HD Antenna Makes it Easy to Get Rid of Cable

Get Rid of Cable with an HD Antenna

One of the home theater questions I get asked most often is how to get rid of cable or satellite bills without losing TV entirely. I’ve highlighted how to stream content over the Internet to your TV or computer, but many readers balk at the idea of losing real-time network TV, particularly sports and local news. If you have an HDTV with a built-in digital tuner, an HD Antenna may be the secret to ditching your cable or satellite provider once and for all.

In most metropolitan areas of the country you can receive high-def broadcasts from ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox and PBS over the air, but the trick is getting your TV to receive them and translate them into viewable content. For that you need a TV with a built-in HD tuner (or an HDTV-ready TV and an external high-def tuner) and an HDTV antenna.

While signals broadcast over the air are digital, they aren’t all HD. What’s available in your area is decided by the individual broadcast stations. If you live in an area where over-the-air HD content is available, an HD antenna will convert the signal into content your HD-capable TV can process.


HDTV signals are “line of sight,” so mounting an antenna on your roof will usually result in the best reception due to less physical interference. However, before you climb up on the roof to install an outdoor antenna, it’s worth trying out an indoor antenna. If you happen to live close to a broadcast tower and don’t have too much interference (think walls, trees, surrounding buildings, etc…) an indoor antenna may get you a decent picture.

If you’ve determined that an indoor antenna isn’t going to cut it to get you a clear and reliable picture, you’ll have to decide if you want to install an outdoor HD antenna.

There are several different kinds of antenna. It’s important to ensure that you choose the one that will allow you to receive the channels you want. The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) and the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) have created a color-coded system in which they classify the available outdoor antenna types. Use AntennaWeb (www.antennaweb.org/) to find the best outdoor antenna for your location and “viewing preferences.” You may be surprised at the variety of channels broadcast over the air – from TBN to Telemundo.

For a detailed walk through on how-to install an outdoor HD Antenna, check out CNET’s “Weekend Project: Free HDTV with an outdoor antenna”: http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-11249_7-6264597-4.html

Note that there are several perks that are included with your cable or satellite subscription that you’ll no longer get automatically if you cancel. The channel guide is supplied by your cable or satellite provider. To see what’s coming on you can view a list of free local TV listings online at Titan TV (www.titantv.com/). With an Internet-capable TV, you may even be able to use the TV’s browser to scroll through channel listings on your big screen.

Most cable and satellite providers include DVR service with the cable or satellite box (though there’s often an additional monthly fee for it). You can purchase a standalone DVR such as the TiVo Premiere (https://www3.tivo.com/store/premiere.do, $149) which lets you record shows and stream content from Netflix, Hulu Plus, Amazon Instant Video and more, but you’ll have to pay a monthly service fee (starting at $14.99/month with a one year commitment). Make sure to confirm that the DVR model you select is compatible with an HD antenna before you buy.

Finally, access to premium channels like HBO, Showtime, or Stars is only available via a cable or satellite provider.

 

Companies Announce Streaming Television Options

Future of Television:  Pay-Per-View – Personalized Streaming Television

Since the advent of streaming video, consumers have been presented with a few options: either they can watch a limited number of shows for free on the internet, pay for video rentals of TV shows after they’ve aired, or pay for an expensive cable/satellite bill that includes the cost of hundreds of shows they’ve never watched nor will care to watch.

One of the lead telecom providers in the US plans to change that. The Wall Street Journal announced recently that Verizon is planning on offering a pay-per-view TV subscription service. The model would allow subscribers to only pay for the television shows that they actually watch, with more popular shows  being offered at a lower rate and more obscure shows costing a bit more. Currently the company is in talks with smaller media companies, according to the WSJ, as the content delivery program would require cooperation across a number of networks.


This sort of customization has only recently become available through the content delivery options that the evolving web has produced in recent years. The telecom giant has already started to merge its TV and internet services with its fiber optic, or FiOS network. Fiber optics allow for not only much more data to pass through to the consumer, but to do so at much faster speeds than traditional copper data lines. The FiOS service includes internet, telephone, and television access, and this combined approach would make it much easier for the company to implement a “metered” usage system such as the one announced.

A similar system is also being developed by Intel, but this project could threaten to “kill the cable industry as we know it,” according to Forbes. But that’s not inherently a bad thing. The service would run through the internet and only charge for the watched shows. In addition to this, it would act as a “Cloud DVR,” allowing users to watch any past TV show without having recorded it, as well as have control over the broadcast, such as pausing and rewinding live TV.

Intel made this decision after GoogleTV and AppleTV failed to spark interest in their microprocessors, judging that they would be able to revolutionize the industry by themselves. The program ships out to selected members this month, and will be tweaked and refined until it is available to all consumers.

Whether or not either of these technologies takes off, it is clear that the consumers have spoken; they want their TV when they want it and they don’t want to pay for anything but their content. The ball is now in the corporation’s court, and these few offerings are the signs of their return volleys. Stay tuned for the future of television!