OTA HD hook up questions

[Balestrom]

My father in law just realized that just by having an HD TV set doesn't mean that you get HD. He has two TV sets that he thought were giving him and HD picture. One is HD Ready and the other is HD built in.

I am going to work with him, but I am an HD dummy who is waiting for DTV to provide my locals in HD before I convert.

Question one-
Antenna hook up. If he goes out and gets an antenna for his HD built in TV, does he need some kinda of cable connector? His HD in source is HDMI but the antenna's I have seen only have a coax cable connector. Will coax provide him with the HD signal from ota or does he need some kind of connector?

Question two-
Is he out of luck with his hd ready tv? Or is there some kind of box he can get to do all the magic without upgrading his local cable programming to HD?

Question three-
This one is for me. :D As I mentioned, I am waiting for DTV to have my local channels in HD. This is because I also have an HD ready TV. My question is, will the HR 20 for DTV do the magic for me if I connect an attenna to the HR20. Thus avoiding the wait for DTV to bring me my locals in HD. In other words if I upgrade to Hi Def with DTV, and hook my antenna to the HR20 will my HD ready tv get a Hi Def signal for my locals or do I have to wait for DTV to actually provide me with an HD local signal.

Thanks!

[harsh]

Antenna hook up. If he goes out and gets an antenna for his HD built in TV, does he need some kinda of cable connector?This can be problematic if he already has cable. If he has cable, he will need a TV that has a "Cable Ready" tuner or he will need to pop for a digital cable box. It is difficult, if not impossible, to add an OTA signal to cable unless your TV is specifically set up for it.Is he out of luck with his hd ready tv? Or is there some kind of box he can get to do all the magic without upgrading his local cable programming to HD?This will require a digital cable box.My question is, will the HR 20 for DTV do the magic for me if I connect an attenna to the HR20.It should. I say should because there are some known problems with the HR20's OTA setup that may (or may not) prevent you from getting all of your DTV (Digital TeleVision) locals.

For future reference, D* is used to represent DirecTV and DTV is the accepted abbreviation for Digital Television (ATSC broadcast).

[Cholly]

Question one-
Antenna hook up. If he goes out and gets an antenna for his HD built in TV, does he need some kinda of cable connector? His HD in source is HDMI but the antenna's I have seen only have a coax cable connector. Will coax provide him with the HD signal from ota or does he need some kind of connector?

Question two-
Is he out of luck with his hd ready tv? Or is there some kind of box he can get to do all the magic without upgrading his local cable programming to HD?

Thanks!

Let me go a little further in explaining the options.

1. The HDMI input is for use with an HD DVR or other HD device. He would connect his antenna to the antenna input on his HD built in TV. Now, if the TV does not have two antenna/cable inputs, then he has to either get a coax A/B selector switch or get an HD box (either a HD cable converter or an HD DVR) from his cable company and subscribe to their HD service, connecting the HDMI output of the cable box to the HDMI input on the TV. If he desired, he could then use an antenna for his local channels, which could improve the picture quality for those channels.

2. He could purchase an HD tuner for the HD ready TV and hook it up to an antenna. He'd then be able to get his local stations in HD, but not any of the cable networks. Once again, he would connect the HD ouput of the converter box (either HDMI or component video) to the corresponding input on his TV. He would continue to use the antenna input on that TV for his analog cable programming.

Note that in both the above instances, he will not be able to get any of the digital channels from the cable company without one of their set top converters, whether HD or basic digital.

3. Harsh is absolutely correct.

[Balestrom]

I apoligize for the DTV vs D* thing, I will make a note.

Both of you, thanks for the information! This really helps me with my father in law's situation.

A couple of follow ups if a may for my HD ready tv. Currently, my tv signal via a decent set of rabbit ears is not the best. But this is for the non HD signal.

1) This may sound stupid, but if I were to get an HR 20, how will it know to pull the HD signal? Or is what I am seeing when I go to rabbit ears now HD already and its just not being converted yet? I believe all my locals feed their signals through the same channel, ie channel 9 for both HD and non HD. Is that possible?

2) As I stated, my signal strength is currently not the best. When i hook it through my R15 it gets worse. Fortunately, my TV has muliple inputs so I hook my antenna to the additional input. Will the HR20 potentially give me the same problems (is that what you were referring to above) and does an HD signal come in any clearer then the original non hd signal?

I hope these questions are not overly ignorant.

Thanks!

[harsh]

This may sound stupid, but if I were to get an HR 20, how will it know to pull the HD signal?You go through a process at installation that will tell the HR20 everything it needs to know.Will the HR20 potentially give me the same problems (is that what you were referring to above) and does an HD signal come in any clearer then the original non hd signal?Because the DTV signal is on a different frequency than the non-digital signal, the quality of the non-digital signal is not a valid indicator. It is possible that you're getting "enough" signal for a great picture. There's really no way of predicting.

I can say with some confidence that if a digital (ATSC) tuner in a television is having trouble, the HR20 will also have trouble.

Another admonition: Don't use HDTV and DTV interchangeably. DTV may be either High Definition (HD) or Standard Definition (SD). It is better to refer to the old fashioned TV signals as "analog" (or maybe NTSC) and the newfangled TV signals as "digital" (ATSC).

[Coolbrz]

When I bought an HDTV about 8 months ago I also purchased a mid-priced amplified HDTV antenna. I was able to pick up two local HD channels but the signal was not strong enough to keep them locked in so I gave up on the antenna and only used the digital non-HD cable box.

Since I am considering canning cable and using a rooftop antenna (probably the amplified Lacrosse for looks and its positive reviews) I split the RG6 coax coming in the house with one line to the cable box and the other directly to the TV via a DVD recorder. What I found besides picking up the cable channels which I expected with the TV's built in analog tuner, I pulled in both local HD channels with very solid reception with the TV's HD tuner. I am assuming the RG6 coax is acting as an antenna since the HD signal is not coming through my cable subscription.

I am not an engineer but an antenna is designed to pick up specific frequencies including frequencies that carry the HD signal. It is up to the TV's tuner, either analog or HD to process the signal for the TV to display. An HD tuner converts the RF signal into a digital input.

Antennas are advertised as HD so you know they will pick up the correct frequencies.

Your father-in-law's HD ready TV was built without an HD tuner (a monitor), and was designed for HDTV sources, satellite, cable, HD DVD, Blue Ray etc. Early HDTV's were built that way to keep costs down.

Note: if the HD ready TV has a coax input it most likely has an analog tuner and can pick up local stations with an antenna.

[Mardi Gras]

Antennas are advertised as HD so you know they will pick up the correct frequencies.


Sadly, antennas are advertised as HD because that helps sell antennas. Digital TV (all HD is digital, but not all digital is HD) requires a UHF or VHF antenna, depending on the frequencies to be received - but not an "HD" antenna. It is a pure marketing description, not a technical one.

[Jim5506]

Doesn't HD READY mean that the set HAS an ATSC tuner? HD Capable means it needs an ATSC tuner.

[Coolbrz]

HD Ready is the term used to say the TV is "capable" of displaying an HD picture but needs an outside HD source, no built-in HD tuner.

I agree that antennas are advertised as HD to sell. After working in the home theatre department of a big box retailer I found that the average consumer who visited was pretty clueless to HD technology. I was too until I started working there and began reading up. Having HD on the antenna box kinda helped them make a decision.