use some popular compatible DVR solutions to boost storage and other features with your tuner. You don’t need any technical expertise to set up these DVR solutions because they are simply plug-and-play devices.

You may want to test your Wi-Fi to TV antenna connection before you commence full broadcast viewing on your device because your connection may not work in the first instance.