Over the Air HDTV? Increase Cable Quality?

[BassBomb]

Hello All,

I just got a 20WMGX2 NEC Monitor/TV. I hooked our basic cable through Coax (as that's what it arrives in) and scanned channels over STD system.

Now my first question is how can I increase the quality of this signal? I notice some odd artifacting and such. Not sure if this is a result of low quality Coax coming from my basement and going through a few different cables to reach my room OR a native problem using LCD Computer monitor for TV purposes.

Sometimes I notice laggy picture (not ghosting) when watching the cable. I fiddled with some of the options mainly Noise reduction and 3D YC and it did not change the quality much.

Question 2: What does Over the Air HDTV mean? And how would I be able to obtain such HDTV signal?

Do these require content contracts and such? 3rd Party recievers?

All help and comments are appreciated!

 

[LittleNemoNES]

The artifacts are because it upscaling the signal.
Every place is different but in Miami, I have to pay $5 to comcast to get HD through my Cable signal. I myself am curious about this...

Congrats on the monitor purchase -- it's a great LCD :beer:

 

[derail]

About a Year from now all brodcast will be High Definition. This was mad mandatory by the Federal goverment saying that they will also have box to convert the signal back dow to digital if you dont have a HD TV. I read that over the air brodcast is prety good and nice to get free HD TV for the cost of a HD antena if you can get buy with just local chanels and are aabel to pick them up.

 

[BassBomb]

Originally posted by: derail
About a Year from now all brodcast will be High Definition. This was mad mandatory by the Federal goverment saying that they will also have box to convert the signal back dow to digital if you dont have a HD TV. I read that over the air brodcast is prety good and nice to get free HD TV for the cost of a HD antena if you can get buy with just local chanels and are aabel to pick them up.

I live in Canada, so I don't listen to your Fed's.



@gersson - No wonder when I watch in PIP it looks so fine.

Furthermore also sometimes running at "REAL" signal option shows some random slowdowns. Mostly when camera movement is increased. I was watching NHL btw.

 

[JonnyBlaze]

Originally posted by: derail
About a Year from now all brodcast will be High Definition. This was mad mandatory by the Federal goverment saying that they will also have box to convert the signal back dow to digital if you dont have a HD TV. I read that over the air brodcast is prety good and nice to get free HD TV for the cost of a HD antena if you can get buy with just local chanels and are aabel to pick them up.

Wrong. All broadcast will be digital. It wont all be hidef. Not for a longtime.

 

[nullpointerus]

Originally posted by: BassBomb
Question 2: What does Over the Air HDTV mean? And how would I be able to obtain such HDTV signal?

Over the Air (OTA) HDTV is simply broadcast, as in the old, huge TV antennas that people put on top of their houses, except that OTA HDTV is digital (i.e. no degradation due to interference -- it's either on or off) and of course in HD (high resolution).

Do these require content contracts and such? 3rd Party recievers?

OTA HDTV is free, as in beer. As long as you live in broadcasting range, have an antenna, and have a HD receiver (or TV w/ built-in HD receiver), you're good to go. I'm not sure how prevalent this is in Canada. Some people live like 5 miles from the broadcast towers and can get away with tiny desktop antennas while others by a larger aerial to put on the roof. AVSForums can help you with all the technical details.

Basically, there are plenty of options for OTA HD receivers nowadays. There are PCI cards, ethernet boxes, set-top boxes, and even TVs w/ built-in receivers. The HD receiver connects directly to the HD antenna, and the receiver will scan for channels and allow you to watch HD. Receivers that work with computers are now becoming much easier to use with recording/timeshifting software like SageTV or MythTV.

 

[BassBomb]

Thank you for the well informed post!!

Is there any way to increase my COAX signal's quality/fidelity?

 

[nullpointerus]

Originally posted by: BassBomb
Is there any way to increase my COAX signal's quality/fidelity?

If you can get your local cable office to send you a technician, he or she should be able to provide a much better diagnosis. Your description of the problem seems a little vague, but if it's not ghosting or horizontal/vertical lines, then it's probably not interference.

I've heard that some failing or faulty components on the same cable connection can cause problems in other components, viz. one failling TV that's putting electrical feedback into the cable lines can cause another TV to have a poor picture.

Cable technicians are much more knowledgeable than me about this sort of thing. But if you are worried about the wiring of a particular cable jack, you could try carrying your monitor to another jack in the house.