Slashdot Mirror
Best Terrestrial/OTA HDTV Setup For an Apartment?
thesandbender writes "I don't watch TV but keep an HTPC for watching movies. One of my relatives is very ill and I'll have a lot of family rotating through my apartment and I'd like to have a few more options for entertainment. I'm running Vista MCE and bought a Hauppauge HVR-1800 with a DB8 HDTV antenna and I've used AntennaWeb to point the DB8 in the best direction. The results have been terrible and I'm looking for recommendations / suggestions for hardware and setup. I am on the first floor of a three-story apartment building and I can't mount any external antennas (I know this is a major issue). Thankfully almost all the transmitters are located in the same place so a good, compact directional antenna might be effective. And please... no platform bashing. They all have their issues (I have a lot of h.264 encoded files... hardware/GPU acceleration on Linux is very, very limited at the moment)."
Try a masthead antenna amplifier. Get a good quality one and (hopefully) it will help compensate for the god-awful frontend in your TV tuner.
(Yes, I know masthead amps are really to compensate for long cable runs, but a low noise amp at the front upping things by 10-12dB is sometimes all it takes.)
You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
There is a lot of hype here.
1- violate your lease and get your antenna higher.
2- get cable tv.
sorry but you cant find a magical antenna that will pull in signals without getting it off the ground. you have to get an antenna into the air and away from obstructions. you can try to get a pair of high gain UHF bowtie array antennas from wineguard or channelmaster, but those will look very ugly and take up 4 feet by 3 feet in your sliding glass door.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
If you're in the US, you can tell the land lord to piss off, they can not stop you from getting a satellite dish. I had a similar problem with my HOA, and Fed law trumps HOAs and landlords.
Or just get cable for a few months.
...to mount an external antenna, but you may be able to mount one inside a window. The glass should be more radio-transparent than the walls.
I strongly recommend the HDTv Antenna Labs website: especially the HDTv Antenna Reviews.
If you haven't been down-modded lately, you aren't trying.
Sacred cows make the best hamburger.
The FCC allows for mounting of external attennas, and your apartment complex is acting against the law by not allowing them. On the other hand, even mounting outside on the first floor won't help much.
"hardware/GPU acceleration on Linux is very, very limited"
:)
As opposed to being a system requirement for the command line on Vista?
The disappearing pencil trick. Let me show you it.
... is the WINEGARD SS-2000 16" Square Shooter HDTV Antenna. It looks a lot better, and comes with its own mounting equipment. Can also be mounted on existing satellite antennas.
1- find a friend with a nice setup
2- record your tv show to a disc with his tv
3- bring disc to home and watch.
4- don't kill me just a boring day.
The best movies are not playing on TV in general anyway.
Get fast internet and have a selection of streaming movies and tv shows from the internet.
HD is only all that great for movies that can actually use all that extra detail such as documentaries and such. I wouldn't focus on HD as much compared to selection for overall entertainment value.
Sounds like your best option is to bribe the landlord to get something better setup. For most people that's cable or FIOS but I guess you can't get them ??
A media library of movies and TV shows might be your most practical method. Hard drive capacity has gotten so huge and cheap it's not hard to have an endless supply of new content ready to go and easily searchable.
A netflix account might help, but in general you want to target the viewing audience, that is get stuff people in the house tend to like.
TV is only so rewarding for anything beyond lots of stream of mediocre programming. That's why god made movie channels and DVD's :P
I made a modified version of this with some wire, cardboard, and tin foil. Works great. I have a house and this is used on the first floor, mounted right beside a window:
http://members.shaw.ca/hdtvantenna/
I am in the process of making this, but the first one works so well, I've kind of put it off...(at least until after the Olympics):
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/762088/coat_hanger_hdtv_antenna_better_than_store_bought_amazing/
The key is that they are directional, to be fair, I do have to turn it around a lot for certain stations, but where I'm at they are all more or less due south.
what does Vista crappy command line interface have to do about TV. It is really about the right tool for the right job. And sometimes GASP! Linux isn't the right tool for the job. It is not that it can't do the job adequately (TiVo has proven that (However TiVo took advantages of Linux's strength to be a good appliance OS (Yes I have programmed in LISP))) but it is not really the right tool for the job, Espectailly if you just want to get it up quickly and running right, with little effort. Normally if you get new hardware they tend to have drivers for Windows, Linux is hit or miss. While I am a Mac Fan myself it isn't always the best solution for these type of things as there is chance the OS will not support it like Linux and the fact that you kinda need to choose from Apple brand hardware which has gaps in its offering making it difficult to get the right computer for your needs. For this case Vista is probably the best choice.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Go to Amazon and look at the Terk antenna (it's a long pointy thing). There is another brand of antenna that looks this. I get different results from different antennas, so you have to experiment. You also didn't tell us how far you were from an OTA source? One other consideration is to use a QAM tuner; I have a cable modem for internet, I basically put in a splitter, run one end into the cable modem, and the other end into my HD Homerun device (a dual QAM/OTA HD tuner, which attaches to your ethernet based network!). I've also used an elgato EyeTV Hybrid, but I prefer the dual tuner :-P
I now get all my channels over clear QAM, and it works much better than over OTA (sometimes I have to rotate the antenna, which was annoying). btw, this is FREE
...an actual TV to plug the antenna into. A nice little HDTV LCD with built-in and stronger tuner. For the one week I was without my precious DirecTV, I went to Wal-Mart and paid $30 for a simple powered antenna. It looked like a pair of rabbit ears, but it with an AC adapter and a knob for adjusting the gain. I plugged it into my Vizio, set to OTA and pressed auto-find.
I live in between Cinci and Dayton, and I was able to pull in ALL of those stations, plus the HD channels. In all, I had nearly 30 channels accessible to me. It lacked all of my lovely sports channels, of course, so no though of canceling my DirecTV, but it brought sanity back to the house so my 3-yr old could watch PBS Kids.
Bearded Dragon
Or, much worse, external antennas inside a room.
VHF and lower UHF ain't WiFi. At these frequencies, reflections from nearby objects are a pain in the ass for the signal integrity. Digital TV should compensate this, but I'm not sure if it could eliminate all the problems, especially attenuation due to phase inversion issues.
If you have a good line of sight to the transmitters location, get an external antenna and point it to that direction, and for FSM sake, don't put an external antenna in your room : it's asking for problems.
TV stations are *very* powerful; if you put a decent antenna out the window, the lower attenuation due to the shortest cable will compensate the lower antenna gain. Don't add an amplifier if you don't absolutely need it.
I had a similar problem, but the issue was not too little signal gain, but too much. How close are you to the network towers? I live in the Pittsburgh area and because I'm so close to the towers, I actually point my antenna towards the center of the state and pick up the broadcasters out of central PA. Reception is 1000% better now.
Also, reception is going to be better at night as a general rule.
