As the price of cable service steadily increases and the finances of many remain a challenge, more and more people are trying to find ways to cut their budget. With people being so busy all the time, the clear choice seems to be the cable TV.
Most major cable companies are already posting losses due to people switching to satellite and other content providers, but what does one do if you want to cut ties to cable altogether? You don’t want to have to watch movies for the rest of your life, and over the air broadcast quality can’t be as good as cable right? Wrong.
Many people don’t realize that over the air broadcasts is actually better quality than cable because the cable signal must be severely compressed in order to be transmitted over the cable lines. When a program is transmitted over the air the bit rate is much higher and therefore gives high definition quality much closer to Blu-ray than cable HD.
The question still remains, how does one get these HD signals into the house without cable? Most people think that all they need is an antenna from Radio Shack or Best Buy and they are good to go. Actually to get the best and most HD channels there are a few things to keep in mind.
First, you need to go to a website called TVfool.com. The reason for this is that this sight has information that is crucial if you are to get a good digital signal. Simply enter your address and zip-code and this website will automatically show you all the over the air channels in your area.
Not only that but it will tell you which direction to point your antenna to get the best reception depending on the channel you want to view. Doing this will require the use of a compass. Tons of compasses can be found online as apps but the best compass to use in this situation would be a physical compass because they will generally be more accurate.
The site will also let you know what kind of antenna you need and where to place it in or on your place of residence in order to get the best viewing experience such as an indoor antenna, a rooftop antenna, or an attic antenna.
Second, understanding that the longer the distance between your TV and your antenna means the longer the cord is important for getting the best reception. The longer the cord that connects your antenna to your television the more degraded the signal. In the old days analog signals would fade over distance like the ripples in a pond when a stone is thrown in.
This caused channels to get snow as the signal got weaker. These days all major broadcast signals are digital. This means that you either have a signal or you don’t. It is like a light switch, it is either on or off no middle area. So if the cord connecting your antenna to you TV is too long, the signal will degrade to the point where it’s like you have no signal.
The longest distance you want to have is about 10 feet. If you cannot get it at 10 feet you will want to get a device called HD HomeRun. This box allows the user to connect a coaxial cable to it and broadcast the signal over WiFi. This allows any WiFi capable viewing device to receive the broadcast signal and display it in high definition.
Using this box means you can keep the distance short and get the signal broadcast over WiFi. If the cord you have is just long in and of itself, there are cable kits you can buy at Radio Shack that will allow you to trim the cord down to a good length.
Now that you have this information, you are ready to cut the cable cord and start getting over the air HD channels with not too much work. Knowing how to do this correctly can be the difference between getting one or two over the air channels in your area to getting all of the over the air broadcast channels right in the comfort of your living room. Enjoy!