"Ohw, what's a powor wabbit twacker to do when his wabbit twacker isn't HDTV?
Posted on 04/28/2007 9:21:19 PM PDT by ConservativeStatement
CLEVELAND — Buying an antenna for a high-definition television seems as out of place as using a rotary phone to make a call. But some consumers are spending thousands of dollars on LCD or plasma TVs and hooking them up to $50 antennas that don't look much different from what grandpa had on top of his black-and-white picture tube.
They're not doing it for the nostalgia.
Local TV channels, broadcast in HD over-the-air, offer superior picture quality over the often-compressed signals sent by cable and satellite TV companies.
And the best part? Over-the-air HD is free.
(Excerpt) Read more at spokesmanreview.com ...
I have Dish Network. Seems like hardly a week goes by when they aren't soliciting the off air networks. Not worth having, IMO.
I resent having to pay for other channels that I don't care for like the home shopping network or Al MSNBC, Al CNN, etc.
As twisted as it seems, local stations were demanding that Comcast pay them for their signal that Comcast was carrying on the cable.
It is like they were saying you are bringing more viewers to our advertisers, so we want to punish you for it.
It’s accurate, sort of.
I just bought an HDTV. Most only come “over-the-air” HD capable. A few are “cable-ready” which does NOT mean you can just plug and play. Very few are actually satellite HD ready.
For instance—I bought a cable-ready HD set for X-Mas. What that means is that you don’t necessarily have to rent/buy the cable company’s HD converter, but you DO need a cable card which plugs into the set (hence the “cable ready” tag). The cable card runs about $100, but you own it.
As far as my cable company goes, I have digital cable but only about 12 channels are broadcast full-time in HD (all the locals, ESPN, ESPN2, TNT, and one HBO). The rest are digital, but still 480p.
It isn't a scam. In the U.S. lower 48, you can choose between Hughes (from $60/mo), EchoStar (sold through the WildBlue brand, from $50), SkyCasters (from $99) and SpaceNet (StarBand brand, from $50). Just Google "Satellite Internet for more information.
Thanks for the answer. I’ve tried rabbit ears, even the expensive ones and I can only get a couple of channels in with those.
I have WildBlue satellite internet.
We don’t have cable where I live and probably won’t ever have it. (We just discovered electricity out here a couple of years ago).
WildBlue has been quite satisfactory.
The download speeds are noticeably slower than DSL, but far better than dial up.
We lose it during bad thunderstorms, but that is not much of an inconvenience.
I would recommend it.
Feel free to FreepMail me if you have any specific questions.
Depends on the channels. For the local _HD_ channels, this is entirely true. The cable company has to compress the HD channels (actually they compress all of them) in order to get it into their system. This compression isn’t really noticeable though, until you see the uncompressed signal from the local station.
So while you won’t get Discovery HD over the air (OTA), MNF, CSI, etc will look much better if you use an antennae to watch them. Sounds crazy, but give it a try.
The one hassle is that the antennae has to be adjusted occasionally and depending on your location you might not be able to get all the local HD channels.
Same number of scan lines or pixels but compressed into a much smaller area makes better definition.
Good morning. I don’t have HDTV, I would just like to get reception on a regular Sony! Rabbit ears just won’t do it. :(
Question: Why does my cheap itty bitty little TV that I can put on a bathroom vanity get better reception than a 32” Sony that we have in our family room? I’ve tried rabbit ears and without cable that TV is no good.
Question: Why do you have a TV in your bathroom?
Yes. IMHO, the signal is clearer than the one from the Dish Network HDTV receiver.
Even quad stacked yagis do not work!
So I don’t feel lonely
So I don’t feel lonely
I was guessing that Rosie’s voice caused you to spontaneously evacuate your bowels.
Dad still has his antenna on the roof. Periodically he will get royally ticked off at the cable companies and cancel cable, then I have to hook everything up so he can get two or three channels. I’ve tried to explain to him that, eventually (Real Soon Now) this won’t work, as everything will be digital and there won’t be analog signals to pick up.
I found that the old antennas work fine for another use too - FM radio reception. TV was broadcast in the FM part of the spectrum so it works well for this purpose.
In lieu of that a good FM/TV antenna can be made at home with the old-fashioned flat, 3/8ths wide 75 ohm cable in the shape of a large “T”. The two arms of the “T” are twisted to form a spiral.
I am on Wildblue myself.
I have not been all that impressed with it, but it is cheaper than the DSL service we had.
"Ohw, what's a powor wabbit twacker to do when his wabbit twacker isn't HDTV?
LOL ew. (or her image) and Katie brings on dry heaves.
"This case reaffirms our fundamental right -- not specifically mentioned in the Constitution, but clearly on the minds of the Founding Fathers -- to look into bank windows while wearing bunny outfits. But that does not mean that we have carte blanche (literally, 'hors d'oeuvres') to do whatever we wish. I have here a recent Los Angeles Times story sent in by alert reader Cathy Perlmutter concerning a 35-year-old, 225-pound man who dressed as a 'Samurai Bunny' for Halloween, meaning that he carried a wooden sword and had (I am still not making any of this up) 'a stuffed bunny on his head.' This man was arrested on suspicion of assault after he allegedly almost whacked off another man's ear with his sword when the man asked if he wasn't too old to be trick-or-treating. ... So we see from these two cases that there is a 'fine line' between legal and illegal bunny-outfit conduct ..." -- Dave Barry in "Rabbit ears get poor reception," HERE
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