I rather choose extra-terrestrial stuff
Woah! *ducks*
:)
I didn't intend on enticing that sort of response. I didn't even mention Linux ( except for quoting ). I was merely making a joke about the above-acceptable hardware requirements to run Vista.
However, I will make a small rebuttal. Vista is not always the right tool for the job. OS X is not always the right tool for the job. Linux is not always the right tool for the job.. but it is flexible enough to be.
And hardware support has always done me well in Linux, even with a random USB wireless dongle I was given during a trip worked without any issue or fuss. I do understand that not everyone has such a good experience.. yet
The disappearing pencil trick. Let me show you it.
If you can find one, try to get an antenna with part number 15-1880 from Radio Shack. They've been discontinued, but your local store might still have one in stock or you might be able to find one on ebay. It's a simple indoor amplified UHF antenna and passive VHF antenna. I used it in an apartment surrounded by trees about 45 miles away from the towers and was able to get all the HD channels except CBS. CBS used VHF, that's why I couldn't get it. People on AVS forum rave about the antenna, and they were right.
Or, get an unlimited borrowing plan and take out a bunch of movies at a time.
The HDTV tuner can make a huge difference in reception quality. I had one of those US Digital cheapy tuners and it had weak signal on a few stations. When it died I got a Samsung which has far more consistent signal strength and video quality, all using the exact same antenna and configuration.
Your antenna is more than adequate. I have a similar 4-bay antenna that's about half the size of yours. I mount it in the attic and point it towards the antenna towers which are ~20 miles away. Signal strength is excellent, no amplifier needed with the Samsung tuner.
there are antennas that don't look like antennas, but you might have to build them yourself.
They don't perform well. Try netflix
-- Programming with boost is like building a house with lego. It's a cool but I wouldn't want to live in it
Build the Gray-Hoverman antenna which we discussed recently. It's a grid plane with a few bent wires in front.
However, I will make a small rebuttal. Vista is not always the right tool for the job. OS X is not always the right tool for the job. Linux is not always the right tool for the job.. but it is flexible enough to be.
Ummm, that's not a rebuttal. You're simply restating his point.
This guy's the limit!
I have a Hauppage HVR-1600.. and used it to receive OTA HD signals just fine with an old (not specifically HD or ATSC) antenna, a Terk TV-2. However, I recently switched to a monitor that had a tuner (samsung 260HD). It doesn't have PIP, so I figured I'd still commonly use the HVR-1600 to have my OTA signals in a window when I was doing other things and toggle to fullscreen when I wanted to. However, I noticed the image quality I get when feeding the antenna directly to the samsung's tuner is far superior to what I get via the HVR-1600, even at full screen. The colors are far more vibrant.. at first I thought it was something to do with the monitor default settings, but I've experimented and can't get it to look anywhere near as good via the HVR-1600. Either the monitor is incapable of using the same color settings when viewing input over the DVI connector (don't have HDMI outputs on my card) or the tuner on the tv is just better. Not sure which. As it is now it doesn't matter that much in a small window, I just channge input source instead of making it full screen when I toggle. Just have to make sure the other sound feed is muted, otherwise their off by a fraction of a second (despite same signal, same antenna) which creates an 'echo' effect...
Still using the same Terk TV2. Its a non-powered indoor antenna, and reception is flawless.
"Waste not one watt!" - CZ
for those of us with satellite and the ability to have a dish, can it also be used for OTA HD? Or if we replace Sat service can we use it OTA HD and receive that through their cable which is no longer needed for sat?
I am trying to avoid a new cable incoming to the house and figured on grafting theirs
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
A combination of Netflix , Basic cable and Hulu keep me very happy. Hulu(.com) has some of my favorite shows within a day of going out on air (Daily show etc.), netflix has instant streaming of old movies, and latest movies by DVD, basic cable has all the major networks. Cable modem Internet + basic Cable analogue channels should be $30 a month if you stand your ground with the cable company - they desperatly want to give you basic cable if you sign up with internet in my area.
I was merely making a joke about the above-acceptable hardware requirements to run Vista.
You play with fire, you are bound to get burnt.
It wasn't a personal attack. It was to generally quell the Windows sucks for everything attitude.
However I rebuttal your rebuttal. Any OS has the chance to be just as flexible you just need to write the right code to make it work. Being that all code goes down to 1 and 0 essentially before you start your code is half done. You just need to flip about half of the bits to get it to work. Even with having full source with Linux, limited source with OS X and no source for windows, All those platforms all for custom drivers to be programmed, and allow you to create apps to run with those drivers.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
The rebuttal is that, unlike systems tied to companies ( and therefore only develop in their interest ), Linux is flexible enough to be the right tool for every job. Sorry if I didn't ( or still am not ) being clear.
The disappearing pencil trick. Let me show you it.
A lot of folks are enthusiastic about the Gray-Hoverman antenna design.
There is discussion here.
Keo provides a detailed description of a design he built for use in his apartment.
Unfortunately, the pictures of his build are no longer available, but from the other forum posts and his detailed description, his version of this antenna could be replicated.
Nearly all of the B&M electronics retailers sell absolutely horribly shitty antennas. (There are occasionally decent ones but it's RARE.)
If you want to get a good antenna you need to go to a specialty store (likely online) or in many cases you'll have luck at home improvement stores like Home Depot or Lowes.
Look for products from Channel Master or Winegard. Both make good antennas and preamps. There are a few other good brands but those are the two that come to mind first.
If you fail with CM or Winegard - get cable. Unfortunately reliable terrestrial HD can be difficult. I don't even bother in my apartment. Everything else about your setup is fine, your OS makes no difference if reception is bad. Garbage in, garbage out.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Gah, ignore that. I just realised what you meant and you're right, it isn't a rebuttal.
The disappearing pencil trick. Let me show you it.
It's the shit.
Personally, if it's possible in your situation, I'd say just get cable for the short term. Your setup works fine for you, but relatives may have issues if problems arise. You can usually get basic cable for a reasonable price. It'll be much easier to use and potentially more dependable for your relatives.
That DB-8 antenna he has is pretty similar to the Channel Master 4228, which is one of the highest gain UHF antennas you can find.
The guy that submitted this needs to:
1) Move that antenna to the porch!
2) Try a mast-mount preamp (warning, if one of those stations is nearby and very strong this can make things worse.)
3) Get cable
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
If most of your stations are in one direction, get a directional HD antenna and an amplifier, I like electroline, check out ebay, get a new one if you can. For cable, if all your interested in is the OTA channels, you can get the base OTA package (usually like $15/month) which is ridiculous compared to investing in a good antenna. (And you need to record QM channels, and hope vista doesn't bloc them) If you want other cable channels, you won't be able to record HD, unless you invest $250 in the HD PVR. Then you probably need to upgrade your htpc for H.264 HD video. Software is also an issue, I wouldn't recommend MCE for my worst enemy (let alone the vista version). You're better off with Beyondtv or Sage, or if you tinker Media Portal. You'll get better pvr support from these programs. Otherwise, I recommend just using the Wintv software that came with your Hauppauge card. Hauppauge also has a decent signal monitor that will let you know how well you can tune in stations.
