My new house is out in the country so my only TV options are antenna or satellite. But I have a high-definition plasma TV with digital (ATSC) tuner. So far I’m just using an amplified indoor antenna, and the picture quality is great. I’m 40 miles from the nearest city, but digital channels pretty much come in crystal clear or not at all. Channels that were snowy on regular TV are perfect on high-def. I get ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, and PBS, and with the digital channels you get sub-channels like 29-1, 29-2, and 29-3. In all I have probably have over 20 channels. Cable and satellite compress their video to some extent, over-the-air programming is about as pure a picture as you can get. 720p or 1080i for the techies out there.
Last summer I bought a TivoHD to record shows when I’m not home or that come on in the middle of the night. The picture quality is great, I can’t tell the difference between Tivo and live TV. My older Tivo took a snowy analog channel and made it worse. By recording 24/7, Tivo gets shows like Seinfeld, Family Guy, That 70’s Show, plus regular network shows and PBS shows like Nova, the PBS travel shows, and the home improvement shows on weekends.
I miss cable channels like Comedy Central and Discovery, but really I have plenty to watch and as it is, I’m only spending $12 a month for Tivo service.
So if you can’t or won’t get cable or satellite, try a plain old antenna (any will work) and a digital television.
I used to have the most basic cable, but it was almost $20 a month and I got the 4 major channels, 2 minor ones, 3 PBS, 10 million shopping channels, weather channel, and 2-3 local access channels. So maybe 15-20 total channels.
Now in the same area I get, 4 major channels, 1 minor channel, 2 PBS, some sort of religious channel and an international channel. However, one of the PBS channels has four sub channels so I get 5 PBS programs at once, one is a kids network. The international channel has 4 sub channels, and the religious has 6 I think. I also get two major network weather channels and one radar channel. I basically get more channels for free.
Sometimes I do lose the signal, if it’s really windy, but that’s because I put up an antenna that looks more like a dish so no one says anything. I had a computer recording the shows but it died on me so I’m trying to build a new one. I would have gone with the TIVO, but I can’t stand the idea of paying for a service like that, and at one point the HD ones were $800.
I’m sure at one point I’ll go back to cable or Fios, but not any time soon. I also live near DC so if I were to put a rotor on I could get the Baltimore stations and a few other channels as well.
The Series 3 Tivo is still $600, TivoHD is about $300. About the only functional difference is the Series 3 does better audio (Dolby or something) and has a better display on the front of the box.
This I know, it dropped in price a month or so after I got the computer. I still like the computer, but for some reason it’s not cooperating now. I’m going to do a full reinstall, but Windows will not format a drive, it just moves the old version out of the way. I think that’s causing problems. I know the wife has been wanting to get the Tivo for a bit now, and I might just break down, but if I’m going to do that then I might as well just pay for the cable and get the box along with it.
My parents have over-the-air HDTV. Their little old kitchen TV died, so they replaced it with a cheap LCD–maybe fifteen inches. They were so excited by the additional channels that they bought a new TV for the living room too.
I have a bigger TV than they do, but the TV shows that I watch are cable SD signals, compressed to hell by a Tivo.
You answered a question I had about broadcast high def. I was wondering if I was going to get all the sub-channels. I don’t have cable and if I get an increase in variety I may never get it. Between this and internet channels I don’t see how cable is going to survive the exorbitant costs involved.
Yeah there really are a lot of channels with the subchannels. Some are just 24/7 weather (which is nice because you see the local forecast any time), but one of my NBC channels has the “CW” network as a subchannel, one of my Fox stations shows a bunch of old shows like Star Trek and Sanford and Son. The PBS stations have interesting subchannels, one has world news all the time, including news programs from places like Russia and China, but the newscasters speak in English. My CBS subchannel used to be a music video network, but unfortunately they shut down last fall for some reason.
You’re still not going to get The Daily Show or Mythbusters, but there’s plenty to watch, and with DVDs, video games, and Tivo my television sees a lot of use.
I use just an antenna now that I dumped Time Warner.
The subchannels are awesome! 9, count 'em, 9 PBS channels! 24/7 weather! 4 simultaneous NCAA march madness games! Crystal clear picture (even SD), UNCOMPRESSED HDTV. I get something like 25 channels, and it’s free.
For those who don’t have a HDTV or a tv with a ATSC tuner, use your $40 gov’t coupons and pick up a converter box. You’ll get all these wonderful channels over the air, with improved picture quality and sound (just not HD).
Cool. I admitted that I have satellite TV, so I probably won’t get one. I bought a device for about $40.00 on Ebay. The subchannels are news and weather, darn it.
Big fan of OTA. One thing not mentioned is that it is the BEST HD signal available to the average viewer. Both DirecTV and Dish Network’s “HD Locals” are much more heavily compressed than their broadcast equals. The same goes for any cable version. If you have cable and an antenna, try it. Get the same channel on both and switch back and forth. Look especially closely at the background and look for fast moving things with lots of detail. You’ll see a lot more break-up and pixilation on the cable/sat version. I point this out to people all the time. I’m not generally considered a fun guy to watch TV with.
By the way: Get a TV antenna that looks like a TV antenna. The design is dictated by physics. And never buy an antenna from Terk. Complete crap and overpriced.
What are these sub channels of which you speak? We have:
A) Satellite (Direct TV)
B) A major rotational antenna to pull in local channels, since DTV doesn’t offer our locals.
Both of our TV sets are capable of using the digital Satellite TV.
Will we need to do anything before the Big Change? Can we get these sub channels I see mentioned here? Will we need to get our coupons and get a “box”?
OTA viewer here, with no actual television! I live in a tiny apartment, and have a Pinnacle USB tuner attached to my Mac Mini. I run software called EyeTV, which basically turns my Mac into a Tivo. I have a 22-inch widescreen monitor, and the picture is spectacular (figure it looks like a 44-incher would in a normal-sized living room. ).
Reception varies from day to day…sometimes I can get PBS and sometimes I can’t. But I can always tune in the big four and their subchannels (not as exciting as they sound, mostly looped news and weather as mentioned).
I bought one of these guys.
I believe the sub channels are the weather and news stuff we have here. I get the digital channels out here in the boonies when I can’t get analog TV. I applied for the coupons, we’ll see what happens.
I’m also OTA. I can see the point of HBO (pay for TV so no commercials) but with cable / sattelite, I have to pay for TV AND watch commercials? No thanks.
I’ve got a set-top box though it is better than the ones you can use the coupon for (it has HDMI). I have it hooked up to my projector. I don’t bother execpt for “Lost” the superbowl, and few other occasions. I do use it to watch the CW (which is brodcast on a .2 subchannel) though for that I use my 27" TV.
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