PLEASE SUPPORT OTA HD/Please Read

[OTAMAN2010]

I like to thank tv fool for creating this web sight giving us the opportunity to discuss HD tv issues. Thumb up for the site. Its' a great asset to the tv wrold.

HDtv is crystal clear digital broadcast and was created buy the US Gov/FCC for (OTA) over the air use. All you need is the is a HDtv or converter box for older tvs and work best with an outdoor antenna 30 to 50 feet high.

I realize alot of people is addicted to pay tv. But we are trying to achive a goal and get all programming back to OTA. remember OTA is free, and esimated 50 programs from pay tv would survive OTA any way. Theres' plenty of room OTA for growth. Don't be addicted to tv and let it control you. You can rent a movie with the money you save, or watch something OTA. In the mean time OTA will evolve.

Some facts

-HD is the future of tv an most of all it free. No one pay for HDtv- the fcc went from analogue to digital tv the same as it did for radio when it went from am to fm radio.

-HDtv was made for OTA. Tv stations across the country spent tons of money buying new equipment for HD. Pay tv siginal is digital but not true HD, and will eventually charge you much money to keep up.

-HD channels can broadcast up to 5 programs on each channel. ION current has 4 broadcast. Probably the most with good quality.

-Channels that you receive, depend on your market or your location.

-New networks, there are a few already, THIS movie net, DOT2 movie net, RETRO TV, Bob Johnson purchase 51% of ION net to start his new Urban net. There are more programs out there some have not spreaded yet.

-Who is in control. Consumers has always been in control. what you buy determine it availability. If you don't buy it the price get cheaper or goes a way. Same for pay tv , we the veiwers stop paying no more pay tv which means we get more OTA for free. Besides that, you can only watch 1 channel at a time. With your help we will get more for free OTA. If you continue to pay you will pay more and more over time. The choice is yours.

-Back in the 70s we all received about 3 or 4 channels Cable was great more channel for 3.50 a month. Now I receive over 40 channels OTA HD for free. The more channels they add the more they charged. What good do 200 channel do for me and I can only watch 1 at a time. I can't save the rest for later.

-Pay tv has done all to prevent OTA and keep you paying, it's a very big threat to them. Most shows that's on pay service are also on free OTA, such as; Sinfeld, Cheers, House of Pain, CSI and much more, so why pay for whats' free. Recently pay services purchased people like Oprah, Beyonce, and many more along with many major sport events NCAA and Pros to keep you paying. As long as you are willing to pay for whats' free, pay tv will take your money. Their philosophy is simple buy up all you like to watch with your money to keep you paying. Don't do it for OTA sakes.

-If we all support OTA it will evolve just as cable has and could save you money. You will not need to pay for tv no more. Join the team.

-What can you do to help. Support HD and get the word out the honest truth. It's free and clear than anything pay tv offer. when everyone revert back to OTA much more will be on OTA including more sports. Only if we ban together for a few years will this happen.

-Why pay for what you can get for free OTA. When free OTA ist here for you and can give you the same thing. After all the Gov and tv stations spent lots of money for you to enjoy free tv. Give it a try and watch it evolve over time.

-The money you save can be used for house or car payment, college fund, vacation, new HDtv, emergency fund and so on.

[mtownsend]

Several good points, OTAMAN2010.

I think we are also fortunate that for now, we still have the NFL wildcard playoffs, the Superbowl, and the Olympics available in OTA high def. It looks fantastic and makes you feel like you're really getting the most out of your HD entertainment system.

We cannot let the pay TV services make too much money, or else they will be able to buy out the rights to some of this awesome content and prevent it from being distributed OTA.

What do you think will happen when Comcast buys NBC Universal?

The pay TV companies are trying to monopolize the content providers, and if they succeed, then everyone will be forced to pay for TV or have none at all.

For the moment, the new DTV technology has leveled the playing field a bit. Now the broadcast networks can have multiple sub-channels and provide a wider assortment of content options (in much the same way you have multiple ESPN branded channels on pay TV). The quality is very good, and the cost of entry is very attractive compared to the cumulative monthly cost of pay TV.

[OTAMAN2010]

That my point exactly. Sabotage is the word MTownsend, that were looking for. Buying all show and people they can to keep everyone paying. If you notice they charge viewers fees, take the money buy up top programming to keep them paying. Until people realized what going on and take action it will continue to happen.

