Just got hdtv .. any advice would be great..

[bryanl]

just got sony hd sxrd display.. BHN is coming later today to replace my SD dvr w/ HD DVR.

i picked up a cheap rabbit ear antenna from radioshack and am getting a few HD channels OTA (I live in central St. Pete Area)..

Wondering what more I could do to get more HD stations.

Will BHN HD package have all that I can get OTA or should I look to get a real antenna to get all the OTA local HD stations to get the most HD I can get?

Quality of OTA vs. BHN.. I am watching CBS on OTA HD and it looks AMAZING!!! 1080i and just stunning.

Others that I can tune.. nice, but no where near this one channel.

Any advice would be appreciated!!

Any indoor antennas you could recommend??? would an amplifier help??

thanks so much!!

-Bryan
St. Pete

[bdraw]

The quality of HD programming varies between between shows and channels.

BHN carries every OTA channel except ch 38 MyNetworkTV which mostly has English novellas in HD most nights of the week.

BHN does shave some of the bits off the OTA feed which most people don't notice and some will even argue that they don't do, but I have proof if you want to see it. If you do notice it will be during football games or other fast action sports and you will see macro-blocking like a bad internet feed.

The best indoor antenna is called an Silver Sensor and you might be able to find it at a local store, otherwise you can get one online.
http://froogle.google.com/froogle?oe=UTF-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&lmode=online&q=zenith+silver+sensor&scoring=p

If you want to do it right you can get an external antenna, see this article for details.
http://www.engadgethd.com/2006/01/30/ota-hd-demystified/

The problem with using an antenna and BHN is that you have to switch inputs on your tv to switch sources.
The best solution is the Series3 TiVo which allows you to integrate both antenna channels and BHN channels into the same guide (never switch inputs). You can watch your locals via the antenna and BHN channels integrated into the same guide.

The Series3 is by far the best DVR on the market, do some searches here and online and you will see how much better it is than the SA 8300HD that BHN uses. The problem is that it costs about $600, which to me isn't that bad considering how much I paid for my TV.

Either way welcome to the club.

[restart88]

I tried the Phillips version and was sadly disappointed.

http://www.circuitcity.com/ccd/productDetail.do?oid=158311

CBS came in fantastic! Of the rest that even came in at all (even after inserting an amp on the line which did help) still couldn't get a good signal on over half the channels. Not good at all for most all of the analog channels either.

Heck I get pretty fair results with my clip on antenna ($25 open box w/two sat/ antenna splitters included) that's powered by my Dish Network receiver. My only real complaint is it only does digital & HD channels well and only works when tuned to certain DBS channels, which as I think of it the problem may be when I tune channels on my 61.5 DBS antenna since the antenna feed is going into the Dish 500 antenna before a multi switch.

I'm told a yagi antenna is the way to go but for now I can at least see OTA digital & HDTV in all their glory and since I have DBS and SD Tivos I can live with that for now, though I realize a good OTA antenna is a future must.

The only broadcaster I have trouble with is Pax/ Ion which is a shame because I kinda like 66-4 for some mellow out viewing. It comes in 3 bars but gets hiccups at times. But since I have the same channel on DBS it's no biggie.

[StevenA]

You don't need anything real fancy for an OTA antenna. However, keep in mind that most if not all of the HD channels are broadcasting on UHF frequencies, so a VHF antenna such as rabbit ears won't work as well as a UHF antenna.

Until I got Verizon FIOS installed, I used an old Radio Shack double-bowtie antenna that I had hanging around. It worked great, but in order to get more than a couple of channels, I had to raise it up, and either hang it from a hook in the ceiling or put it in the crawlspace in the roof.

[kenyan_boy]

Purchased a RadioShack Indoor Antenna yesterday, Model 15-1892.

http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2131034&cp=2032057.2032187.2032189.2032204&parentPage=family

Works great, pulls in the following HDTV channels: WMOR, WEDU, WUSF, CBS, NBC, ABC, CW, ION. But can't pull in WTVT-DT (FOX) even though it is in the same direction at ION (according to the map at antennaweb.org); also can't pull in Univision WVEA-DT.

I don't watch the regular OTA channels anymore, it's HDTV only!