So I bought a new plasma todaybut TWC sucks and I can't get an HD Box until Monday- I really want HD for football tonight tomorrow.... how do these tuners work?

ATSC • NTSC

Thanks

11/3/2007 12:32:35 PM

get an antenna and you can pick up the OTA signal for the local affiliates

[Edited on November 3, 2007 at 12:36 PM. Reason : 

11/3/2007 12:35:43 PM

Well just did some google work and it seems that if I just plug it directly into the wall that I will get ocal network channels in HD- True or false?

also- where can u buy a cablecard (other than leasing them through TWC)?

[Edited on November 3, 2007 at 12:51 PM. Reason : .]

11/3/2007 12:45:20 PM

i dont know about that

i know that the antenna will work

11/3/2007 12:53:18 PM

Quote :

"Well just did some google work and it seems that if I just plug it directly into the wall that I will get ocal network channels in HD- True or false?"

Sometimes.

11/3/2007 1:06:45 PM

Cable isn't ATSC, it's a QAM, some TVs have QAM tuners that can get the unencrypted digital channels. ATSC is purely terrestrial.

11/3/2007 3:15:34 PM

I have two cheap $10 at radio shack antennas and they work wonders.
you can get FREE HDTV OTA

i'm getting rid of my cable soon since I don't watch that much TV anyways and Ijust need the locals and WB, UPN, Fox

11/3/2007 4:42:26 PM

^^ ok- the TV is atsc-ntsc-qam applicable... I just now hooked it up and am getting a number of channels populated but nothing in hd...

11/3/2007 5:00:00 PM

Did you hook up your antenna? To get HD channels with an antenna you must autoprogram

[Edited on November 4, 2007 at 7:34 AM. Reason : ]

11/4/2007 7:33:26 AM

I have a HD tv without a cable box and I get all of the big network HD channels - FOX CBS NBC ABC UNC

I just have to type in 5.1 for CBS HD.

11/4/2007 8:50:41 AM

I can't get NBC HD OTA for anything. I can get the others without a problem but no NBC. It's annoying the hell out of me.

11/4/2007 9:41:46 AM

^yeah for some reason my roommate and i can get the other OTA HD channels on our tuners, but can't pick up NBC. It's weird because the broadcasting station isn't far away and antennaweb says they're all in the same direction and distance. Maybe the gain is too high/low?

11/4/2007 10:38:24 AM

i'm picking up NBC just fine up in north raleigh with an indoor antenna..

11/4/2007 10:47:33 AM

Nah, I fixed mine. Vista Media Center was trying to pick it up on 17.1. I had to manually add the channel as 55.1 with a frequency broadcast of 55. Now I'm getting NBC like a champ with a small ass indoor antenna. I live about 2 miles away from the TV towers though.

11/4/2007 12:01:12 PM

Is there a way to hook up an antenna and cable if the tv only has one coaxial input?

11/4/2007 12:51:00 PM

Need to get a splitter, but what would you do that? everything would come through cable.

11/4/2007 1:28:35 PM

OK- I get a pretty good lineup... Unfortunately I cannot find cbs-hd (i get nbc, abc,and fox though)

any suggestions?

11/4/2007 1:56:06 PM

I believe that is 11.1 and it should be in the same direction as the other channels you are picking up.

11/4/2007 1:58:16 PM

The cable I have doesnt carry hd signals, so I want to get an antenna so I can get the broadcast hd signals.

11/4/2007 2:06:25 PM

I will assume you have TWC. If this is the case then you do get unencrypted HD signals. Anything over the air HD also comes through cable HD. You just have to have a digital tuner. so just auto program your TV.

11/4/2007 7:04:05 PM

I did, in the dorms on campus they don't have any unencrypted signals through the cable I emailed them about it and they said they have none and will not be getting any.

11/4/2007 7:47:02 PM

Quote :

"I will assume you have TWC. If this is the case then you do get unencrypted HD signals. Anything over the air HD also comes through cable HD. You just have to have a digital tuner. so just auto program your TV."

