Posted on 01/15/2019 2:40:05 PM PST by Openurmind
About one in seven American households is watching old-fashioned, over-the-air television broadcasts, an increasingly appealing choice for former cable customers who have “cut the cord” but still want to catch up with their local news and network stations.
The new data from market research firm Nielsen shows that over-the-air viewing increased to 14% of all homes last year from 9% in 2010. At the same time, the percentage of households subscribing to cable or satellite TV peaked at 88% in 2010 and has since sunk to 79%, according to surveys by the Leichtman Research Group. Catching free over-the-air broadcasts simply by adding an antenna that cost $50 or less likely appeals to many cord cutters who dropped cable TV because it was too expensive.
The older material including black & white shows predates me slightly, but judging by the amount of 70’s and older shows & movies on some of the OTA “extra” channels, you may find worthwhile program material to supplement your cable viewing, if not replace it.
You might want to at least monitor the program guides for the OTA “extra” channels in your area for a few weeks and see what you think. Antennaweb.org is very useful for getting an idea of what channels you can presently receive OTA. The program info. is easily found online. If it looks promising, and you can do the installation itself, you can get an antenna, a mast, hardware, and a little cable, for under $100, and see how it goes with the reception.
I’m not trying to be pushy - just putting the info. “out there”. :-)
so did I . and she had the cool bionic dog
I’ve used pesantvision for several years now. They say the HD through the antenna is higher resolution then the cable company gives you.
I haven’t cut the cord though because I use AT&T for internet.
Do your cable channels include the OTA channels with numbers like 8.4, 25.2, 29.3, etc.? Our cable provider (mostly) does not. These are mostly small “networks” (I guess you could call them) like Comet, This, Antenna TV, H&I, Grit, CW, Charge, Light TV, My TV, Retro, etc. We also have a semi-dedicated LOCAL weather channel (sometimes has outdoor rec shows & such in the morning), various religious programming, extended (1 hr.) local news & local news at early / late times, and so on.
Ours mostly go:
n.1 - 1080i or 720p
n.2 - 720p or 480i (still pretty decent on a 32” or smaller TV, but many times the original source is poorer. Sometimes 720p is actually better for sports shows with fast motion.)
n.3 - 480i(tend to be channels with older, grainier source material). Sometimes 4:3 ratio.
if broadcast, n.4 - 480i (I think). Sometimes 4:3 ratio.
if broadcast,n.5 - 480i. Sometimes 4:3 ratio.
Many old TV shows source video, or at least what the network is broadcasting, is poorer than 480i, as other shows look better / fairly decent on 480i — again, that’s with a TV of 32” or less, and dependent on viewing distance of course!
Generally, with older material, I do NOT find cable to be better.
antennaweb.org is excellent for “finding” OTA stations and the direction you need to point an OTA antenna — at least to get started, because sometimes multipath problems will make you need to adjust a bit & actually NOT aim right at the broadcaster’s tower.
One problem with most TV’s and “boxes” is that they are NOT well set up for stations in various directions and an antenna set up with a rotator, which can be easily turned by hand, or a multi-antenna setup with a switch. One might have stations off to the NW - you point the antenna there and scan, but the station to your East has poor to unusable reception. A GOOD tuner will allow you to turn the antenna & rescan without losing your 1st batch of stations, but, unfortunately few allow this. That is a very DUMB oversight in the firmware. If using multi-antennas and a signal combiner, this problem can be overcome, but at the cost of a little loss of signal.
I haven’t had any type of cable/dish TV for close to 20 years.
It’s kind of fun discovering ‘new’ TV series on DVD, even after everyone else has seen them. (Justified; Mad Men, The Closer, 24, etc.)
U r probably right. I could try a big honking Yagi in the attic.
yes - up the wall - ideally near a window.
https://www.rabbitears.info/market.php?request=print_market&mktid=72
I get the Jellico stations and most of the Knoxville stations - I didn’t do any better with something that was marketed as an antenna and took up an electrical outlet as well.
“better choice of programs”
aside from sports, almost everything on over-the-air/network TV is utter, mindless, mostly SWJ excreta aimed solely at the lowest, unthinking, uneducated elements of society ...