Without knowing exactly how far you are away from your transmitters it's hard to recommend something. I suggest asking the folks over at avsforums
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1037779
That thread under "HDTV-HDTV Technical- EV's Best Top Rated HDTV Indoor Antenna Review Test Round-Up Guide" is FULL of very smart people who can help you if you give them a full profile. There are also sections of AVSforums that are specific to different marketplaces and the reception challenges that each location has.
That being said, nothing worked for me until I got my DB2. I tried around 10 of the top-of-the-line models until I installed that (indoors). Everything now comes in crystal clear.
Most cable companies offer a dirt-cheap package containing only local broadcast channels. These channels are required by law to be sent unencrypted. I pay Comcast $8/month and get all the major broadcast networks in HD, plus a few random cable channels like History and BET. Even better: Comcast gives me a $10 discount on ANY TV/internet package, so I actually save $2/month by getting the limited TV package.
Any TV tuner card that accepts "Clear QAM" will be able to tune unencrypted cable signals.
... as if the submitter had any real reason to bash Linux. What exactly is your problem?
a 2-bay Gray-Hoverman and lean it against your wall facing toward your xmitters. It's open-source, too!
Mine gets me PBS from 130 km away...
"The results have been terrible..."
This really doesn't tell us what the exact problem is. My guess is that it could be in a couple of areas:
- Signal strength. You have a large directional antenna already, unless there is something obstructing the signal, you should be getting enough for the tuner card to decode. An amplifier may help, but if you aren't getting enough signal, it's never going to work. Other poster have identified workarounds for this.
- Your hardware (CPU/GPU) is too slow to be able to decode the streams you are trying to play. This is OS agnostic, you provide no info on your HW configuration.
For the record, I have a MythTV box which plays streams fine, while recording three OTA DTV streams at the same time. So I think this is more of a configuration issue than anything else. Need more info to help identify solutions.
... if that's your best, your best won't do... - Twisted Sister
I'd say, to start with, look for the Silver Sensor UHF antenna (now sold by Phillips as the PHDTV1). Without knowing your location, it's difficult to say what kind of an antenna you'll need, because some areas are UHF only (antennas like the Silver Sensor and the DB2 are good there) and some have or will have (after next year's analog shutoff) digital channels on VHF as well.
If the Silver Sensor does not work for you, return it and try something larger.
I'm glad to hear it wasn't a personal attack and I would like to assure you I don't have the 'Windows sucks for everything' attitude. I would be hard pressed to think of something it bested Linux in from my experience though.. (I mean by its own merits, not just because things get developed for it ). As I said before, I've had less hardware issues in Linux than XP ( the former no problem with my on-board LAN, the latter still doesn't support it "natively" in SP3 )
I find Linux to be more flexible because anyone and everyone has the choice/chance to improve it. Only Microsoft/Apple can improve Windows/OS X.
The disappearing pencil trick. Let me show you it.
This is an amazing omnidirectional antenna that is small enough to fit in many closets if needed. The 2000 is the same antenna but with 50' of coax, which you would not need if you installed it inside.
http://www.dennysantennaservice.com/1073325.html
You play with fire, you are bound to get burnt.
Jokes are not fire, they are Ether. Pour them on a smolder and then you have a nice flame going.
Why save your soul when you can sell it for a profit?
Did you ever try just plugging the cable TV in? I've lived in apartments in the past where the previous owner's cable service was never shut off. Remember though, if you are receiving a signal, you need to pay for your cable service. Your best solution is going to be forking out 10 bucks a month for the basic TV package...no antennas, no reception problems...no hassle.
Your situation sounds very much like mine. I live in the first floor of a three-story apartment building in a major city. The broadcast towers are just a couple miles away, but there are small hills, woods, and reflections from other buildings. So I can tune up to 20 channels, but intermittent interference can make many of the digital ones unwatchable. Being an apartment, a rooftop antenna or satellite dish is not an option.
I don't usually watch more than thirty minutes of TV a day, so I tried dropping cable and living on OTA channels. It worked so-so in the winter, but when the trees got leaves my signal deteriorated even more to the point that only a couple channels were reliable.
And then I got sick -- recurrence of cancer, return to chemotherapy and radiation. I already got the cable reconnected and it's a life saver for those days when fatigue and chemobrain leaves me as a couch potato. And soon I'm going to sign up for movie channels for those long nights when the side effects keep me awake.
So if you can afford it (or one of your relatives can make a donation to help keep everyone's sanity) then I'd recommend getting cable for a while.
Not really, the "use the right tool for the job" argument sadly has come to mean "my platform is the right tool for the job". Thus by reiterating the point the post is actually contradicting the parent.
When Argumentum ad Hominem falls short, try Argumentum ad Matrem
I found some indoor/outdoor antenna reviews.
http://www.hdtvexpert.com/pages/squareshot.htm
Here is the FCC fact sheet on pre-emption rules regarding antenna placement. Read it and determine if it is something you want to fight with.
http://www.fcc.gov/mb/facts/otard.html
At my place they simply require a professional installer to perform the task.
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
In Canada, we've got SDA (sweet dick all)
That's right, absolutely no HD broadcasts at all.
Up here, you either pay a monopolistic corporation or go without.
You haven't mentioned how far you are from the transmitters, or if you've got a realistic line-of-site to them (or not).
It's possible the DB8 is overkill, and you're picking up a lot of multipath. If you're not too far from the transmitters, try something smaller (like a DB2 or DB4 from the same folks).
You've got it pointed at the towers, but does that take it through a brick wall and the neighbor's apartment? Can you point it out a window to face the transmitters?
Believe it or not, directing it towards the transmitters might not be your best option. If line-of-sight is poor, you might be better off facing AWAY from the transmitters and picking up the signal bouncing off a nearby building. Try creatively positioning the antenna in a few random places (preferably facing out the window) and see what happens.
Also, do check with the folks on avsforum.com; there are regional-threads and people from your area can probably advise you best.
Finally, it's easier to advise if we know the geography. What's the zip code? Nearest cross street or a nearby address? Something to give us an idea what we're dealing with...
First, the DB8 was probably overkill and is leading to signal loss on the wire.
I'm using a DB2 in a wooded, though flat, city, about 15-20 miles from the towers and my results are very good except in very bad thunderstorms. I've run the wire into my cable tv plant (with the assistance of an amplifier) and now I have free OTA to every cable drop in my house.
If you're in a modern apartment, the studs are probably metal, which means you're living in a faraday cage. Get the antenna to a window that faces towards the towers, if at all possible.
