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Posted by Doug Jacobs on 06/01/07 23:16
Derek Janssen <ejanss@nospam.comcast.net> wrote:
> By way of Yahoo News, Audioholics published a For-Dummies guide column
> on where that over-air/cable HD programming is really coming from and
> whether you're getting it, for beginners:
> http://www.audioholics.com/news/industry-news/are-you-sure-youre-watching-hdtv.html
Good article. I especially liked the not-so-subtle bash against the HD
DVD formats...
> Nice basics--
> So, to spare me asking some underpaid Best Buy employee, and go straight
> for the niche geeks with my questions:
> I have neither the funding nor inclination to get satellite or digital
> cable (Netflix people don't *do* on-demand PPV), pretty much just want
> to invest in a large-screen for future post-'09 compatibility, use it
> chiefly as a monitor for whatever (coughbluafteroctober) hi-def disk
> player I end up buying the same year, and maybe tune in on whatever
> over-air HD programming wanders by...Oh, and small apartment, so it's
> only going to be 40" LCD, if that, tops.
Ok.
> --SO--
> Question: If I see a letterboxed PBS documentary with that fancy "This
> show is filmed in Hi-Def" intro, or I see Jay Leno or Conan O'Brien on a
> big cavernous widescreen studio on NBC--both over normal
> basic-cable--*and* I have a tuner-ready set kicked in, may I assume I'd
> be watching those as nature intended?
> (And that's assuming the cable connection is direct, and not through my
> old component-VCR.)
To watch HD, you have to be watching a HD channel. To my pleasant
surprise, my TV actually has built-in tuners to get unencrypted HD
channels through my plain old cable (CBS, FOX, etc.) On my TV, these
channels show up decimals. So, "2" is Fox, "2.1" is Fox in HD.
I'm not sure how it works for standard OTA antennas. We bought Grandma a
new TV for Christmas, and it also did HD, though Grandma only cares about
Oprah and her soaps. Her TV had separate inputs for HD and non-HD
antennas. I figure in '09 or so, we'll simply move the antenna connection
from the non-HD port to the HD one, and that should be it.
Also, be sure you know where your HD channels are being broadcast from.
For me, most of the HD channels are broadcast from San Francisco, even
though I live in Sunnyvale, about 45 miles SSE of there. I'd have to get
a pretty powerful, directional antenna - definitely not something that
would fit on top of the TV/entertainment unit, and definitely not
something I felt like spending that much money for.
If you have cable already, and your TV has a QAM tuner built into it (or
you can buy one separately), you may get the over-air HD channels your
cable provider carries without having to do anything more than simply
telling your TV to auto-program itself. (I believe this is a legal
requirement - not sure.)
--
It's not broken. It's...advanced.
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