“almost everything on over-the-air/network TV is utter, mindless, mostly SWJ excreta aimed solely at the lowest, unthinking, uneducated elements of society”
—
That’s pretty much what I think of cable - except, with cable, you’re paying for it.
Easy: because cable is a scam.
I refused to pay extra for HD cable, primarily because the Comcast was down-converting to lower resolution and charging a LOT more if you wanted programming in the native, higher resolution.
When I quit them and reverted to an OTA, I was amazed at how much better the picture and sound quality was for a one-time price of $39.99 per TV.
Be careful what Smart TV you buy. Don’t get Samsung. With OTA all the channels were out of sync. Had to return and ended up with Sony.
Samsung will work fine with a cable box or a sat box. Samsung sucks with the antenna input.
“down-converting to lower resolution”
Many times when distribution outfits do this the screw up audio/video sync. down-converting delays video a frame or more, while the audio is pass thru. The human brain can’t handle sound before image. In the real world sound can come after image but never before. Think of big theatre where lights is instantaneous and the sound takes time to travel to back of room.
Good info. to know. Not that I have a Smart TV. :-)
My little Westinghouse 24” 1080p TV works fine on OTA, though I have not tested it’s tuner sensitivity vs. anything else. We have an even smaller Coby in the kitchen (very limited space, there) and it’s ok except for a poor tuner section. Our Sharp 32” seems quite good in all respects, and our Zenith DTV box (presently not in use) pulls in signals fairly well. Have not had a Sony, but would expect them to put in a good tuner with minimal “weird” problems. They usually do their homework fairly well, in my experience.
Even a medium size yagi w. a “V” rear reflector might do the trick. Those models I semi-dissed for putting the mounting bracket at the rear of the antenna (lots of stress there in the wind) do not suffer that problem in an attic - or at least I’d sure hope not!!
Most of those powered indoor antennas don’t do much better than a simple rabbit ears type, because in the location they are usually placed, the signal levels are weak, and the RF noise level high. The (wideband) amplifier boosts both the desired signal AND the noise, plus any multipath reflections (more “noise, essentially). The cheap amplifier adds its own noise too. A good “picture” depends on a good signal to noise level. If signal to noise is not sufficient, regardless of the signal level, in digital, the picture either pixelates or drops out entirely.
Well, maybe not “regardless” — too much signal can overload the front end of the tuner, some tuners being better than others about that. However, our closest station is fairly strong and only 7 miles away, and causes us no problems that I know of due to excessive signal strength.
Note that if your TV or DTV box has a signal strength function (most, perhaps all do), what it is REALLY displaying is the signal to noise ratio, not the actual RF signal strength. This makes sense because multipath reflections are very often a problem even on strong signals. Sometimes it is necessary to aim the antenna for best signal to noise level / signal to multipath reflection level, rather than simply the strongest RF signal.
The two places where an amplifier is helpful are:
1) Ahead of a splitter, as splitters MAY reduce signal strength to a point where the TV tuner’s own noise (or other nearby noise sources) are problematic, or, there’s just too little signal left to lock on to. Or;
2) Ahead of a long cable run, to overcome signal losses and noise pickup in the cable (and therefor poorer signal to noise ratio at the TV’s tuner.) Typically, this is most common where an outdoor antenna is used, preferably high on a mast or tower. Best then is a mast or even antenna mounted amplifier. Next best is to keep the amplifier as close to the antenna as possible, so if the amplifier is not made for outdoor use, place it just after the cable enters the structure.
Strictly speaking, there is a “3)” also: A few amplifiers will allow the user to null out a specific frequency “too strong” local signal, and / or attenuate signals over the entire TV frequency spectrum. This is not too often needed in rural locations, unless you have a transmitter right on top of you. It may be more useful in cities, but I have little experience with that.
If that set is a smart TV, look into the firmware upgrades. It is possible to program the set to worsen the reception. Who would want to do that ? — the subscriber services like Netflix, hulu, etc. It is technically possible that this is going on behind your/our back.
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