If your total cable run from antenna to tuner is more than ~100' (or ~30m) you'll be running into signal loss on the wire. Get an amplifier. That won't hurt in any case.
obviously no deficiencies vs. no obvious deficiencies
if theres no corporate free key for all, then vista isnt the right choice ;)
People pay for an OS? MS should pay us to use their OS really.
XP is good enough.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Head over to the Lumenlab forums, where they have a forum dedicated to DIY HD Antenna's. You do have to register to access the actual pinned post (now at 58 pages) that will cover just about everything you wanted to know about DIY antenna's, including many designs. I built one for about $5.00 (US) out of wood, wire coathangers, and tinfoil, live about 15 miles from the HD towers in my area, and reception on most channels is perfect. My antenna is mounted in an attic, with no direct visual line of site to the towers (blocked by 2 story houses, trees, power lines, etc...).
hth,
jeff
Jules: You know the shows on TV?
Vincent: I don't watch TV.
Jules: Yeah, but, you are aware that there's an invention called television, and on this invention they show shows, right?
When Tarantino wrote those lines, he gave a voice to what so many of us were thinking: why do people who abstain from television need to inform everybody about it?
In all matters of opinion, our adversaries are insane. -Oscar Wilde
I'm just here to give useful information, so mods please punish me appropriately. :-)
The Zenith Silver Sensor is considered the reference antenna for indoor reception. Most comparisons
use it as the gold standard, and everything else is given points on how close they can get to the SS.
I bought mine a few years ago when they were easy to find at Sears. If you have a Sears near you I suggest
you check their TV department; the devices are low volume and you get lucky and find one on a shelf. If not
they are available online: http://www.solidsignal.com/prod_display.asp?PROD=ZHDTV1
I personally used a Silver Sensor for my HDTV setup in Houston, TX. I am 15 miles or so from the antenna farm
and got decent reception without an amp. I eventually switched to QAM decoding when I found the HDHomerun
(http://www.silicondust.com/) which works with both Windows and Linux, and has the added benefit of being a
network device. For me that's a plus as I can share it.
Good luck on your OTA adventures. It is well worth the trouble when everything works. Having said that, if you can
get a cable modem connection, the cable company's cable run will act as an antenna. You can try that without actually
tuning any of the channels offered on the cable itself.
Telling the truth != bashing. Just because you don't like it, doesn't mean it's bashing. He has a point.
was found by using a pringles can!
wait, what?
oh sorry, i'm on the wrong forum frequency...
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
http://www.dennysantennaservice.com/index.html
This guy is good, he knows his stuff and will help you choose an antenna, sell it to you, help you get it working, and guarantee it to last. He will take anything back if you are unhappy... though I can't see how you could be.
Also, many apartments have local stations coming through the cable lines (I guess they connect the cable to an antenna when not connected to cable) you might just try it.
Sometimes the best solution is to stop wasting time looking for an easy solution.
Try running a speaker wire to a copper pipe or even just take a smaller gauge wire and run it completely around the room tacked up by the ceiling. The old runs of phone line work as well.
A lot of the comments have suggested doing something other than what the poster want's to do.
I highly, highly, recommend building this antenna: http://uhfhdtvantenna.blogspot.com/
It works unbelieveably well, though it's not compact or nice to look at. I guarantee you'll pull in stations.
I live 43 miles from my local TV repeater antennas. I bought a DB4 and mounted it on the roof of my house, used a compass to find the correct direction to point it (supported with cardinals from AntennaWeb as well).
My house is single story but on a hillside with a slight view over my neighbors roofs.My reception is perfect. I get 40+ channels with all the major channels in 1080i or 720p HD.
I bought a DigitalTerrestrial receiver from Samsung with HDMI output as my TV (Westinghouse 27in flat/HD) is HD capable but not HD ready.
When I tried it down lower on the wall behind reception was non-existent. I used my old DishNetwork armature to position and direct it (they didn't want to pay for shipping it back ;-) but still had to put it on my roof.
With the DB8 you should be able to get reception within 60-80 miles of your residence as long as you can get it high enough.
Ask your landlord if they allow antennas on the roof or just put it up there and string the cable down.... it's likely your only hope if your not getting reception from your apartment. No matter how good the antenna is it's not going to work behind a bunch of buildings (unless there's a good bounce signal)
Your only other hope is that there's a good bounce signal somewhere.... you'll just have to turn your antenna slowly and try to find it.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
I have a $20 45bD plain jane antenna. Turn no signal into crystal clear signal. Just make sure it has a loop on it. The rabbit ears don't seem to do anything.
I find being offended by me offensive.
I heard these little things do wonders for OTA content.. Great reviews on them too (antenna reception ones are a bit hit and miss).. :
http://www.buy.com/prod/motorola-cable-signal-booster-for-tv-cable-modem-digital-radio/q/loc/101/10412402.html
http://www.amazon.com/Motorola-484095-001-00-Signal-Booster/dp/B000066E6Y
Digital TV "just works" until it doesn't, and then it can be difficult to determine why it broke. The signal strength indication from your tuner does not tell the entire story. The signal could be too strong or too weak. The signal might be reflecting from buildings or other objects, so the best antenna orientation might be different from the Antennaweb prediction. Furthermore, multipath might be what's killing the reception.
A picture is worth 2K bytes, so try a visual method for optimizing the antenna placement and orientation. I didn't catch whether you were trying to receive analog NTSC or digital ATSC. Even if your preferred signal is ATSC, try connecting an NTSC receiver to your antenna and moving the antenna around for best reception of NTSC signals from transmitters that are on the same band (vhf vs. uhf) and are colocated with the ATSC transmitters you're trying to pick up. In the analog world, multipath is readily visible as ghost images. The ghosts are caused by the signal arriving at your antenna via several paths with different lengths, hence different time delays. "Best reception" means strong-enough signal with least ghosting. Once you get a decent analog signal, reconnect the digital tuner and try again.
On the ground floor you might be out of luck in any event because the path changes constantly with the movement of vehicles and pedestrians; this is one reason why cable has been successful in cities, where signal strength is not always an issue.
If you're in an older building, there may be an MATV connection (Master Antenna TV; rooftop antenna with distribution to all apartments) coming out of the wall; try it. It would probably be an F connector like the cable companies use, but the signal would be the frequencies and modulation (8VSB, not QAM) of over-the-air TV channels. But don't be too disappointed if the MATV system doesn't work; many have fallen into disrepair.
I've gotten good results with a 4-bay UHF bowtie antenna (intended for outside mounting) hung inside a window. But YMMV, so the easiest solution for you might be Basic Cable.
I've had really good luck with the Phillips (formerly Zenith) log periodic antenna. You can usually pick one up online for less than 20 dollars. Link: http://www.amazon.com/Philips-PHDTV1-Silver-Digital-Antenna/dp/B0007XDI54 I'm in a wooded, hilly area about 15 air miles from the transmitter nest, but this antenna provided a huge boost in the number of stations I was able to pick up reliably. Ultimately, though, the biggest factor in reception is the sensitivity of your receiver.
