OTA

[olds]

I am moving and want to try OTA for SD and HD. Can it be done with indoor antennas and do I need one for SD and one for HD? How about converters?
TV 1 is a 4 year old plasma
TV 2 and 3 are 8 year old direct view.

 

[PurdueRy]

Do the 8 year old TV's have ATSC tuners?

One antenna can generally work for all purposes. Please go to www.antennaweb.org(or similar sites) and enter your information to find out what stations are near you and what antenna type you need.

 

[olds]

Do the 8 year old TV's have ATSC tuners?

 

[PurdueRy]

Originally posted by: oldsmoboat

Do the 8 year old TV's have ATSC tuners?

ATSC tuners are required in order to receive DTV signals nowadays. So basically it determines whether you can just hook an antenna up to the TV post-DTV transition and still receive stations.

 

[olds]

Originally posted by: PurdueRy

Originally posted by: oldsmoboat

Do the 8 year old TV's have ATSC tuners?

ATSC tuners are required in order to receive DTV signals nowadays. So basically it determines whether you can just hook an antenna up to the TV post-DTV transition and still receive stations.

Thanks, I'll look up the model numbers. :beer:

 

[0roo0roo]

avsforum has antenna threads...

one antenna. sd/hd are the same digital signal. whether a channel is hd or sd depends on the broadcaster.
quality of reception depends on tuner. depending on how strong your location is for signal you may be able to use your tv's reception. things have improved quite a bit over time so newer tuners are much better these days. so you'll just have to try and see. antennaweb as said for directions.. tvfool as well. http://72.9.159.100/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1037779
and you can try to make your own
http://blog.makezine.com/archi..._antenna_steadyca.html
and you can wall/attic mount some, it doesn't have to be just rabbit ears.

 

[funboy6942]

If neither of your tv's have built in digital, you can always make some cheap PC or buy a cheap pc from like surpluscomputers.com, slap in a dual tv tuner, and make it into a HTPC which would allow you to make the most out of everything. In any case it would be cheaper to do this, and have more tv/computer/movie options then to go and get tv's with digital tuners and replace all you got.

IMO of course for its what I do using my main rig to pull double duty as main pc and HTPC, and by doing it this way I can play all my games on my 100" projection set up that has no built in digital tuner on its own.

 

[olds]

I do have a htpc. I am using my gaming rig but I am going to buy a htpc case and build a regular htpc.

 

[Pliablemoose]

Text

Plug in your new address (don't enter your name or email addy) It'll tell you exactly what you need.

Don't bother with the SD, it'll be gone soon enough... Isn't it already gone?

 

[kalrith]

I use an HTPC with a Hauppauge HVR 2250. It has dual ATSC tuners, so it can record two shows at once or record one show while watching another. I also use my HTPC as the media server so that I can watch shows on my gaming PC while exercising (it's an office/exercise room), and my wife can potentially watch them on her laptop (although streaming HD wirelessly probably won't work too well).

An HTPC would eliminate the requirement for ATSC tuners on your TVs, because the HTPC would connect via HDMI (or DVI to HDMI). However, I'm not certain what you would do for all three TVs. I'm not sure if there are converter boxes that output HD, but that might be something to look for. Some people use an HTPC connected to one TV as the media server and then use media extenders connected to the other TVs, but that's a lot of extra expense unless you already own devices that can be used as media extenders (i.e. XBOX 360).

 

[olds]

Anyone make cheaper BluRay/HDDVD combo drives for HTPC? I have some HDDVDs and the drive is $250 on Amazon.

 

[sdifox]

Originally posted by: oldsmoboat
Anyone make cheaper BluRay/HDDVD combo drives for HTPC? I have some HDDVDs and the drive is $250 on Amazon.

you can get the xbox 360 hddvd drive fairly cheaply on craigslist. not sure you are going to find a brd-hddvd combo drive these days.

LG GGC-H20L was one of them, can't remember the others.