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How you can get free HDTV with higher quality than available on your cable or satellite provider.
(Free after initial start-up costs, if you do not have an antenna already - generally, a complete setup can pay for itself in the cost of 2 months of cable or satellite)
First, I will dispell a few myths about digital TV, and then I will give you the basics on how to get things running.
First: I hear you need a whole new antenna set up to view digital tv.
Digital tv runs alongside analogue tv in the exact same spectrum. It uses the same channel frequencies, and the same antennas. (any antenna called HD antenna is marketing BS)
The only difference in broadcasting is the content of the signal and the decoding process.
Second: I need a whole new TV to view digital (and HD) tv.
Partially true, but not for every circumstance. You can use your same TV to view digital TV, but if it is an older TV is will not be capable of displaying the true quality of an HD signal, and it will require a converter box (roughly $50). This would be like a digital cable box, or a vcr that does the current analogue decoding for you.
If you own a new LCD/plasma TV, chances are it includes a digital tuner already (ATSC/DVB-t, depending on your location).
Check its specs before you go looking for a converter box.
(Note that some converter boxes are SD only, look for a converter box that outputs in HD if you have an HD ready tv)
Third: All DTV is HDTV.
These terms are commonly mixed up.
Digital TV is the same as the ordinary analogue broadcast television today, just in a different signal/processing format. (480i). Because of the superior nature of digital TV, you will get a perfect picture every time. (Or below a certain signal level, no picture at all. Much around the distance that analogue tv gets too fuzzy to watch)
HDtv is also purely digital (perfect picture every time), however it can go up to much higher resolutions, such as 1280x720 progressive (720p) or 1920x1080 interleaved (1080i).
1080i has roughly double the pixels of 720p, but half the framerate.
Also, just because a channel is broadcasting at an HD resolution, does not mean the picture is HD. For example, a show from the 90's cannot be broadcast in HD without remastering it, so it is probably standard definition (SD) stretched to fit the HD resolution. ("upconverted")
Fourth: Antenna TV? are you kidding me? Cable/satellite is far better! I haven't used an antenna for 20 years!
Cable and satellite used to be better than antenna simply because analogue broadcasts degraded quickly as distance increased from transmitters, and cable/sat companies could get optimum reception and send it to everyone.
With new digital broadcasting, you get perfect picture with as low as 20% signal (with a new tuner) - roughly about the same point when analogue broadcasts were too fuzzy to watch.
Cable and sat may have it beat in terms of offering quantity, but antenna tv now has them beat in quality. Generally the cable/sat companies will take the exact same broadcast stream and compress it to send over their network to you. The result? Decreased quality. With an antenna, you get the pure broadcast, exactly as it was intended to be viewed.
Fifth: My country is switching to dtv! Now I have to sign up for cable or satellite!
NO! This is exactly what the sable or satellite providers WANT you to think. You can continue to use your antenna (yes, even "rabbit ears") as long as you have the proper conversion box.
That's it for rumours/myths for now, on with how you can get your FREE tv (after initial set-up).
(If you have any more questions, ask them and I'll add to this.)
(Free after initial start-up costs, if you do not have an antenna already - generally, a complete setup can pay for itself in the cost of 2 months of cable or satellite)
First, I will dispell a few myths about digital TV, and then I will give you the basics on how to get things running.
First: I hear you need a whole new antenna set up to view digital tv.
Digital tv runs alongside analogue tv in the exact same spectrum. It uses the same channel frequencies, and the same antennas. (any antenna called HD antenna is marketing BS)
The only difference in broadcasting is the content of the signal and the decoding process.
Second: I need a whole new TV to view digital (and HD) tv.
Partially true, but not for every circumstance. You can use your same TV to view digital TV, but if it is an older TV is will not be capable of displaying the true quality of an HD signal, and it will require a converter box (roughly $50). This would be like a digital cable box, or a vcr that does the current analogue decoding for you.
If you own a new LCD/plasma TV, chances are it includes a digital tuner already (ATSC/DVB-t, depending on your location).
Check its specs before you go looking for a converter box.
(Note that some converter boxes are SD only, look for a converter box that outputs in HD if you have an HD ready tv)
Third: All DTV is HDTV.
These terms are commonly mixed up.
Digital TV is the same as the ordinary analogue broadcast television today, just in a different signal/processing format. (480i). Because of the superior nature of digital TV, you will get a perfect picture every time. (Or below a certain signal level, no picture at all. Much around the distance that analogue tv gets too fuzzy to watch)
HDtv is also purely digital (perfect picture every time), however it can go up to much higher resolutions, such as 1280x720 progressive (720p) or 1920x1080 interleaved (1080i).
1080i has roughly double the pixels of 720p, but half the framerate.
Also, just because a channel is broadcasting at an HD resolution, does not mean the picture is HD. For example, a show from the 90's cannot be broadcast in HD without remastering it, so it is probably standard definition (SD) stretched to fit the HD resolution. ("upconverted")
Fourth: Antenna TV? are you kidding me? Cable/satellite is far better! I haven't used an antenna for 20 years!
Cable and satellite used to be better than antenna simply because analogue broadcasts degraded quickly as distance increased from transmitters, and cable/sat companies could get optimum reception and send it to everyone.
With new digital broadcasting, you get perfect picture with as low as 20% signal (with a new tuner) - roughly about the same point when analogue broadcasts were too fuzzy to watch.