This is not always the case.

11/4/2007 8:23:02 PM

Whats the best/most powerful over the air indoor HD antenna? I just bought a "TV for Mac HD Stick" and its awesome for watching/recording HD content over the air but I want a more powerful antenna than the one that came in the box.

11/4/2007 8:40:05 PM

^

No idea but make sure its UHF

11/5/2007 8:24:59 AM

Quote :

"Whats the best/most powerful over the air indoor HD antenna? I just bought a "TV for Mac HD Stick" and its awesome for watching/recording HD content over the air but I want a more powerful antenna than the one that came in the box."

I just got digital cable. But I had a "HD Antenna" that I'm selling for 10 bucks. I was picking up about 22 digital channels with.

If you go to classifieds and look at "FS:Netgear Router" I have picture of it there.

Link: http://reviews.pricegrabber.com/antennas/m/9502245/

[Edited on November 6, 2007 at 10:31 AM. Reason : ]

11/6/2007 10:30:15 AM

^I have that one downstairs for my DLP. I was wondering if there was something better. Not saying its not awesome...just figured if something better or newer was out I'd pick that up and use it on the TV downstairs and the one downstairs on the computer upstairs.

11/6/2007 10:35:58 AM

I was using a "silver sensor" up until recently. That's an antenna that was originally made by Zenith, but a bunch of other manufacturers have used the design + just rebadged it. It's probably the most highly regarded unamplified indoor antenna when it comes to bang/buck.

I was having some problems with a shaky signal on NBC, so I went and bought a $24 Philips amplified that looked like a real POS at Walmart, and it worked a charm.

11/6/2007 10:36:45 AM

Quote :

"^I have that one downstairs for my DLP. I was wondering if there was something better. Not saying its not awesome...just figured if something better or newer was out I'd pick that up and use it on the TV downstairs and the one downstairs on the computer upstairs."

You really wont find better.

11/6/2007 10:43:55 AM

for those of you with HD OTA, how has your signal strength/integrity been recently?
I've been using it for ~6 months, and about 4 months ago I put up a mast-style antenna on my roof and pointed it directly towards the transmitters (from antennaweb.org).

I live in southwest Raleigh, near the crossroads, so my proximity to the transmitters in Garner is OK, but the problem is my house is right behind a dip, so I'm kind of in a small valley with a hill right in front of my house in the direction of Garner

For a while, I was getting decent signal strength, but the picture would skip and pixelate maybe once or twice every 30 minutes. This was annoying, but acceptable. Then about 3 weeks ago, everything cleared up and I was getting basically flawless reception for about 2 weeks. Then 1 week ago, it all went to shit. My HD OTA is unwatchable now, with skipping and pixelation every minute or two, or more. Nothing else with my setup has changed, and i've been watching OTA analogue, which is torture.

Anyone else having problems like this? I have a crappy tuner - an RjTECH RJ1000ATSC - and I'm going to upgrade my tuner at some point (probably go with the eyeTV for my computer), but if my signal strength just sucks then i don't think a different tuner will help.

11/6/2007 10:45:40 AM

^I'm off of Tryon/Avent Ferry and in the past week its been unwatchable. Before that it was better than cable with no skips. I don't know whats going on but as of last night I lost NBC completely. Can't even tune in to it to watch at all. Doesn't show up in a channel list.

11/6/2007 10:50:26 AM

^Is your outdoor antenna amplified?

11/6/2007 10:51:32 AM

ok, "good", then it's not just me.....

i had the same problem with NBC 17.1, where I changed to that channel before Heroes and got nothing, then switched around and came back to 17.1 and got sound but no picture, and switched around some more and finally got a picture, but the skipping was so bad I just changed to Analogue.

so no word on if something has happened with the transmitters? a decrease in power or something? I wonder how much the weather affect the signal strength

11/6/2007 10:54:08 AM

I'm guessing its another ploy by NBC to make us buy their tv shows online

I couldn't watch chuck or Heroes last night at all....off to torrents i go.