The antennaweb.org thing you had up seemed more like it was pushing particular products rather than being all that helpful info wise. Not to mention it seems to request too much info before it gives any information back out of it. Meh...
I'd suggest joining the Audio/Video Science forums at avsforum.com. Some of the TV-geeks that hang out there really know their stuff, and should be able to point you in the right direction.
Also if you don't mind subjecting your guests to more unusual and random viewing material and you have broadband internet, VideoLAN can find shoutcast video feeds via its playlist manager. (Some are nice finds with full-res movies or anime, if that's your thing. Other "video" streams are pretty much a stupid waste though, with a still image, they'd be better if they were audio-only.)
Try checking with a lawyer, your apartment complex's prohibition on mounting external antennas may violate FCC regulations.
The apartments may be able to prohibit you from affixing an antenna to the wall or roof but they should allow you to mount it in a bucket filled with concrete. The problem may be finding a place that faces south.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I haven't been able to get a completely straight answer to this, but... I believe the following three facts to be true:
a) Most "HDTV" antennas sold today are UHF-only.
b) All digital TV being broadcast today is being broadcast on UHF.
c) Come February 2009, when analog stations stop broadcasting on VHF, SOME stations that are currently broadcasting a digital signal in the UHF band will CHANGE THEIR FREQUENCY ALLOCATION TO VHF.
According to AntennaWeb, one example of this is WHDH-TV, "Channel 7", the Boston NBC affiliate and a major, popular station.
So, if I'm correct, some people who think they're up and running and all ready for February will be very surprised to see some DIGITAL stations they're CURRENTLY receiving go black in 2009, when the station shifts to a frequency their antenna isn't built for.
if I'm correct, this is going to be a major headache for the few who have bothered to prepare for digital, and one for which there is no publicity at all.
The reason I keep saying if I'm correct is that the salesman at You-Do-It, a great Boston-area electronics store that has a huge selection of antennas and antenna-related paraphernalia says I'm wrong, wrong, wrong. I hope he's right and I'm wrong.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Check out this video and see if you can live with an ugly antennae somewhere next to your TV. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWQhlmJTMzw I live about 20 miles east of Manhattan on the first floor of a house surrounded by tall trees. Spent about 2 hours putting this together and I now I get about 30 channels compare to the 8 or 9 from the rabbit ear. It cost me $6 to get that Y-shaped dongle thingy from the Rad Shack. The rest was found in and around my house. One big problem is that it's ugly as hell. However, depending on your location and proximity to other interfering objects you might be able to hide it behind the TV... Good luck! -w
Confucius say "Man who spend so much on rickety video contraption understandably pay rent, not mortgage."
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
Linux Hardware Accell:
XvMC - Linux equivalent of DxVA, MPEG2 offload to GPU. Works for some, but is troublesome for many. Setup, smooth output, and reliability are questions. Supported by NVidia. Intel has always had minimal support (MC offload) but recently has been working on a full XvMC implementation (which I haven't used yet, so can't comment on the quality).
VAAPI - Intel led project to produce a better video acceleration API. Addresses MPEG4/H.264 as well as MPEG2, and allows for more flexibility in offloading more to the GPU. Has been in progress for 1 year+. No apps that I know of have implemented VAAPI support (the Myth developers seemed fairly hostile to the concept). Intel integrated GPUs can/do support this.
GLSL / GPU computing offload - There is a lot of talk about using GLSL or similar model for offloading the video decoding compute load to the GPU. But, as far as I know, there are no open source implementations. This could allow very broad/flexible implementations, requiring only OpenGL 2.0. Older GPUs, and many embedded GPUs, would not be able to support this.
Other options?
- MyHD ATSC/QAM receiver with hardware decoder. A project to write a driver was started, but never reached a usable level.
- MPEG2/4/H.264 offload cards. Some exist and have Linux drivers, but either the driver or the actual card is hard to get as an end user.
There is always software decoding. Recent CPUs can easily handle MPEG2 HD decoding. But, it still takes a large percentage of system resources, and can be subject to poor playback from other things running on the system.
You can do this pretty cheap if you need to. Here is my setup. ATX computer case and power supply - I have a spendy lian li but that only gets you style points and little functionality gain over any other case. Gforce 7600gs - This is a relatively cheap card that will be able to decode 1080p hd content if you need it to. AMD X2 3800+ - Two cores is nice here so that you can run more than one cpu intensive process without getting choppiness while watching TV. I have 4GB of memory in the machine. I would recommend at least 2GB because optimally you want any HD content to be well buffered into memory. Swapping to disk will destroy your experience. A motherboard that does what you need it to do. You can get the cheapest motherboard possible and it should meet your needs. AV-710 sound card. This card will cost around 20 US dollars and it sounds just as good as an expensive creative card. It has 7.1 analog jacks and an SPDIF Optical out (if you have a receiver). HD-5500 HD tuner card - works out of the box. The only negative to this card is that the IR receiver that comes with it is somewhat of a hack to get working. I have it working if anyone has questions about that. 80GB hard drive or larger to allow for those really large HD tv feeds. A 1hr program takes up about 7GB space. mice, keyboards, displays are all things that don't really matter in the scheme of things. Mythbuntu linux works out of the box for me. I consider myself a Unix expert but I would trust my father to be able to install Mythbuntu, and all he knows how to do on a computer is turn it on and get to Solitaire. :-)
Finally HE/C ACC TERK | HDTVS HDTV ANTENNA is the antenna I use.
Parts list:
HE/C ACC TERK | HDTVS HDTV ANTENNA $89.99
DVD_BURN NEC|7170A-01 $31.99
SND CARD CHAINTECH|CT-AV710 7.1 $21.99
Gigabyte 7600GS $85.07
CPU AMD|A64 X2 3800+ 65W AM2 $66.75
ABIT AN52 NFORCE520 AM2 $69.99
MEM 1Gx4|CORSAIR $129.98
PSU KINGWIN|ABT-350MM 350W $23.99
80GB Sata 2 hard drive ~$45
Mythbuntu http://mythbuntu.org/ $(cost of internet service+time involved with downloading it)
These prices are pretty old. I'd guess that the same computer today could be put together for a few hundred less.
There is or can be built a machine that can simulate any physical object. -Church-Turing principle
Where do you live? I had a 6mo special of cable internet and expanded basic cable for I think $60 + tax. After that expired and I canceled tv, my slowest offered cable internet is $45 + tax.
Here is a good website that I used to build an antenna one afternoon: http://uhfhdtvantenna.blogspot.com/ I currently live in Palm Bay, about an hour away from Orlando on the East Coast of Florida. If I point this antenna toward Orlando, I'm getting around 25 channels that come in solid using a Tivo HD. We love it and it only costs $13 a month for the Tivo service.