My goal is to alert as many people as possible and get the word out. Thank to the tv fool forum it will help.

NBC will probably stay OTA because of the FCC. If up to comcast it would be cablelized to make money.
But if it did some how it would be good to see all the affiliates join together and form their own OTA net. Channel could be; variety, Sports, News, movies, cowboy movie, adventure, action or vedio/music old setcom 3 stooges, green acres and much more. Probably could make more money across the board and spilt it with out the parent NBC. There are many opportunities no matter what.

[silverwolf636]

I am new here and like what I see.
I was wondering if TV Fool was on FaceBook.
For the last six months I have received my broadcasts OTA. I have been laid off for over a year now and we had to down grade everything. But, when I went out and purchased an outside antenna, I don't feel my decision to go OTA was a down grade though. I do live in a remote town with the closest TV stations approx. 50 miles away. With a simple $65 antenna with a little booster and converter box, I am receiving 13 channels. Sure, I don't get my SciFi or Discovery channels but I watch all that on the net. The best part is I don't have that $50-$60 cable or dish bill.
Just adding my 2 cents in there.
Thanx
--ray--

[geolee]

When my wife an I bought our house, we decided to not have cable.
When our children arrived there was three off-air channels that had children's programming.
Now we have a 26" Sharp HDtv - it works nicely.
I can receive thirteen NTSC stations; twelve are duplicated by ATSC signals.
I can receive thirty ATSC signals - there are some channels that have three or four sub-channels.
I have no reason to go to cable; and will not.
We estimate that we have saved over $600 per annum; antenna cost less than $200 to mount sixteen years ago.

Cable TV Addiction reminds me of the old expression -once the kids have seen the big city, its hard to keep them down on the farm...

[elmo]

Thought I'd share my experience. Out in the sticks w/no cable and I wanted to watch bicycle races, so I got Dish for OLN (now Versus). Some years later, Dish gets in a pissing contest with OLN; OLN goes dark. Yeah, they worked it out, but by then I went DirecTV. Scenario repeats itself; I know, shocker. At this point in time, I've just upgraded to HDTV and have an HTPC connected for watching movies. The SD DirecTV receiver isn't getting much love. So, I consider the HD receiver upgrade, for another $10/mth. Then I think again and decide to put MY $60/mth back in MY pocket, and just cancel DirecTV. With what I save in a month, I easily afford a decent Winegard HD7694 antenna which pulls all the major networks and 3 PBS's. My wife looks at me like a kid in a candy store when she finally sees CSI in 1080 resolution. My 4-yr old says "daddy, I have a hypapathiis" - "Dinosaur Train (on PBS) looks real". Yeah - it's real all right! We now have 9 PBS channels (thanks, subs); the sat guys gave us 2 at best. We missed the DVR though. Enter the dual tuner HDHomerun. I scored a factory refurb for a single tuner price - yeah, same amt as another month of sat tv! It's like I'm getting cool stuff for canceling! Now we have HDTV on any PC in the house. Windows Media Center records it perfectly, and it looks awesome compared to overly compressed cable/sat offerings. Missing some channels that aren't offered OTA, we popped for some Netflix to get movies, seasons of TV series past, etc.....and I'm still about $50 better for it all each month, and that's SD price but I get HD. (And yes, we already had broadband - now we just utilize it more) Also, I converted my mom's setup from Dish to an ANT-751 antenna, which is a real nice antenna for such a little guy. In her attic, it gets all the locals, even up to 40 miles away. Plus after about 9 mths of use, the dish savings will have paid for her little HDTV and the antenna.

So yeah, it's obvious we are really enjoying being dishless now! OTA is awesome!

Oh - forgot to mention - the bike races - I can get em on the web via streaming now! I watched the Tour de France this year for free. It probably wasn't as good as the $30 version on Versus streaming, but it was certainly good enough.

[scott784]

As I mentioned in another post today, I would encourage all of you to write your congressmen and senators. That's not to say that anything will change in the near future. However, there are lobbyists in Washington who would like nothing better than for the FCC to eliminate broadcast television in its entirety. They use the excuse that broadcast spectrum is needed as we go forward with broadband media devices. That is hogwash. We already lost UHF channels 70-83 in the 80's to make way for cell phones. Then several years ago, we lost UHF 52-69. There is plenty of bandwidth to go around without destroying the rest of the broadcast spectrum.

