Otahd! Wow!

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igator99 said:
Anyone that can get their locals in HD I highly recommend you do so. I watched the Rams vs. Colts game off of my local Fox and it was just awesome. None of the DirecTV HD channels can compare. Discovery HD is close to the OTA quality. Why are some DirecTV HD channels better than others? What's up with ESPNHD not broadcasting everything in HD?

D* downrez's their content and compresses the hell out of them. I welcome you to the true world of HD, instead of HDLite.
 
The Orlando OTA HD are a lot cleaner around here than the Orlando D* MPG4 signals. The D* signals occasionally pixelize and have picture breakup, they also are very jittery, giving them the look of frames missing, but the OTA ones are fine.

The D* FSN Florida MPG4 Marlins games, are a lot better than the 4 MPG4 Network feeds.
 
Although I don't have HDTV I do have a way to see OTA digital/HD channels and god they look so clean

much better than Dish's compressed stuff and much better than my analog OTA
(have one channel logged as analog because they're too far for digital for me....and the analog is fuzzy) :)
 
Phroz said:
The local FOX affiliate here (WFPO) doesn't broadcast HD OTA, and they can't before 2009. :(

I wish I could get FOX in HD, especially since most of the football I watch is on there.

I have a similar problem in that our NBC affiliate had their tower knocked out by Katrina. I can get the Baton Rouge NBC affilate sometimes. Does anyone know of a better amp than the Radio Shack one? I believe the Radio Shack one is like 26db (I really not sure what that means) and every other one I've seen is lower than that. Perhaps with a stronger amp I could pull in the Baton Rouge NBC station and you could get another Fox affilate.
 
Is the Rat Shack amp the 2 piece unit?

We have one of those at our lake house for analog and it works really good. I think its rated 30DB gain but it works the best out of all of them I've seen (and I use to work at Rat Shack). 2 pieces...a preamp on the antenna and then the main unit in the house

Here is the link (they dont show the preamp portion


link to product
 
igator99 said:
Perhaps with a stronger amp I could pull in the Baton Rouge NBC station and you could get another Fox affilate.
Well, even the strongest amp made couldn't help me. There's only the one fox affiliate in Maine, and none in NH. The next closest affiliate is 150 some miles away in Boston.

I shouldn't really complain though. From 2001-2003 we didn't even have an analog FOX channel here, so this is better than nothing.
 
I went from a top notch OTA set up with a "good" picture, to Pittsburgh mpeg4 hd locals with an "AWSOME" picture. Everything is in 5.1 and the colts game last night in 720p looked better than the playoffs and superbowl last season from OTA, Not sure why but the Colts game in 720p looked better than tonights game in 1080i.

I love HD locals from D* It saved me much time, money, and stress installing setting up and fightting the HOA!!!!
 
Iceberg said:
Is the Rat Shack amp the 2 piece unit?

We have one of those at our lake house for analog and it works really good. I think its rated 30DB gain but it works the best out of all of them I've seen (and I use to work at Rat Shack). 2 pieces...a preamp on the antenna and then the main unit in the house

Here is the link (they dont show the preamp portion


link to product

Yep that's it. It has been going for about six years now. I was just wondering if there was something like 40DB to pull in that Baton Rouge NBC station. I guess not.
 
VIPERS-PIT said:
I went from a top notch OTA set up with a "good" picture, to Pittsburgh mpeg4 hd locals with an "AWSOME" picture. Everything is in 5.1 and the colts game last night in 720p looked better than the playoffs and superbowl last season from OTA, Not sure why but the Colts game in 720p looked better than tonights game in 1080i.

I love HD locals from D* It saved me much time, money, and stress installing setting up and fightting the HOA!!!!