11/6/2007 10:56:05 AM

can try it here http://www.nbc.com/Heroes/video/episodes.shtml

11/6/2007 11:02:26 AM

^I've watched all of hero's online and it's great. less commercials too.

11/6/2007 11:05:36 AM

I'd rather not use up NBC bandwidth and give them more ad money when I can watch it commercial free else where.

11/6/2007 11:09:03 AM

Just an FYI

I was like you guys forever. OTA Channels.

I went to TWC and talked to them and because I only had road runner, they had an upgrade package for all RR users. Digital Cable for a year for 29.99$ a month. That's a pretty damn good deal.

11/6/2007 11:14:28 AM

I use ClearWire for internet, paid for a whole year at ~$34/month, and OTA HD for TV. The idea was that I wouldn't have to use TWC for anything - I could get most of my normal TV OTA, then torrent cable shows or watch them online where available. The problem/irony is that ClearWire is already slower than RoadRunner, and on top of that they are throttling torrent traffic, so getting torrents can be difficult.

I'm thinking maybe after my year with ClearWire runs out, maybe I'll sign up for RoadRunner only. And when you sign up for RR, you get Basic Cable for free, right? So I can try to continue using OTA HD mainly, then use TWC Basic as a backup in case the OTA signal is not good. At least that would be better than using OTA Anolouge as a backup. I really want to avoid digital cable, because that's what I've always had and I made very little use of it, and I'm trying to stop paying >$70/month for cable and TV (I previously was paying $109/month to TWC before dropping it all completely)>

11/6/2007 11:23:02 AM

No basic cable isn't free with RR because the filter it out.

Basic cable with TWC will still give you HD local channels

11/6/2007 11:58:02 AM

yeah, but i thought they couldn't really filter out basic cable, so as long as you have RR hooked up, you have Basic also.
either way.... with Basic being only ~$12, if you get Basic HD along with that..... that's pretty good. Do you still need a set-top box, i guess?

11/6/2007 12:06:58 PM

Quote :

"also- where can u buy a cablecard (other than leasing them through TWC)?"

fyi, the cablecard is what decrypts the encrypted QAM signal. it gets rolling keys from TWC. it's kinda like a digital cable box - you can buy one, but it's sure as hell not going to work.

11/6/2007 12:10:23 PM

Road runner filter out basic cable from me. I couldn't get a channel to save my life from them. It's something they can now do.

My gf's dad however only has RR and gets standard cable with it

To get digital signal from the basic cable you'll need to have a ATSC tuner whether it's a set top box or built into your TV

11/6/2007 12:11:06 PM

Quote :

"My gf's dad however only has RR and gets standard cable with it"

Same here. When they TWC guy came and hooked up our RR, he was like "I'm not supposed to tell you this, but we can't filter out your basic cable."

Then when I bought my HDTV I found out we get the networks in HD too. Good deal.

11/6/2007 1:24:16 PM

ok sweet, then my exisisting tuner would work.
What if you have a QAM tuner - can you get any Standard channels if you only sign up for RR and/or Basic?

11/6/2007 1:24:30 PM

^Be careful

The TW cable guys can now filter out cable. Like I said the guy had a cap on our house. We had RR but couldn't get cable tv to save our lives. Make sure there is no filter first.

Or you can be creative and take the filter off yourself, this isn't really hard either.

11/6/2007 1:26:34 PM

^ It all depends on where they put the trap (filter). For my apartment, the trap is in the locked telco box at the edge of the property. I can't get to it there. My neighbor has the trap on his line in the box on the side of the building where it is easily accessible.

11/6/2007 1:54:46 PM

^sucks

my house has 3 traps on it. on top of the polls too. It's a pain in the ass.

11/6/2007 7:32:02 PM

for what it's worth, even though i could barely get a HD OTA signal last night, tonight NBC 17.1 was crystal clear with no skipping

11/6/2007 10:08:02 PM

^same here

11/6/2007 11:35:07 PM

⇒

11/7/2007 1:38:14 PM