Aside from choosing your HDTV set itself, choosing
the right HDTV antenna is the most important decision you're going to
make in relation to watching HDTV.
Even
if you watch most of your HDTV on cable or satellite, you should still
invest in a good antenna. Why? Well, there are two key reasons.
- Cable
and satellite operators don't distribute all the available free-to-air
HDTV channels. In particular, many local free HDTV channels aren't
carried on cable or satellite. So to watch these, you'll need an HDTV
antenna.
- Even
where cable and satellite channels do carry free-to-air HDTV channels,
they are often highly compressed and this can have a noticeably
detrimental effect on picture quality. In most cases, the picture
quality of an off-air HDTV signal will be better than a cable or
satellite equivalent.
So,
now that you know why you should get an HDTV antenna, the next,
obvious, question is which one should you get? There are two types of
antenna – indoor and outdoor – just like conventional TV. As with
conventional TV, you should always, if possible, opt for an outdoor
HDTV antenna. They are simply much better at picking up signals.
However, in cases where this isn't possible, for example, if you live
in an apartment block or have a landlord who won't let you stick
anything on the roof, an indoor antenna will do a reasonable job.
HDTV
signals are different from analog TV signals in that, because they're
digital, you either get them or you don't. There's no middle-ground of
ghosting pictures or snowy screens.
If
you're fortunate enough to be able to install an antenna on your roof,
you then need to decide which one. Unfortunately, there's no hard and
fast rule or quick answer to that one. It depends on where you live,
the distance you are from the nearest transmitter and the frequency of
the channels you want to receive.
Help is at hand however, in the form of the Consumer Electronics Association and its http://www.antennaweb.org
website. Its mapping system allows you to plug in your address and
details of your property, such as the number of storeys, and whether
there are any likely obstructions like electricity pylons nearby, and
based on that gives you details of which HDTV antenna best suits your
needs.
With
that information at hand, all that's left is to buy the antenna in
question, install it and start enjoying all those HDTV stations you
never knew existed.
About The Author
Kenny Hemphill is the editor and publisher of The HDTV Tuner. Visit him at the-hdtv-tuner.com
and discover why HDTV is the most exciting thing to happen to
television since the advent of color TV. Better still, keep up to date
with the latest developments in HDTV and high definition DVD by
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