My OTA is hidden in the back of the house. Speaking of HOA's I looked at my deed restriction regarding trees get this if I want a tree removed this is the process I must go through. 1) You must hire an arbornist to come a declare the tree sick 2) The tree specialists must create a plan to save the tree 3) If the tree can not be saved you must get a $500 permit to have the tree cut down 4) You must get an insured tree cutter to cut the tree down and have the stump grind to the ground. You are talking about 3,000. Can anyone out there with an HOA top this silly policy? Keep in mind Katrina put trees in about ever 8 to 10 homes in my subdivision. My lot has 16 freaking trees in it and it is just your average suburban lot.
 
igator99 said:
Do you notice a difference with other D* HDTV? I notice that National Geographic HD looks better than the other HD channels.
I have D* so I don't get Nat Geo HD. Wish I Did!!! It depends on the content of the show. TNTHD sometimes looks bad thats from the original show that was created. I think's it depends on the equipement too. Before I got the H20s I had the Samsung 360 my first year of HD withD*. Then yes I could tell a difference between D* and OTA. Like I had the NFL packeage and watching the games on ch 94-98 HD vs the OTA locals the OTA was better, but not by much. I have the H20s now and I can't tell a difference between the D* HD and OTA. I think you have to factor in alot into the equation to see what's better. That's why one people can't claim the gospel truth just because of their setup and what they think of D*. I just give what I see for me and hope others can use the info to better their situation, just not making claims that D* is bad.
 
igator99 said:
Does anyone know of a better amp than the Radio Shack one? I believe the Radio Shack one is like 26db (I really not sure what that means) and every other one I've seen is lower than that.

The performance of a preamp is determined more by it's noise figure (lower is better) and overload characteristics (higher is better) than by the gain. In fact, higher gain can actually cause overload problems if any of your stations are closer than 20 miles or so. The Winegard HDP-269 is recommended for all but the most rural locations. It's gain is sufficient to overcome the loss of up to 100' of RG-6 plus the internal noise of the receiver. The HDP-269 noise figure is as low as needed. The overload characteristics of the HDP-269 are the best in the industry. In cases where overload is not a concern, the Channel Master 7777 preamp is highly rated.
 
VIPERS-PIT said:
I love HD locals from D* It saved me much time, money, and stress installing setting up and fightting the HOA!!!!

i've heard people say no difference but ur the 1st I ever heard say OTA was worse than dtv. Amazing that a virgin signal is worse....as far as hoa...that's a losing battle from the day you signed your contract ;)
 
newsposter said:
i've heard people say no difference but ur the 1st I ever heard say OTA was worse than dtv. Amazing that a virgin signal is worse....as far as hoa...that's a losing battle from the day you signed your contract ;)

You need to check your current HOA rules, as many of them have rules regulating DBS dishes and OTA antennas that are outdated. We had that problem with our HOA covenants, until I showed them the FCC regulations. We have now changed our covenants to follow the FCC regulations.

Here are the FCC rules that are currently in effect, for DBS and OTA antennas: http://www.fcc.gov/mb/facts/otard.html
 
as far as hoa...that's a losing battle from the day you signed your contract
no it isn't

I have 7 dishes (3 FTA dishes on roof, 1 on the deck railing, 2 on the TV antenna mast and a C-Band dish on the deck) and a TV antenna bolted ot the deck. HOA tried to invooke a one dish rule but after showing them OTARD they laxed up. They'd prefer that DBS dishes are on the deck railing but can go on the roof if need be :)

And now they made me the VP of our HOA so this outta be fun :D
 
Iceberg said:
no it isn't

I have 7 dishes (3 FTA dishes on roof, 1 on the deck railing, 2 on the TV antenna mast and a C-Band dish on the deck) and a TV antenna bolted ot the deck. HOA tried to invooke a one dish rule but after showing them OTARD they laxed up. They'd prefer that DBS dishes are on the deck railing but can go on the roof if need be :)

And now they made me the VP of our HOA so this outta be fun :D

Just curious, how did you get past the one meter rule, with the C-Band dish?

I sure miss my BUD, had it for nearly 20 years, till I switched to D*, because of a move to a deed restricted community.
 
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