Archive for the 'HDTV' Category
Don’t throw away that old TV Antenna just yet…
Did you know that you can get crystal clear HDTV signals right over the air? I guess I did somehow realize it, but to be honest I did not fully comprehend how easy it was to get HDTV via a UHF antenna until recently. It just never dawned on me that over the air (OTA) signals could be that good. I guess I was trained that TV from an antenna always had static, ghosting and was a general PITA. That’s why we have cable, right?
Well I have good news if you don’t already know….the good news is that with that old UHF antenna you have on your roof or in your attic, you can get lots (I can get 40+ stations) of perfectly clear, high contrast, no static, beautiful HDTV stations, in very high quality all the way up to 1080i resolution! And you don’t have to pay the damn Cable or Satellite people. And from what I can observe, the quality of the OTA signals is actually better than the ones you get through Comcast Cable (maybe because Comcast compresses the signal via QAM encoding?).
Antennaweb.org is a great site to visit to see what is available in your specific location. They tell you the direction of the stations, how many miles away, and even what specific type of antenna will work for you (color coded so you buy the right one). See images below.
Oh, and you might not want to spend $900 on an HDTV TIVO either. A Mac mini or MythTV might be a better option and more versatile too.
