[mythtv-users] New system w poor quality picture

[Brian Wood]

On Thursday 11 June 2009 06:08:45 Jim Morton wrote:
> Paul Gardiner wrote:
> > Jim Morton wrote:
> > > nowhere near as clean and clear as direct from antenna to TV. This
> >
> > is OTA only from an HD digital antenna.
> >
> > Excuse my ignorance: what's "an HD digital antenna"? Are there TVs out
> > there that will take a direct connection to a satellite dish?
>
> This is not exactly what I have but it's pretty close.
>
> http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2253765&tab=summary
>
> Maybe it is just a regular antenna with an HD sticker on it. But it
> gives me 1080I and a better looking picture than I had with cable.

That makes sense. Cable companies re-encode an HD signal (either picked up 
off-air or received by a direct feed from the station) into a QAM signal. 
Usually the signal is degraded in order to require less bandwidth on the 
cable system. Satellite companies do the same thing, though according to 
their advertising they do not degrade the signal as much. According to the 
cable company advertising the satellite companies use "aggressive 
processing", which you are supposed ot think is somehow worse than the cable 
company's own processing.

So receiving the ATSC HD signal off-air will usually give you a better picture 
than either cable or satellite.

But no antenna is specifically designed for HD or digital, no matter what the 
marketing types try to make you think.

Even the  stations confuse people. Our local station ran an item on their news 
program telling people they had to buy a "VHF/UHF" antenna, even though there 
will be no stations in the area transmitting VHF after June 12.

-- 
beww
beww at beww.org