Comments on: HDTV OTA SOS

By: Amos the Poker Cat

Amos the Poker Cat — Wed, 01 Feb 2006 01:37:06 +0000

Yes, I understand the new HD Cable Card Tivo has got a bizillion connectors. Even more so that the guy in GT, I have no usable OTA tv signals,analog, or digital, no matter where I throw the antenna.

I was confused by the cryptic “… since getting locals with DirecTV-HD is a pain.” comment. That does not sound like OTA to me.

By: psu

psu — Wed, 01 Feb 2006 00:49:17 +0000

You get locals over the air with DirecTV… and their HD Tivo box supports recording the OTA signal.

By: Amos the Poker Cat

Amos the Poker Cat — Tue, 31 Jan 2006 23:54:15 +0000

Can you get locals in HD with DirecTV? Or is that SDTV locals via an DTV-HD receiver?

I thought the latest announcement at CES was that DirecTv was going to trash their current HD scheme, and move to MPEG-4. (Four next gen mpeg satelites to be launched in 2007 to support 1500 local and 150 national hd channels.) This means all current DirecTv stuff is trash.

Does Comcast support cablecard here yet? I want the dual cablecard HD Tivo shown at CES. Until then, nada. I will limp along in non-bling land of the hacked series 1 Sony DirecTivo.

By: psu

psu — Tue, 31 Jan 2006 03:41:56 +0000

I’m lucky. I’m on a hill. Might end up with Comcast anyway, since getting locals with DirecTV-HD is a pain.

By: Jeff Eaton

Jeff Eaton — Tue, 31 Jan 2006 03:05:01 +0000

Be glad you managed to get anything tune in.

In my house in Green Tree, the only way I could get anything at all to tune in was by using a directional antenna, and then I was only able to get a couple of stations without moving the antenna.

Of course, every time I moved the antenna, I had to rescan, which then made the tuner forget the stations it found before.

Oh, and then every time I tuned in WQED, the tuner crashed and I had to unplug it and start all over.

This is why I have lifeline cable service from Comcast. For ~$15/month, I get all of the local broadcast stations in both analog and HD, the music channels, and access to On Demand. I also get TNT-HD and ESPN-HD, even though I’m not supposed to according to anything I read. I’m not complaining.