Comcast provides me with local ATSC digital channel over the cable line which I otherwise use exclusively for my cable modem. Since I don't pay for television service there is a filter on the line for the analog channels, but the local ATSC comes in crystal clear. (no digital cable box required).
This probably varies provider to provider and possibly region to region.
What's your ZIP code? Plug you ZIP code into TVFool.com and then post us a link to the map.
I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
Is the AV Science Forum. I gathered a lot of valuable information on that site while I was building my home theater earlier this year.
I suggest visiting antennaweb.org and determining what kind of antenna you really need.
I ran a Myth box for a couple of years on Linux, and even ran a couple of linux-specific PC-HDTV 5500 cards with that rig, with a Silver Sensor antenna. My HDTV reception was mediocre at best, but the worst part was MythTV itself.
Aside from the fact that the program guide is now a pay service, Myth itself is rather annoying. It's very well developed in some areas, and not so much in other areas. And asking for help from the dev team on getting the god damned thing working right is an exercise in elitist intolerance, because their first response is "fix it yourself". Way to gain marketshare, you jackasses.
About six months ago I said screw this, formatted the machine, put Windows XP sp2 on it, and installed BeyondTV. The program guide is pay once ($60 for the license which will last as long as BeyondTV does) and the software is *extremely* stable in WindowsXP. The machine never needs to be restarted, makes for a fine browser/gaming rig for my projector as well, and has generally behaved like a champ. The PCHDTV cards even have Windows drivers for them.
If you're looking for decent reception of OTA HDTV - I strongly suggest the Philips Silver Sensor antenna. I've even stuck them outside on top of a window AC unit and gotten halfway decent reception of at least a few channels, and I live in a valley.
A lot of advice on radio propagation is location dependent. Propagation is vastly different between plains and hilly areas. This matters more than the type of antenna/mount.
Go with the Terk Technology HDTVi. It`s the best indoor antenna available (do a google search).
You should be able to find it for under $40 including shipping.
Here in Montreal I have 0 channels show up on my TV receiver but with the antenna I get both Montreal based OTA channels crystal clear. In most USA cities you should have more than 2 broadcasting. They look better than the compressed crap HD my neighbour gets via cable.
Sorry, I didn't see this to respond immediately, but if you get signal drop outs, where it is high and then low all of a sudden and your picture breaks up, it is most likely due to multipath. The DB8 and other bay style antennas are not very directional, so they get signals bouncing off of other things. You probably would be better off going with a "silver sensor" (google for it) or another Yagi style antenna. The silver sensor can work indoors, the yagi is probably something you want to mount outside.
Amplifying the signal will not help if you are suffering from multipath, it might actually make it worse! You didn't say how far away you are, but I have a yagi antenna on my roof and pick up some stations that are 30+ miles away without an amplifier, so I don't think you should go that route unless you are seeing a consistent, weak signal (not spiking up and down). Anyway, that's my 2 cents. Good luck!
I Heart Sorting Networks
I'm on the second floor of a three story apartment, facing another 3-story about 50 feet away, in the direction of my signals. I bought about 10 different antennas and here's my rundown of how to get a signal:
1) Get a bunny ear/UHF loop antenna, with seperate UHF and VHF variable amplifiers. Mine is RCA from wally world.
2) put your antenna near a window facing the direction of your signals.
3)Turn both amps all the way up, and play with the antenna, using a signal meter on your PC to hit a sweet spot. Mine is very small and took me a lot of time to find, but there WILL be a spot where multipath cancels out, you get a good signal reflection etc.
4) Adjust the bunny ears to be very small. This will tune them away from VHF. Then adjust the loop, all the while checking your signal meter.
5) Turn the VHF amp all the way down. VHF is just causing you trouble and interfering with your signal.
6) If you still can't get a good signal, your tuner sucks; when I bought a new TV, it came with a built-in tuner that got me 10 more DTV channels!
Since ATSC is digital and heavily compressed, reception problems will generally not menifest in some subte discoloration, but instead at least 8x8 pixel blocks of completely wrong colors or parts of an image being drawn at the wrong place. If your color is persistently off by just a little, it's more likely a connection or A/D or D/A conversion problem.
If you're using HDMI out to DVI in (or vice versa), it might be a problem with the color space(s). Computers use 0-255 for full black to full white, while video has "below black" and "above white", and uses only 16-235 for the "regular" signal.
I've been running a pchdtv card set (2000 and 5500) for years. Mythtv box. I lived 36 miles away from the transmitter in an apartment for a lot of them. I was able to get good results in the end, but after a lot of experimenting with different antennas.
What worked for me was getting a Terk HDTV-A. Its a pretty small antenna and I was able to use an omnidirectional surround-sound speaker mount screwed to the wall and the base of the antenna to point it properly and hold it up. I mounted it to the wall kind of up at the top of the window and pointed it out through the glass. Make sure that you don't have a metal screen pushed up to the top (signals don't like to go through metal screens), and make sure you use a compass to set the proper angle from antennaweb.
But not much will make it work if you don't have line of sight out a window towards the tower someplace in your house.
Good luck.
Just because Linux can be the best tool for a job doesn't mean it always is. If you can setup a windows MCE box in 2 hours, and it would take 10 hours to setup and tweak a linux box to do the same thing, then Linux might not be the better choice. You can make all the claims you want about it being able to do the same things as windows (not entirely true though), and it being free, but you've managed to completely dismiss the time element.
Additionally, a Windows MCE box (at the moment) has advantages over a myth box. For one, you don't need to pay to get listings. Those are automatic. Additionally, if you want to view Netflix on demand movies, you can install plugins on a Windows MCE box to let you browse and watch them from your TV. Also, as the parent said, the video codecs for playing back h.264 video on windows are better than those available on Linux (to the extent that many machines can watch HD h.264 video in Windows but not under Linux). Not all of these problems are insurmountable, and they may be fixed in the future. However, many people want their machine to do what they want RIGHT NOW, and not have to wait months or years to get things up to speed.
Both windows and linux have their strengths and weaknesses. For many tasks linux is better, and for some windows is. If I want a fileserver, webserver, router, etc, I'm going to use Linux. However, if I want to set up a media center box, I've found windows (gasp) Vista MCE to do the job perfectly fine. The interface is decent (not perfect, and not as customizable as myth apparently), it plays back the media I want (although I did have to install a few plugins to get everything I wanted), and for the most part, I don't have to actually use the keyboard/mouse. I can do most everything I need to do using the remote that comes with it.
Phil
1) You have to use REALLY GOOD feedline from the antenna. This is an outdoor job, so I imagine it's a bit of a distance from the receiver to the feed point of the antenna. Use RG-6 for this. Find some quad-shielded coax with good weatherproof connectors.
