I emailed directv and they gave a long response without the answers. So here goes it, I live in the Detroit Locals area, they say that Detroit Locals are in HD, but they also talk about the use of an "off-air antenna". Which is it, do I get my locals in HD through a directv HD receiver or do I need the HD antenna or both ??? Also do locals in HD cost more money per month ????
Locals in HD
- Thread starter crockett
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Most local station are broadcasting in digital and many are broadcasting in HD. All you need is a OTA antenna to receive these channel for free.
Directv provides local channels in digital only (SD) not in HD. The funny part is that they charge you for SD's when you can get HD for free. (quite the gimmick)
All you need is a good OTA antenna and you can get your locals for free and in HD.
Go to this website and type in your address. It will show what channels are available in your area. It will even tell you what type of antenna you need along with where the antenna should be pointed.
Best of luck!
http://www.antennaweb.org/aw/Address.aspx
Directv provides local channels in digital only (SD) not in HD. The funny part is that they charge you for SD's when you can get HD for free. (quite the gimmick)
All you need is a good OTA antenna and you can get your locals for free and in HD.
Go to this website and type in your address. It will show what channels are available in your area. It will even tell you what type of antenna you need along with where the antenna should be pointed.
Best of luck!
http://www.antennaweb.org/aw/Address.aspx
To get your locals in HD you need 3 things -
You locals have to be broadcasting in HD. Some locals are broadcasting in digital, but not HD. Some will broadcast primetime in HD, and the rest of their schedule in SD digital. Here in Salt Lake most of the channels are doing this. They broadcast the primetime lineup in HD, and the rest of the schedule in SD. The PBS station has a HD station that is always broadcasting a HD channel.
Next you need an OTA antenna. You can visit www.fcc.gov and check out the link to digital tv and see what type of antenna and what digital stations you would receive at your address.
The last thing you need a a digital tuner that will receive your stations. Your HDTV may or may not have a built in tuner. When you went shopping for a HDTV the sales person was not a lot of help here. Some of the HDTVs are "HDTV ready" meaning you have to have an external tuner. Some of the HDTVs have a built in ASTC tuner meaning all you have to do is hook up your antenna and tune in the HDTV stations. Most the sales people I talked to when we bought ours had no clue what the difference was. This included places like Ulimate Electronics. The only place that actually had an idea was Sam's club. No store had the HDTV's hooked up to an HD source. So the best thing to do is read your manual.
roland
You locals have to be broadcasting in HD. Some locals are broadcasting in digital, but not HD. Some will broadcast primetime in HD, and the rest of their schedule in SD digital. Here in Salt Lake most of the channels are doing this. They broadcast the primetime lineup in HD, and the rest of the schedule in SD. The PBS station has a HD station that is always broadcasting a HD channel.
Next you need an OTA antenna. You can visit www.fcc.gov and check out the link to digital tv and see what type of antenna and what digital stations you would receive at your address.
The last thing you need a a digital tuner that will receive your stations. Your HDTV may or may not have a built in tuner. When you went shopping for a HDTV the sales person was not a lot of help here. Some of the HDTVs are "HDTV ready" meaning you have to have an external tuner. Some of the HDTVs have a built in ASTC tuner meaning all you have to do is hook up your antenna and tune in the HDTV stations. Most the sales people I talked to when we bought ours had no clue what the difference was. This included places like Ulimate Electronics. The only place that actually had an idea was Sam's club. No store had the HDTV's hooked up to an HD source. So the best thing to do is read your manual.
roland
One thing to add to piperut's post. Many satellite boxes have the ASTC tuner built in. The VOOM box does and most HD satellite boxes (Directv and Dish) have it as well.
I see no need to buy a TV that has one built in. The extra moola they charge is not really worth it when you get it for free in your satellite box.
I see no need to buy a TV that has one built in. The extra moola they charge is not really worth it when you get it for free in your satellite box.
It does not list an actual antenna but it does tell you what color code antenna you need to get said channel. (ie yellow, green, violet)
If i were you I would avoid the TREK's. They are basic junk!
With VOOM you will only need a UHF (Digital) / (HD) as the VOOM box does not receive / work with VHF.
