HDTV for broadcast channels?

Question

I don't want cable or satilite service. Will broadcast HDTV give me as good a picture as the others?

Answer 1

There is no general answer, and a couple of conditions have to be considered,

1) You have to have a strong enough signal to pick up broadcast TV reliably. Even in strong signal areas, reception could be a problem because of reflections from nearby buildings. However, many people in cities (myself included) get excellent broadcast TV reception. Go to http://antennaweb.org/aw/welcome.aspx, enter your home address, and you will get a good idea if you can get OTA signals, and what kind of antenna you will need.

2) Broadcast TV is capable of as high a quality as cable or satellite, and is often better than those. On the other hand, many broadcasters are going to multiple progams simultaneously broadcast on sub-channels. This steals bandwidth from their HD broadcast and can result in poor quality. In those cases, cable or satellite would be better. You have to find out if the stations you are interested are doing a lot of simutaneous programs. If it's only one, there should be no problem, but if there are several sub-channels, the HD picture will suffer.

Answer 2

HDTV reception Over The Air

OTA stands for Over the Air and is when you set up an antenna to get broadcasts from a local tower. If you get signals OTA you will not have to pay a subscription to a cable or satellite company and the programming is completely free. This does, however, limit you to only a few channels and is why most people receiving HDTV programming over the air also get programming from a cable company or satellite company as well. If you decide to do this you will

Answer 3

It will but you need to be in close enough range and have a good enough antenna to recieve signal.

Since HD broadcasts are digital as long as you recieve full signal you won't have any issues with ghosting or things you're used to with analog receiption and the picture for your local channels won't be any worse than what you'd recieve from cable or sattelite service, in fact some cable services have bandwidth problems that unfortunately give you digital breakup that you wouldn't recieve over the air due to problems with their lines and system. The downside is if you get less than say 80 or 85% signal you will simply get a black screen (where you'd get a fuzzy or ghosted image with analog TV) since there's not enough digital information to recieve signal.

Also keep in mind most digital television isn't HD. Generally speaking there's only a handful of digital programs on at any given time over the air, usually stuff on PBS, sporting events and then various prime time network programs. As time goes on I'm sure this will change but there isn't a LOT of HD programming available right now.

The site below allows you to find out what digital broadcasts are available in your area and what type of antenna you will need to reiceve it.

Answer 4

HdTv can give you a clearer picture than sat or cable I have cable with the high def box and when I watch local I switch to the antenna for a better picture

Answer 5

you can buy an HDTV broadcast antenna for about $100 (give or take)

Answer 6

Why did you enable them to go away till now you have been set & waiting to pass? It sounds as though your field isn't outputting for the period of the hdmi port. there could be a incorrect placing interior the cable field's menu. Why did you enable them to go away till now you have been set & waiting to pass?