Cable and sat may have it beat in terms of offering quantity, but antenna tv now has them beat in quality. Generally the cable/sat companies will take the exact same broadcast stream and compress it to send over their network to you. The result? Decreased quality. With an antenna, you get the pure broadcast, exactly as it was intended to be viewed.
Fifth: My country is switching to dtv! Now I have to sign up for cable or satellite!
NO! This is exactly what the sable or satellite providers WANT you to think. You can continue to use your antenna (yes, even "rabbit ears") as long as you have the proper conversion box.
That's it for rumours/myths for now, on with how you can get your FREE tv (after initial set-up).
(If you have any more questions, ask them and I'll add to this.)
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You can get FREE (after initial "build") high definition television in most areas. In fact, if you're within 120 miles of a tv station, chances are, you'll be able to get their channel.
The first thing you need to do, is consider your location:
What TV stations are around you, and broadcasting.
If you're in a semi-urban area, you're probably in an excellent area.
If you have very little around you, unfortunately, this will not work for you.
If you're in an area like Toronto or Buffalo, you can access two market's worth of channels, giving you 25 or more channels.
So, to begin our first step:
Visit http://www.2150.com/broadcast/default.asp and put in your latitude and longitude to see what TV stations are around you, and their approximate distance away.
If you don't know your latitude and longitude, visit this site:
http://www.gorissen.info/Pierre/maps/googleMapLocationv3.php
which will give the latitude and longitude of anywhere you click.
Just move around and zoom in to your location to get the most precise value.
Make a note of which stations are closest/you want to pick up, and what direction they are from your place. (Just general direction, for now.)
The first thing you need to do, is consider your location:
What TV stations are around you, and broadcasting.
If you're in a semi-urban area, you're probably in an excellent area.
If you have very little around you, unfortunately, this will not work for you.
If you're in an area like Toronto or Buffalo, you can access two market's worth of channels, giving you 25 or more channels.
So, to begin our first step:
Visit http://www.2150.com/broadcast/default.asp and put in your latitude and longitude to see what TV stations are around you, and their approximate distance away.
If you don't know your latitude and longitude, visit this site:
http://www.gorissen.info/Pierre/maps/googleMapLocationv3.php
which will give the latitude and longitude of anywhere you click.
Just move around and zoom in to your location to get the most precise value.
Make a note of which stations are closest/you want to pick up, and what direction they are from your place. (Just general direction, for now.)
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Question: If I place an antenna on a pole way up in a tree, can I just run a long, long co-axial cable to it? I'm talking 200ft of co-ax...
And - what would be my best bet for a homebuilt antenna - should I make something directional or something omni? I am about 10-15 miles away from the stations.
The problem with your scenario is 1) trees sway, so a pole mounted on a tree is worse than a stationary setting with a tree blocking it.
Second, 200ft of cable produces a TON of noise to the signal.
You'd be better off with a tower near your house than the setup you describe. You may not even need the tower with such proximity to stations. Try things out with an indoor antenna to test (if you haven't already)
See what stations you get and how easily. If they're coming in with indoor alone, you can get a simple outdoor setup and get everything you want, even though the trees block it.
I'm about 25(?) miles from Toronto with large trees all around (suburban, though, not a forest or anything) and I received Toronto stations just fine indoors. T.O. is also ridiculously low power in DTV right now (like 3kW compared to the switchover power of like 100kW), so you should be able to do much better.
I'm not technically in the woods, but I think trees will be a problem. There's no real line-of-sight from my house to the stations. It's all flat land here, but there's just too many high trees (150' or so.)
Thanks for the info about the cable noise... I will try to borrow an antenna to play with. I don't want to buy anything if it's not going to work.
Check if it's still under warranty for replacement.
If you're using an amp, also check to see if that was a failure point.
The fact that you get a picture at all tells me some signal is coming through from somewhere..
That would mean the converter box is still working, just the signal from the box to tv is greatly reduced.
Read reviews, and especially ones from sites that know ATSC/DTV
(There's lots of info on the digitalhome forums about OTA hardware/reception/more - it's Canadian site, but they're more than happy to answer questions about the fundamentals. There just might not be anyone in your area to comment on specific reception)
I use an HVR-1250 and HVR-950 by hauppauge. Both are great tuners. Just be sure to get the 950-Q if you go with the USB option. It's the replacement for the 950, which has a pretty weak tuner in it.
Here are a couple of threads that might be of interest to you;
http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=42094 (desktop cards)
http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=49381 (USB tuners)
Actually, a great tuner you might be interested in is the HDHomeRun. It's an innovative design in that you can place the tuner anywhere (i.e. close to the antenna) and then it streams the video over your home network (ethernet cables). Ethernet has a much better noise rating than RG-6, so it works nicely that way. And since the tuner is usually closer t othe antenna than a computer would be, you get better signal levels. And if you get the two tuner model, you can be tuning two channels at the same time (e.g. record one and watch another) so you don't miss simultaneously broadcasted shows.
This is really only a good idea if you want to use computers to tune, exclusively. Because you may set up the antenna with the HDHR close by, then decide later on to hook up a tv, and you'd have to split the cable and run down to the tv, and that could possibly be a longer run than if you planned for it to begin with. (If that was just plain confusing, ignore it. I've had a long day :p)
http://www.antennaweb.org/aw/welcome.aspx