Let your government officials know that you care about OTA television and that you don't want it eliminated. This is one way we can help preserve it for the future.

[suzanrush]

Please, everyone go to 170millionamericans.org to voice your concern over the vote that's now in Congress. The House has already voted on the 19th of February to cancel funding for the public airwaves and the new free digital tv that we only just got 3 years ago with the transition to digital broadcasts.

This is an outrage and the greedy cable and satellite companies are behind this. And, of course, what really hurts is that most people still don't know that they have this great free option available to them. Thanks to their lies and deception to keep it from becoming mainstream knowledge. I feel real lucky to have benefitted from this free service and will sorely miss it if it goes away.

Please let everyone know that they need to take action. If they don't, the crooks will win and we'll be subjected to their price tyranny and monopoly of the pay-tv airwaves.

[suzanrush]

Careful, don't confuse HD or HDTV or HDtv with DTV or Dtv. They are not the same and this is grossly misunderstood. There's actually no such thing as HD, it's just a ploy that marketeers and advertisers came up with to get you to spend money on unnecessary gadgets and toys.

There's no discernable difference between what they call "HD" programs and "DTV" or digital tv, none. If you doubt me, just see for yourself. Go to a bar or a Best Buy where you can see tvs side-by-side. There's absolutely no difference whatsoever. It's all hype and lies as is everything advertised.

[ve2dc]

Originally Posted by suzanrush

Careful, don't confuse HD or HDTV or HDtv with DTV or Dtv. They are not the same and this is grossly misunderstood. There's actually no such thing as HD, it's just a ploy that marketeers and advertisers came up with to get you to spend money on unnecessary gadgets and toys.

There's no discernable difference between what they call "HD" programs and "DTV" or digital tv, none. If you doubt me, just see for yourself. Go to a bar or a Best Buy where you can see tvs side-by-side. There's absolutely no difference whatsoever. It's all hype and lies as is everything advertised.

You were either not looking at HD content, or I would seriously suggest that you see a vision specialist...

[suzanrush]

I'm guessing that either you bought yourself an expensive new "HD" flat screen or you sell them.

My eyes are perfect and not only do these new so-called HD flat screen tv's have much poorer picture quality than the old still great analog tv's, they certainly are not HD and they are breaking down completely and I've seen many at the landfills.

They are crap and people are still being ripped off as a result of the misinformation during the transition to digital. TV Fools, unfortunately describes the masses who were misled into thinking that they needed to buy a new tv set. All anyone needed to get great DTV in HD was a Winegard Square Shooter roof antenna.

The best avail. on the internet. The antennas available in stores aren't worth anything.

It's not your fault, we were left to decipher this on our own, and the government did their best (w/ the help of Comcast's misinformation campaign) to confuse the issue in order to keep everyone paying for cable. All one needed to know was that the new digital works just like it did in the old days before cable came to town.

A really good antenna is all one needs. It's spectacular and great not to have to pay for something that's free again and better than ever.

[MisterMe]

Originally Posted by suzanrush

I'm guessing that either you bought yourself an expensive new "HD" flat screen or you sell them.

....

I have no idea what issues you have dealt with in your life. However, this is not the way to deal with them. You are wrong in so many ways that it is not funny. I own several HDTVs and have purchased several others. Have I had HDTVs to go bad? Unfortunately, I have. I have also had analog standard definition TVs to go bad. I did not foreswear analog TV because I purchased a lemon TV set. I will most certainly not foreswear digital HDTV because an expensive flat panel took a powder.

If you have a particular issue that you would like help with, then there are several members of this forum who will help you. Whatever you need or want, I strongly suggest that you change tactics. Your current course of action is doing you no good at all.

[aspicer]

@suzanrush - I will agree with one thing the older Tv's did last a long time. And the old NTSC quality was good enough for a long time as well.

HDTV if you can ignore the occasional compression artifacts from whatever compression technology they are using and the digital picture errors when the signal wobbles a little bit, HDTV and HD content does have a better resolution than SDTV. That's not to say that SDTV is that bad to view with newer larger Flat Panel screens.