I have a Winegard 9085 that work great! Radio Shack sells a awesome antenna (15-2160) for like $25 that would work great a well.
http://www.radioshack.com/product.a..._name=CTLG_003_001_002_000&product_id=15-2160
http://www.winegard.com/offair/platinum.htm#all
Best of luck!
With VOOM you will only need a UHF (Digital) / (HD) as the VOOM box does not receive / work with VHF.
I have a Winegard 9085 that work great! Radio Shack sells a awesome antenna (15-2160) for like $25 that would work great a well.
http://www.radioshack.com/product.a..._name=CTLG_003_001_002_000&product_id=15-2160
http://www.winegard.com/offair/platinum.htm#all
Best of luck!
I have heard great things about the Zenith Silver Sensor.
Most people report great success with it.
http://www.zenith.com/sub_prod/product_Display.asp?cat=49&id=131
Best of luck!
Most people report great success with it.
http://www.zenith.com/sub_prod/product_Display.asp?cat=49&id=131
Best of luck!
Voomin@720p said:
The person was asking about getting local channels. With the Voom STB - you do not need the built in ASTC tuner. When we were looking at HDTV's we did not have Voom. The sales people did not have a clue what the difference between the models were. I was just trying to point that out.
We did end up buying a set with a built in tuner. Now if we are recording something off the Voom STB we can watch the local channels on the TV.
(Okay, this doesn't happen very often, just once in a while. There might be a movie I want to record onto a DVD and it happens to be on during the news.)
That is really the only reason I can see that you may want an extra tuner.
Besides, the TV we purchased was less money then the ones without the tuner.
The people selling HDTV's need some education about what they are selling. Anyway, no of the sales people had any clue as to what they were selling. They all said... This is an HDTV, and it is a rear projection, or it is a plasma, or it is an LCD. None of them would tell you that Plasmas had problems with the gas needing to be recharged after a couple years and that cost as much as the tv did in the first place, or the LCD the light went out after a couple of years and that was not covered by the warranty. I did a lot of research before I purchased a HDTV. I ended up getting an AKAI 55 inch rear projection TV because of a few different things -
Reliability - rear projection is the older technology and is more reliable then the Plasma or LCD technology. Akai used to make audio equipment in the 70's and I was familiar with that brand. They used to be a fairly good Audio brand.
Not top of the line, but not bottom of the line either. The reviews on the TV were also fairly good.
The price was better then the others. We ended up paying $1298 plus tax at Sam's Club. We did have to haul the TV home and set it up. If we had purchased from one of the full service stores we would have paid around $2500 for a comparable TV. However they would have delivered it and set it up. For that kind of money I can set it up myself.
The ASTC tuner was built in the TV. We had Dish Network, and if we bought one of the HD ready TV's we were looking at another $300 for a tuner.
Now we have Voom. The ASTC tuner in the TV doesn't get used as much. However, there are times it is nice to have.
roland
Unless it were at no extra cost, I would not pay extra for a built in ATSC tuner in my display device.
I paid a big premium for an HD tuner on my Hitachi XWX RP. The integration was pathetic, not even a consolidated channel line-up, you have to switch from ANT-A to ANT-C. Likewise, if you go with any Sat provider you are going to use that box for your OTA as well and it will likely integrate much nicer with your SD as do both the Voom and E* boxes and (I assume) the D* boxes.
Oh yes, you can not replace the gas in an plasma set. There are definite pros and cons to each technology.
I paid a big premium for an HD tuner on my Hitachi XWX RP. The integration was pathetic, not even a consolidated channel line-up, you have to switch from ANT-A to ANT-C. Likewise, if you go with any Sat provider you are going to use that box for your OTA as well and it will likely integrate much nicer with your SD as do both the Voom and E* boxes and (I assume) the D* boxes.
Oh yes, you can not replace the gas in an plasma set. There are definite pros and cons to each technology.
I wouldn't again buy a DTV w/o a built-in ATSC tuner. At least twice a week there comes a time when I want to watch a satellite channel, but there is something else on network or local TV that I want to record for later viewing. The best network and local signals are the DTV signals for the best recording. Can't do it. Have to record from NTSC tuner while watching the satellite channel. Also, PIP is a whole lot better with 2 DTV tuners available. When I bought my DLP, built-in ATSC tuners were only available on a handfull of RP/CRT units.