2) This antenna has no preamp. Placing a preamp at the feed point (very important to be at the antenna-side of the coax) will work wonders. you can get an amp with a power injector pretty cheap
I found my FM antenna works better than either set of rabbit ears to get a signal inside. Brick and plaster and metal cabinets, oh my... :(
Sounds like you have a decent antenna tho. May be stuck with cable.
Can you elaborate a bit on "terrible" results? Does your vendor include tools to measure signal strength and signal to noise ratio? Do you have poor signal strength, lots of noise? Do you have widly varying strength?
If you have a poor signal and/or lots of noise, you should first try adjusting your antenna. Walk all around the apartment, trying every location you can. Check all the connections between the antenna and the tuner. If that doesn't help, get an amplifier and install it as close to the antenna as possible (eg, amplify signal and not noise).
If you have a wildly fluctuating signal, that is a sign of multipath, which is a fancy way of saying the signal is bouncing off things and you're seeing 2 copies of it. In the analog days, multipath resulted in "ghosting". Again, adjusting your antenna may help. You have a highly directional antenna, which helps with multipath rejection. Some ATSC demodulators are better than others when it comes to multipath rejection. I've never used an HVR 1800 and I don't know how its Samsung demod works, but I can say that my cards using LG demods are much better than my cards using NXT demods. You might want to try a card with an different type of demodulator (like an LGDT3303 used on older Dvico fusion cards). I believe the HD Homerun also uses a good demod, and has the advantage of being outside your computer case, which may reduce RF noise.
Last, you might want to consider getting just basic cable and using QAM tuning. Check your local AVS forums thread to see what, if any, QAM channels are available in your area. You can also check the www.silicondust.com/hdhomerun/channels resource. However, I know that Windows has had ... issues ... with that. I'm not sure what the current state of VMC with respect to QAM is (I use linux). However, I know that QAM can be made to work using Vista with SageTV running on top of it using HD Homerun tuner.
Good luck!
I've tried the coat hanger antenna off of You Tube. Previously I had a amplified set of rabbit ears and I got about 20-30% signal strength. With the coat hanger antenna I jumped to over 80%. I spent $18 and 1.5 hours on it.
As per why it took 1.5 hours, my drill died (and I'm cheap) so I screwed in the screws the old fashioned way. If you have money or a powered screwdriver/drill, expect .5 to 1 hours of work.
if you are in Canada go to www.digitalhome.ca/forums to the OTA Forum Knowledge Base & FAQ to get started:
http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=41102
I deny that I have not avoided attaining the opposite of that which I do not want.
Your comments are completely untrue. Canada has plenty of its own OTA HDTV programming available in Montreal, Ottawa, Quebec City, Toronto, and Vancouver, with U.S. stations beaming in quite strongly in most of those same cities as well as Windsor/Sarnia and Sault Ste Marie. You probably aren't in one of those areas. Canada's digital OTA cutover is in August of 2011.
I deny that I have not avoided attaining the opposite of that which I do not want.
Well I have read a lot of the replies and here's my take.
I have a BIG Terk HD amplified sumbitch in my attic. Looks like a photon torpedo, I kid you not. It gets good reception, but not great. It's rated for signals at 50-60 miles distance. My local towers are 25-30 at most. So, I have cable with an HD DVR. Overall, the Terk is an okay unit that I now use for FM reception and backup if the cable goes blooie.
On the other hand, I have a rent house 4 miles east of my house (local towers are north, so this house is no closer than mine) and I'm using an OLD Radio Shack VHF/UHF mast antenna, also mounted in the attic. (Actually, it's laying on its side at a 45 degree angle to the east and 60 degrees to the north). I get all 26 local channels and subchannels with crystal clarity. Before finding the RS mast for FREE at a garage sale, I tried several indoor HD antennas from Best Buy, etc. NONE of them could pick up all of the stations and a couple couldn't get a signal at all.
So from my experience, a mast antenna, perhaps bolted to a bracket outside a window may be a good solution. Certainly I'm very underwhelmed with the "modern" rigs I've tried.
Good luck!
I am my own gestalt.
You are right. You can see the FCC channel assignment tables on their web site.
http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-08-72A2.pdf
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Fortunately I'm using my Asbestos keyboard today. Ahem: Vista is mana from heaven. Mac OSX stinks, Linux couldnt define usability. Flame on.
Remember, it's not paranoia if they really ARE out to get you...
Legally, your apartment complex MAY NOT prevent you from putting a "reasonable" size TV antenna up on the roof. You're allowed by law to do so. The law exists to prevent people from feeling "forced" to get cable instead of using OTA antenna.
http://www.fcc.gov/mb/facts/otard.html
Tell your apartment complex you'll buy the most reasonable antenna that does the job, and you'll also pay a qualified installer (unless they want to do it). If they say no, show them the law in the most kindest way possible.
Indoor antennas will never get you good results, especially at the bottom of a 3-story building.
If you can deal with some setup headaches, the HDHomerun (www.silicondust.com) is a good network device that takes both OTA HD channels and unencrypted QAM cable, digital and music channels. 2 Tuners so you can go one of each OTA/QAM or whatever. It streams the unpacked MPEG2 across the network using UDP to any computer. Works with Windows/Vista Media Center, Myth and others. The main issue during setup is dealing with channel mapping so that you get proper guide data. I don't know about the whole UHF/VHF thing someone else mentioned as I just deal with QAM.
http://blog.slaingod.com
Hey 'Bender, How far from the transmitters are you? I've had really good luck using a very simple homemade "log periodic" antenna. I'm in a first floor apartment in Burlington NJ. Transmitters are in Philly. There's a fair amount of ground clutter, although not the likes of say, NYC or some such. I'm only about 6 to 10 feet above sea level and the antenna is inside my apartment on a cheap musician's - type speaker stand. I went from about 8 digital channels & sub-channels with my "rabbit ears" (a dipole) to a solid 25 with the log periodic and it is not even really properly constructed! I simply took an ordinary outdoor tv roof antenna, a small one with 5 VHF elements and a small UHF reflector, removed the reflector and cut all the VHF elements waaaay back to about 6 1/2 inches in back and tapering down to about 2 1/2 inches in front. I did leave the grounded front "director" array as - is and did not even change the spacing of the VHF elements from their original positions! I did break the small plastic tabs that held the elements in a forward "swept" position and move them out to a right - angle position (90 Deg. off the center boom). The antenna is out of the way because the speaker stand lets me put it up very near the ceiling of the room. I've even used it for very low power UHF transmissions and as a scanner antenna. You should be able to build an even better version with wood and wire from Home Depot or some such. Classic antenna science implies this should not work, but it's working great for me! Good luck.
Many of the DTV reception problems are caused by multipath, not weak signals. This can be solved with a highly directional antenna and/or a more modern ATSC receiver. Resistance to multipath interference is much improved in many of the latest ATSC receiver designs.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
It depends.
A lot of stations are going to start using their current analog channel spectrum for DTV. This means that stations that now broadcast analog on a VHF channel and digital on a UHF channel will be VHF only after the switch.