Maybe we will get some more Ham Radio operators out of all this OTA stuff and people playing with Antennas and Coax cables. :-) Trying to "DX" those farther off TV station signals ...

To show you how nasty cable companies can be ... we failed to stay on auto-pay with Comcast because we kept not having the money in the bank, and they can't set a specific date when they will run the bank charge. They finally seemed to have "lost" us altogether ... I noticed we weren't getting the bill any more, and called one day to ask about getting Cable Internet. They couldn't find our 30+ year old account by any normal lookup by name, phone number, address ... they just DELETED US. We had been getting cable since in So. Fla. it was American Cable, Then Continental Cable, then ... Comcast.

DirecTV - the guys installing dishes are often idiots and don't know how to locate the dish around trees ... etc. I have been having flaky HD reception for a long time. Every time the sky gets cloudy or it rains - I have to down shift to SDTV channels. Ran out of money to keep up with their $85.00 a month bill here lately ... and THEY WANT THEIR MONEY. So it's off.

So that put me looking at the cable that's still working even though we've been deleted. But the signal is flakey.

So being a ham radio operator I decided to try and hook up (cross over coax cables) my 40 foot mast with an vertical omni VHF - UHF antenna and a Yagi (with no rotator) for VHF only. And I got a LOT of channels in a scan. So far I have just used alligator clips to patch over the 50 ohm Ham Antennas to the 75 ohm coax going to my Flat Panel monitor / Tv. The tuner / receiver found 30 some channels. The locals are crystal clear and in HD. ION TV has HD and some extra channels.

Pretty cool I may be convinced to put a real antenna for OTA TV up on that mast and run the correct coax all the way down to the TV and see what happens.

I like playing with antennas. I have dipoles for the HF ham bands up in the trees, a vertical 28 foot in the front yard for the HF bands as well, and the 40 foot mast with the fiberglass VHF/UHF vertical and the Yagi for VHF that I mentioned before. The V and V/U antennas pick up pretty good. I have a coax switch between the two. 40 foot up for the vertical, and about 35 for the Yagi. The channels are crazy spread around UHF and VHF. You really need a web site like this to make sense of it all.


---
Alan Spicer
KA4UDX

[MoreDb]

Originally Posted by suzanrush

Please, everyone go to 170millionamericans.org to voice your concern over the vote that's now in Congress. The House has already voted on the 19th of February to cancel funding for the public airwaves and the new free digital tv that we only just got 3 years ago with the transition to digital broadcasts.

This is an outrage and the greedy cable and satellite companies are behind this. And, of course, what really hurts is that most people still don't know that they have this great free option available to them. Thanks to their lies and deception to keep it from becoming mainstream knowledge. I feel real lucky to have benefitted from this free service and will sorely miss it if it goes away.

Please let everyone know that they need to take action. If they don't, the crooks will win and we'll be subjected to their price tyranny and monopoly of the pay-tv airwaves.

suzanrush - I applaud your passion and knowledge of the proposed spectrum sale and reduction, but the rest of your comments are so "foolish" and littered with misleading information and outright falsehoods. As already stated, where to even start. The most glaring falsehoods:

1. "There's actually no such thing as HD"

Wrong. Yes DTV is not necessarily HDTV, but HD is most certainly real and not just some marketing campaign to dupe the masses. DTV refers to digital processing of the audio and video information contained with the carrier or radio wave frequency, whereas HDTV refers also to the HD resolution of the video, which can be either 720p, 1080i or 1080p. All three HD resolutions are a huge upgrade over the old 480i analog signal. If you cannot tell the difference you either:

A. Have an older TV (non HD)
B. Are not tuned to an HD channel
C. The HD channel is showing a non HD program
D. Have very bad eye sight

2. "All anyone needed to get great DTV in HD was a Winegard Square Shooter roof antenna"

Wrong. To receive OTA HD you need more than just a Winegard SquareShooter antenna (or any antenna for that matter), you also need either of the following:

A. HDTV (with ATSC tuner)
B. External ATSC tuner (for computer or older HD monitor)

The SquareShooter has pretty decent gain for its size but you can get more powerful antennas that are only slightly larger and cost less.

[GarySmith]

Getting High-Definition TV Over the Air!Why should you use it? You can save over $500 per year through using this.So why not? I am satisfied.