For this week's giveaway, we've once again teamed up with Plex to offer MacRumors readers a chance to win a cord-cutting bundle that includes a lifetime Plex Pass, an antenna, and a TV tuner for creating a live TV setup that provides all kinds of content that can be watched without the need for a cable subscription.
Plex is an all-in-one media hub that organizes your existing library of content from TV shows and movies to music and photos, plus it offers a whole slew of additional free content even if you don't have an existing media library.
Plex provides live news, Podcasts, live TV content, and ad-supported movies and TV shows made available through partnerships with Warner Bros, Lionsgate, Legendary, and more. Just today, Plex debuted support for TV shows and movies from Crackle, adding tons of new content that can be watched for free.
With the addition of Crackle, Plex users in the United States have access to more individual movies than can be streamed on Netflix, with no monthly fees, plus it includes original Crackle content.
One of the most useful parts about Plex is that it learns about your viewing preferences based on what you watch, so it can recommend new TV shows, movies, podcasts, and web shows that you might not otherwise have known about.
To use Plex, you can set up a Plex Media Server on a Mac, which makes all of your media content accessible on your devices through the Plex iOS and Apple TV apps, along with the Plex apps for consoles, Android devices, and other set-top boxes.
Plex's Live TV service, which can replace cable for basic television watching, doesn't require any kind of cable subscription. It can be set up with just a digital tuner and digital antenna, which lets you access HD content from channels available over-the-air like ABC, NBC, FOX, CBS, and the CW, plus local programming that includes sports and news.
Plex's website has a full rundown on which DVR tuners and antennas are compatible with Plex's over-the-air service, which is worth checking out if you're thinking of cutting out cable. For our giveaway, Plex is offering a Mac-compatible SiliconDust HDHomeRun Tuner with multi-room multi-user support, and a Clearstream Eclipse TV Antenna.
Plex's Live TV functionality requires a Plex Pass subscription, priced at $5 per month, $40 per year, or $120 for a lifetime subscription, all of which are more affordable options than a standard cable subscription. Plex is including a lifetime Plex Pass in the giveaway, providing our winners with lifetime access to Plex's premium service.
Plex's free content, which includes all of its ad-supported TV shows and movies, can be watched with a free Plex account.
We have two Plex cord-cutting bundles to give away, which include a tuner, antenna, and Plex Pass. To enter to win our giveaway, use the Gleam.io widget below and enter an email address. Email addresses will be used solely for contact purposes to reach the winners and send the prizes. You can earn additional entries by subscribing to our weekly newsletter, subscribing to our YouTube channel, following us on Twitter, following us on Instagram, or visiting the MacRumors Facebook page.
Due to the complexities of international laws regarding giveaways, only U.S. residents who are 18 years or older and Canadian residents (excluding Quebec) who have reached the age of majority in their province or territory are eligible to enter. To offer feedback or get more information on the giveaway restrictions, please refer to our Site Feedback section, as that is where discussion of the rules will be redirected.
The contest will run from today (May 1) at 11:00 a.m. Pacific Time through 11:00 a.m. Pacific Time on May 8. The winners will be chosen randomly on May 8 and will be contacted by email. The winners will have 48 hours to respond and provide a shipping address before new winners are chosen.
Top Rated Comments
Asking for support for an issue you're having with how things are already supposed to work isn't a whole lot different, three-quarters of the time. You're more likely to get helpful suggestions from the volunteer moderators than actual support from employees.
IMHO if you want what it offers, but in a much nicer, more "apple-like" UI experience
- use Infuse Pro for stored content. This runs on aTV and iPad, and can access stored content over the internet. I have the stored content on an external drive connected to my mac mini server.
- use Channels DVR for the TV side of things. Again very nice aTV and iPad apps, with the recorded TV shows saved on the mac mini server. Again accessible anywhere over internet.
- use Silicon Dust's HD Homerun as the tuner hardware. If you don't need to buy that right away, wait as long as you can and/or go to their Kickstarter page. Their current product (Homerun Quattro) is a 4-channel tuner for current OTA TV, but the Kickstarter is for a 4-channel tuner that is ATSC3.0 compatible, ie will work the US 4K TV broadcasts that will trickle out over the next few fears [already live in Phoenix, and I think one other test market now).
- for internal antenna, the best combination of performance and looking nice is the so-called mudflap antenna which looks nothing like a standard antenna. A little more expensive, but worth it, unless you want to go to the hassle of mounting an antenna on your roof. Mohu makes a very nice one --- IMHO buy the largest area one they sell.
For many use cases, you can just tape it to the back of your TV, like taping a sheet of paper, and never even see it!
fyi- plex lifetime usually goes on sale at least ones a year if anyone’s interested in it. Usually Black Friday week and maybe a second time at some point.