Ideally, you’d just set up an over-the-air antenna and use it to watch your local games on CBS, Fox, and NBC. You’d miss most Monday Night Football coverage (save for the two games airing on ABC this year), and would need Amazon Prime for most Thursday night games, but you’d still get to watch the vast majority of local games for free.

Not everyone’s lucky enough to live within antenna range of local broadcast stations, though, and that’s where Locast comes in. By exploiting an apparent loophole in copyright law, Locast lets you watch dozens of local broadcast channels on a wide range of streaming devices. (The service is technically free, but requires a $5-per-month donation for uninterrupted viewing.) Locast launched in seven U.S. cities in early 2019, and has since expanded to 23 markets, having added the Detroit area this week and Minneapolis/St. Paul last month.

Assuming the NFL season proceeds as planned, Locast will represent the cheapest way for cord-cutters to stream NFL games. And even if your city doesn’t support Locast, there are workarounds for accessing the service via locales that do. Read the full column on TechHive.

The new arrivals turn YouTube TV into a more complete offering for sports fans, especially during football season. As of now, the only other live streaming services with both NFL Network and Redzone are FuboTV ($65 per month, or $76 per month with Redzone) and Vidgo ($40 per month, or $50 per month with Redzone). One would hope this won’t result in another price hike, seeing as YouTube TV just raised prices by $15 per month back in July.

PBS live streaming: You might not need YouTube TV anymore to live stream your local PBS station. As The Streamable reports, free PBS feeds are now available in 85 markets, with more expected to arrive in the future. If you’re in one of those markets, you can access the live streams in your web browser through pbs.org/livestream or through the “Live TV” section on Roku devices. PBS says it’s looking at bringing live feeds to other platforms, such as Apple TV and Amazon Fire TV, in the future.

Netflix’s freebies: Netflix is dipping its toes into free streaming, but not in the way you might expect. The company has launched a free section on its website and Android app, where you can watch a selection of full movies and the first episode of certain TV shows. The free offerings won’t have commercial breaks, but you might see skippable pre-roll trailers for other Netflix content. The hope is that being able to sample some free movies and shows will convince more folks to sign up.

Why isn’t Netflix making its freebies available on more devices? My guess is that there’s too much friction involved in subscribing through streaming TV devices, and Netflix doesn’t even let you subscribe directly through its iOS app because it doesn’t want to give Apple a cut of its revenues. There’s not much point in giving away free content on platforms where signing up is difficult or impossible.

A big update for Nvidia Shield: Nvidia is continuing a stellar streak of software support for its Shield TV streaming boxes. The impressive AI upscaling feature on the 2019 version can now convert more videos to 4K, including videos with an original resolutions of 360p or 1440p, and if you have the “Pro” version, it can upscale 60 frames per second video as well. The programmable menu button on the 2019 Shield TV remote is also getting a couple more customization options, including the ability to long-press and double-press the button for additional functions.

Nvidia’s delivering some other little upgrades as well, including IR volume control through both the Shield TV mobile app and Google Home speakers (presumably via the physical remote), plus an option to avoid lowering the TV volume if you’re talking to a Google Home speaker. The Shield is really coming into its own as an excellent high-end streaming device, especially as the underlying Android TV platform gets more attention from Google.

The Apple TV upgrade that wasn’t: Forget all those rumors of a new Apple TV this year. Bloomberg’s Debby Wu and Mark Gurman report that new hardware—with “a faster processor for improved gaming and an upgraded remote control”—may not ship until 2021.

I wouldn’t say the current Apple TV 4K is in desperate need of an upgrade. While not everyone loves the remote, it’s still one of the fastest streaming boxes available, and it already supports 4K HDR, Dolby Vision, and Dolby Atmos audio. If anything, what Apple really needs is a cheaper version of its hardware, but we haven’t heard any rumors about that.

Channels DVR review: And finally, I’ve updated my review of Channels DVR to reflect the many new features that it’s added over the past couple years. It’s now my favorite cord-cutting DVR for power users, thanks largely to its ability to record both over-the-air channels and live streaming sources such as YouTube TV and Philo. It’s also just a well put-together service that feels like it was designed by folks who care deeply about DVR as a concept.

That doesn’t mean it’s for everyone. There are much simpler over-the-air DVR solutions available (the Tablo Quad remains my favorite), and setting up your own DVR hardware isn’t even necessary if you’re content with accessing everything via streaming services. But I know from writing this newsletter that some DVR power users can be quite particular, and Channels DVR caters to them specifically.

There’s still no word on HBO Max coming to Roku or Fire TV devices anytime soon, but sideloading remains an option for the latter, at least.

Also, Roku’s Streaming Stick+ is on sale for $39 through Amazon, for an $11 discount. It’s selling for a buck more at Best Buy and other major retailers.