UHF channels 52-69 are going black no matter what, that is the spectrum the FCC sold off. so some rearranging might need to occur.
This all depends on the station of course, they can choose to dump their VHF channel in favor of the UHF one.
Q.
You're right, except for point B, as there are already stations broadcasting digital in VHF. (WBRE and WYOU in Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, for example.)
But yeah, a lot of the stations currently on VHF analog will move their digital signals back to their old VHF channels after the switch. From what I understand, VHF transmission requires less power than UHF.
I was trying to mod you informative, but my mouse slipped. Now I have to post to undo my mod. Sorry!
Is he getting picture and sound but it cuts out frequently?
Does he get picture and sound but it cuts out when someone moves around the room?
Is he not getting any picture and sound?
Does the problem get worse when it rains or the wind blows?
Does the apartment actually face the transmitters?
How far away is he from the transmitters?
Is there trees or large buildings in the way?
Do you live in a valley or is a large hill between the apartment and the transmitter?
What kind of picture do you get with analog reception? Ghosting or multiple images?
Is the antenna pointing toward a busy road?
We need more information about what exactly is your problem before we can help you with your problem.
I'm not a Troll, it's reverse psychology.
> b) All digital TV being broadcast today is being broadcast on UHF.
Incorrect. Most is, but not all.
The DB8 is one of the better choices in UHF antennas.
Probably not much reason to try the very similar PR-8800 or 4228.
You might try the XG91 yagi.
If you need VHF-HI, try YA-1713 or Y10-7-13.
If the analog stations have a lot of snow, a preamp should help.
I'd try a Winegard or Channel Master. Avoid radio shack.
If the transmitters are nearby, it is possible you have too
much signal and the tuner is overloaded. Try a splitter
(with unused ports terminated) or an attenuator (about $2).
If the analogs have ghosts, that is multipath. Try moving the
antenna. The XG91 yagi might be better than the DB8 8-way,
or it might be worse. A good demodulator chip can compensate for
static multipath to some extent, so your digitals might be ok.
You want a 6th generation demodulator chip. I don't see the chip
listed on Hauppauge's web site.
Problems on analog other than snow and ghosts are usually
interference. Filtering out unused frequencies can help
(e.g. FM trap).
Digital suffers from the same problems as analog, but
you don't get the helpful clues like snow or ghosts.
} I suggest RG-59 (coax) as opposed to twisted pair.
I've never heard of twisted pair being used for an antenna
connection. Perhaps you mean twinlead. Twinlead has
slightly less loss than coax, but it has other problems
and coax is usually a better choice. You don't want RG-59,
you want RG-6, either quad shield or Belden's trishield.
RG-11 is better, if you are willing to deal with it.
If you need more help, there are experts at avsforum:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=381623
The Mac actually is an excellent platform for HDTV, certainly the fastest to setup (less than 10 minutes for me) and lowest maintenance. A third party product called Eye-TV handles scheduling, recording and playback all in one quite well (it can do simple edits too if you want to remove ads etc). I've used it with two tuners for the ability to record or watch more than one signal at a time. The "Hybrid" tuner plugs into a USB port and supports NTSC, ATSC, and clear-QAM (unencrypted cable) type signals. Setup is far simpler than any other option.
HDTV is pretty demanding, especially if you ever want to recompress shows for archiving. I find that typical hour 1080i HD shows are about 6.5 GB, dropping to about 4.5 minus ads, dropping to about 1 GB if scaled to 720p in MPEG4 or h.264.
Since fairly powerful hardware is needed, this really isn't a job for leftover PCs.
I'd suggest using at least a Core Duo CPU.
Older semi-fast hardware is very expensive to run from an energy standpoint, making it a poor choice for a PVR.
The Windows solutions can be functional enough too, but in that case avoid Vista since it apparently wouldn't allow recording some NBC shows when they tried turning on the broadcast flag last season.
Some swear by Linux / Myth-TV solutions, but be prepared to spend much more time getting that going.
I'd try to stick up an outdoor antenna if at all possible, or at least get one up as high as possible pointing out a window. The radio shack directional UHF antenna for around $25 works pretty well. Also, the gain and noise figure of their antenna preamp is pretty good although it was pricy (seems like $60 or so IIRC) The preamp should be as close to the antenna as possible. It's powered through the coax by an included supply that goes at the other end. Cable losses tend to be very high at UHF, and many tuners have a poor noise figure. When watching analog signals I found it helped quite a bit even when the cable length was only 20 feet or so.
Websites to get a rough ideal of antenna aiming are fine, but use signal strength indications for the finally positioning. If you're having a hard time finding signals, try aiming while watching analog first. Most stations will continue to use the same transmitter sites.
In many areas almost everything is going UHF. Some stations are temporarily doing DTV above channel 51, but those channels won't be for TV after the switch, so most of them are going back to whatever their analog channel was. Anything from 2-51 can be used (except for 37, that's for E.T.'s family phoning in). Because of smaller antennas being prefered, 14-51 are most popular, followed by 7-13, and 2-6 being last. There are actually big gaps in the frequencies between those groups of channels.
Although the lower channels tend to give the best range, they also require the largest antennas.
I covered this subject in my /. Journal almost a year ago.
HDTV Reception: Everything You Need to Know
http://slashdot.org/~evilviper/journal/184757
About the only thing noteworthy that has happened since then is the "open source" Gray-Hoverman antenna, if you want to opt to build your own antenna with very high gain. http://www.digitalhome.ca/ota/superantenna/index.htm
Although, at about 1.5m / 5' tall, you'll probably want to scale it down to get it to fit in a window.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
"Very very limited"
Clearly we're not dealing with someone who's actually installed Linux before.... next time, try something like a current version of Ubuntu -- on any major video card -- before you insert foot in mouth. The effects will blow your mind. The Ubuntu effects, that is. I'm not so sure the effects of the foot in mouth are all that terrific, but maybe you like it that way.
Mount a really long (say 100 meter) pole to your balcony so that it reaches above your building roof, and then put the antenna on that. The torque will be something fierce though...
I've been surprised to see the lack of talk about the fact that many people whom recently bought a uhf and have everything working will no longer get enough vhf reception when their uhf broadcast ceases next Feb. Then once they get another antenna to get vhf, they may find the tower is not where the prior uhf had been coming from, but rather from where the older analog broadcast was coming from, thus causing subsequent pointing problems in order to get all the channels. I hope all hell breaks loose b/c it angers me that the gov is distributing so much $$ to converter boxes and none to antennas- especially for next year after the channels stablize frequencies and locations. This part is total bs. We'll see come Feb 19th if the switches from uhf to vhf cover the areas well enough for all the so-called hdtv "uhf" antennas to get them.
You might try a digital to analog converter, especially if you get some picture with to much interference. If a neighbor has one you may be able to borrow it to try it out for free.