ATSC Antenna

[Kirby]

I would certainly love to know what makes an antenna an HDTV antenna, because all OTA HD signals are either standard VHF or UHF signals, carried on the exact same frequency bands as the old analog VHF or UHF channels.

Now I understand that you could have an antenna that has more interference rejection, or backside rejection, or larger gain on certain channel frequencies and such, but that doesnt make it an "HDTV" antenna, that just makes it a more tuned, more expensive antenna.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I honestly think the whole "HDTV Antenna" is a marketing scam that companies have put out there to sell more antennas to people that already had good working antennas for analog channels, but knew that they needed another round of antenna sales so why not jump onto the HDTV bandwagon with a "new, super duper, HDTV antenna"!

[MeInMaui]

Kirby,

I think you are right on the money.

This OTA Digital Television Reception FAQ at AVS Forum might help clarify some confusion on the issue.

I'm just starting to look into this myself.

Aloha,
Mike

[MoopZilla]

I've had good results with my Radio Shack VU-75XR mounted in my attic.

[Humanzee]

So after some reading im not sure you will be able to pull off QAM reception over cable. It sounds like it might work with the manufacturers software but not many (if any) manufacturers have been cooperative in opening their driver architecture to 3rd party software designers like Sage. So follow this thread http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=17264 and hope for the best.

[phenixdragon]

So I got my HDTV card, I picked up the DVICO FusionHDTV5 RT Lite which came with that Phillips antenna. Works perfectly in my house.

But my question is this (for Humanzee), since you are in WA. Are you able or have you been able to tune directly through the cable with HDTV? I am only able to pull all the channels that are not HDTV. I'm guessing I'm supposed to tell Comcast to turn on HDTV but to me that's not worth it since I am tuning all the HD channels OTA.

[Humanzee]

Originally Posted by phenixdragon

Are you able or have you been able to tune directly through the cable with HDTV?

Check my post #24 in this thread and read through the link. To answer your questoin, I havn't tried it because I am not on Comcast and my provider doesn't do HDTV anyway. Try it with the DVICO software and scan for digital channels. I guess there is a problem with the drivers that will only allow this feature to work with the FUSION software. At least for now.

A friend of mine said that he was able to get a few HD channels with the fusion card off of comcast with the fusion software, but that was 6 months ago. I don't know if you need to be subscribed to digital cable in order for those frequencies to be there or not.

It sounds like you have OTA working anyway. So it isn't as big a deal I guess. I will be moving at the end of August to a Comcast area, I will play with it then. Somehow I think I'll be up on the roof tinkering with the antenna.

[phenixdragon]

Well talking to my landlord today he decided to get an HDTV box and the channels on the line. I hope he doesn't think I am paying for the extra price for HDTV since I'm just fine with OTA and he is the only one who will be watching HDTV that isn't the locals. But at least I know the line will ahve HDTV turned on and that the car dshould pull the channels if they are clear QAM. So we'll see. I'm not sure when they will be out but I'm assuming meid this week.

But again, OTA is coming in nice and clear so I'm a happy camper with that. And to be honest, I really can not see a diffrence between HDTV and digital TV. The only real diffrence I see is going from an analog CRT to an LCD just has a clearer picture. But even DVDs look just as good as anythign in 720p/1080i. At least to me it does. There is a diffrence, but not that noticable. I bet I would notice it when I decide to get a 50-60 incher though.