OTA HDTV -- tuners, antennas, help

Well, I recently purchased an HD set (4:3 tube set; reason being that 95% of what we watch and will be watching for the foreseeable future is in that format, and tube because IMO regular SDTV looks like crap on plasma/lcd).

Anyhoo... BellSouth (my cable provider) offers no HD content. Comcast offers some, but nothing I'm really interested in... so I'm looking into dumping cable altogether at this point. Instead, I am going to see what kind of reception I'll be able to get with an HDTV tuner box and a decent attic antenna. I picked up the box already, and it comes with a cheesy little POS indoor antenna that probably won't work worth a damn, so I wanted to tap into the collective knowledge here and see if anybody has experience with off-the-air HD signals and could recommend what I should be looking at antenna-wise.

If I can have a working setup for $250-300, that's 5-6 months worth of cable bills, after which I won't pay a damn thing...

 

when i worked at best buy i heard good and bad things about thier HD antennas. why not buy it try it and if it doesnt work just return

 

Well, I did pick up the tuner which came with a small indoor antenna. I'm not expecting the antenna to be worth a damn though, so wanted to see what others recommend.

 

My brother in law has an over the air HD Tuner. He likes it alot. I don't think he did any kind of antenna upgrade and his works fine. I have never been at their house and them not been able to get the HD signal. From what I understand, with HD it is either there, or there is nothing. If the antenna gets the signal, regardless of how strong it is, then you will see the channels. If the antenna doesn't get the signal, then you don't see a picture. If you have any questions about the HD let me know and I can ask my bro in law.

 

Thanks, Jason... I might have some questions for him once I start dinking around with it in the next few days.

 

Your best bet if you're OTP in my opinion is a directional antenna. You can go to http://www.antennaweb.org and find the direction all of the stations are from your house and see what they recommend as well.

 

Which TV did you go with, Alex?

 

this is no help to you moose and i appologize but i wanted to say.....................................................................HDTV ROCKS!! just bought me a brand new hdtv as well!

 

Moose,
What channels can you get OTA that you aren't included with Comcasts basic digital cable service? I found comcasts selection to be pretty good and even though I dropped the movie channels, it was nice to watch things like "The Matrix" in HD. You can always check outVoom. Maybe just go with Voom and an OTA?

 

I haven't compared to Comcast's digital service, but I would assume that they are offering all the locals. I just don't want to pay $40-50/month for digital cable (when I watch 3-4 channels if that) if I can get a handful of local channels off the air with good quality.

 

VOOM no longer exists, they went belly up like six months ago. Dish bought some of their lineup but the majority are in a loop and not worth the trouble.

I've had OTA HD for about two years now. I was using a little antenna in my attic and it worked well most of the time but recently I upgraded to a Channel Master 4228 UHF antenna and also used a Channel Master Pre-Amp. The antenna is in my attic and the amp is connected right next to that. The wire runs down in my walls to the tuner.

It's rock solid all the time unless the wind kicks up strong, which is rare.

Best part is, all the signals are FREE!

ABC 2-1, 2-2
Fox 5-1, 5-2
NBC 11-1, 11-2
TBS 17-1,17-2 (only Braves Home game are in HD, nothing else)
PBS 30-1
WB 36-1
CBS 46-1,46-2,46-3
UPN 69-1


90% of all Primetime shows are in HD.

I got the Channel Master antenna from Fry's for like $50, pole was $15 and the tripod was another $10 (I think).

Works great!


Keep in mind that the generation of the ATSC chip inside yoru decoder will make a huge difference in how steady the signal is. Current generation is seven I think. My tuner is a Hughes HTL-HD and has a 5th gen chip in it.

Everyone says the 7th gen chips are extreamly steady and no drop outs with audio or picture.

Also, you should have bought a 16:9 tube as all the OTA stuff is 16:9 and also Dolby Digital. You picture will be letterboxed, not that that is bad. Streatched or zoomed is god aweful though.

What decoder did you get? You can get the one I have on eBay for like $10-$20. I paid $200 two years ago.

If you don't want to bother with OTA and if the signal will be good or not, you can always get DirecTV. They just started showing the locals in HD but only from the major four networks, ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox. No WB, UPN or PBS. Comcast also has locals but not all of them as well.

 

Trey,

Thanks for all the information! I ended up with a Sylvania/Funai 6900DTE as it got some glowing reviews by the AVSForum users. However, I can easily return it if I can pick something up for much cheaper on ebay.

I wish I could've had BOTH 4:3 and 16:9, but at the time we purchased the set 4:3 seemed wiser as most everything we've been watching is in that format. If we do end up dropping cable altogether in favor of OTA, oh well, I suppose we'll have to live with the letterboxed format. (We also have a friggin ton of VHS/DVD in 4:3 so at least it won't go to waste..)

 

Well, I hooked it up and without even futzing with the little crappy antenna I got 5 channels in at 80-90%... this certainly warrants further exploration, so I will pick up a basic outdoor/attic antenna and continue the experiment.