HDTV

My wife and I finally broke down and bought an HDTV, a 42 Inch Dell Plasma. My plan was get a cable box with HDTV service so I could watch a few HDTV shows that happened to be on cable. I drove down to the cable company office to pick up the device only to find the office closed. Being excited and impatient, I decided to try out the TV by connecting an old UHF/VHF antenna in the attic to the digital antenna input.

Wow! I was surprised. Not only did the channels come in crystal clear, there were far more channels available over the free air waves than I ever imagined, and imagine is all I could do since I hadn't heard of but a handful of stations being available in HD. Needless to say, I passed on the rental of the cable box.

Lesson 1: No special antenna is needed. An old fashioned UHF/VHF antenna works great. There is no amplifier in my system. (Orange, CA)

Lesson 2: For each channel, there are subchannels. For example, channels are labeled 4-0, 4-1, 4-2, 4-3, 4-4, 4-5. One channel might be the non-HD version of channel 4 on regular TV. 4-1 might be the HD version of channel 4, and channel 4-2 might carry the weather. Sometimes, the subchannels are completely independent stations or at least appear to be independent.

Some of the public TV stations offer sub-channels with cartoons for the kids. These are a terrific alternative to the violent cartoons of the cable cartoon channels like Cartoon Network.

Lesson 3: Advertisers love HDTV. Products look great on HDTV. You can see every little detail. This can be a problem too as sometimes you see a little too much detail in the face of the person on TV. HDTV will be a boon to the cosmetic artists preparing all the television hosts for their shows.

There are two or three problems I noticed with HDTV. In low light conditions, the picture can take on a snowy condition similar to a personal video camera in low light. This probably occurs with regular TV too. It's just not as noticeable. It could also be an issue with plasma screens. If anyone knows, please post a comment.

The second problem I've noticed is that there seems to be difficulty synchronizing the voice and the picture. Again, I'm not sure whether this an issue of the TV or the programming. I suspect it's the programming because it seems to vary from day to day.

All in all, I am very pleased with HDTV free over the air waves. One day, we may go ahead and pickup an HDTV cable box, but we'll put it in the office with our LCD HD-Ready TV so we can get HDTV in there too.

Magobrillo