OTA TV Channels gotten better?

[GumbyJarvis]

So. I live in the Barracks. I don't have internet except for my Phone, and I don't have cable.

I can't justify being locked into Time Warner with no other options. (esp when the Barracks Internet and Cable plans are astronomical compared to the same plan off post through them when people have more than one option)

I had a Mohu lead antenna at one point. It got trashed because the only thing I could get in was LBS.

Anyway. Last night picked up a cheap HE Bunny ear style antenna.
Was 16$ at Wal-Mart. (Mohu antenna Was 60$)

I get about 10 crystal clear stations (Not including Spanish ones and PBS
ones)

Its been about 10 years since I've watched OTA television.

Boy has it improved. Crystal clear. No static. Occasional blocky picture slight adjustment and its back to crystal clear


I didn't realize digital from analog was such a big jump a few years ago.

Regardless, I find it crazy the "60 mile" MOHU antenna didn't do as well as this "30mi" GE one.


Shoulda known not to but the "MIL Spec MOHU leaf antenna"
Shoulda known to run away from anything "MIL Spec" because that means it ain't gonna work

Anyway. Back to ABC news.

ps. No hate for PBS. I love Bob Villa and Bob Ross. And NOVA is awesome to fall asleep to

 

[Alfred_B]

Yes, the quality of the transmission has improved vastly since we went digital. But the quality of the content has suffered greatly during the same time.

 

[Jimzz]

Yea more channels now and as you see great picture as well.

I put a large antenna in my attic and get 40+ channels here in NoVA. The higher you can get the antenna the better. Just get one of those cheap large 70's/80's type people use to put on the outside of their house.

 

[Hokiefyd]

The picture quality we get OTA, from our local CBS affiliate over 40 miles away, is far better than we ever got, with any channel, from Time Warner Cable. We've been completely satisfied with OTA over the last few years. We have a 2' by 3' square grid antenna in our attic; works great.

We cut cable in the spring of 2013 if I recall correctly.

 

[The_Jeff]

Getting rid of analog NTSC's fuzzy color really makes the picture look sharper. Even "standard def" looks great when digitally rendered with adequate compression.

 

[HerrStig]

The picture is better, the transmission range is lower, and the content is worse than ever.

 

[UNC017]

If you haven't watched TV in 10 years, then this is probably your first time seeing over-the-air HDTV, since the final changeover was in 2009 in the US.

Its a completely different technology than the old vestigial sideband analog TV and NTSC coding (we used to joke that it meant 'Never Twice the Same Color'). Broadcast TV today is far higher quality than basic cable, which is by and large still NTSC encoded analog.

I'm one of the ~1% of the population that has never had, and never WILL have cable television. More and more people now are "cutting the cord", but I never had it in the first place. With a good internet connection, services like Hulu, Netflix, iTunes, and Amazon let you pick the content you want without the junk, and a simple antenna lets you get local programming for news and any major network programming you happen to want.

 

[Yah-Tah-Hey]

Thank you for serving GJ and best wishes for a happy and safe holiday season.

 

[Ramblejam]

Originally Posted By: 440Magnum
Broadcast TV today is far higher quality than basic cable, which is by and large still NTSC encoded analog.


Theoretically, yes.

However, in practice though, you'll find some stations (that have two or three channels in addition to the main channel: 56-1, 56-2, 56-3) implementing horrible compression that really degrades things like baseball/football; all sorts of artifacts on the green field.

Our local FOX affiliate is guilty of this.

 

[UNC017]

Originally Posted By: Ramblejam
Originally Posted By: 440Magnum
Broadcast TV today is far higher quality than basic cable, which is by and large still NTSC encoded analog.


Theoretically, yes.

However, in practice though, you'll find some stations (that have two or three channels in addition to the main channel: 56-1, 56-2, 56-3) implementing horrible compression that really degrades things like baseball/football; all sorts of artifacts on the green field.

Our local FOX affiliate is guilty of this.



Right. Its like a bad Youtube video.

 

[hatt]

Originally Posted By: Ramblejam
Originally Posted By: 440Magnum
Broadcast TV today is far higher quality than basic cable, which is by and large still NTSC encoded analog.


Theoretically, yes.

However, in practice though, you'll find some stations (that have two or three channels in addition to the main channel: 56-1, 56-2, 56-3) implementing horrible compression that really degrades things like baseball/football; all sorts of artifacts on the green field.

Our local FOX affiliate is guilty of this.
Cable is compressing channels as much as they can too. They have to make room for the 300 channels you've never watched. I thought OTA HD stations looked better than digital cable. The 56-2, 56-3, etc are in much lower SD quality. I doubt they take up very much room.

 

[Ramblejam]

Originally Posted By: hatt
I thought OTA HD stations looked better than digital cable. The 56-2, 56-3, etc are in much lower SD quality. I doubt they take up very much room.


Our local FOX affiliate is the sole exception; all of the other channels look superb.

They're just doing something screwy...

 

[The_Jeff]

You get 15 mbits / sec to play with. 2-3 for the subchannels, the rest for the main one. The problem of course is the engineers show the maligned main channel to the suits. The suits see dollar signs, not compression artifacts, and the chaos reigns.