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HELP: Upgrading to HDTV (1 Viewer)

RaymondS

Auditioning
Joined
Mar 8, 2001
Messages
2
First off, let me say thanks for making this such a great site! A friend of mine rescued me from AR and showed me this site about a month ago. I feel like I have learned more in my one month of following this site than in the past few years on AR.
Now for my dilemna...I will soon be graduating from college in Maine and moving to work in the Cincinnati area. Along with this newfound employment will come paychecks, which lead to HT upgrades. My soon to be wife is actually pretty approving of my HT endeavors, but everything major needs to meet her approval :) Our living room will be approx. 14' x 16', which is about the size of my entire dorm room now!
I think I will upgrade from my trusty 27" Sony to the HD ready Mitsu 46807 and a yet to be determined HD receiver. Where my question comes in is on how to get the most HD programming possible while keeping the wife happy. I have gotten approval for DirecTV's Total Choice Package, but this doesn't give me the HD HBO (couldn't sell the extra $18/mo.) so while the digital signal will be nice, still no HD. Does anyone know if it's possible to add this HBO channel for a nominal monthly fee? Also, there is an option to get local stations via DirecTV (ABC/NBC/CBS/Fox/PBS). Is this stuff HD? I know that you can receive HD programming from these networks OTA, but how about via DirecTV? Putting an antenna on the roof isn't an option because I will be living in an apartment complex.
Sorry for being so long winded! I know these are the kinds of dumb questions people hate to answer, but thanks for any help/advice offered!
 

Michael St. Clair

Senior HTF Member
Joined
May 3, 1999
Messages
6,001
Raymond,
I'm in Cincinnati. I'm not hd-enabled yet, but as I will be soon I have been keeping up on the scene here. I have verified local HD reception on other peoples sets.
CBS, ABC, and Fox are all HD here (though, as you may know, Fox pretty much just shows 480p but sometimes widescreen). NBC is digital but not showing HD. Depending on where you live, rabbit ears may work, but most people are needing a rooftop antenna (too many hills).
We are one of 5 cities with multicasted NCAA tournement basketball games, so HD enabled folks have been able to chose betweeen 3 different games this weekend.
You will not get HD locals from a satellite.
Warner Cable has run an 'HDTV soon' blurb on some of their local TV commercials for Digital Cable (which we've had for a year and a half or so). This is after a year of silence and denial. Presumably they will have the locals plus HBO, maybe Showtime.
DirecTV gets you HD HBO and HD PPV, Dishnetwork also adds HD Showtime which shows more movies in the correct aspect ratio.
 

Neal_C

Second Unit
Joined
Mar 15, 2001
Messages
476
Let me first say that I hightly recommend the 46807, I have one myself and love it.
I don't have any good words to say about Dish Network, so I just won't say anything. They lost my business before I even signed up for programming.
I am now going to go with Directv and am getting the Total Choice Platinum package..thats pretty much every channel I could want to watch, including HBO in HD. I haven't seen HD on this set yet, but even my interlaced DVD player does quite a nice job. I know HD will knock my socks off. Directv seems to have a much higher upfront cost, but only if you are not getting HD.
I just ordered the Hughes E86 Titan HD Receiver for 699. This included the 18x24 eliptical dish and free component, optical,s-video and rca cables. I picked up an extra receiver from a local place, the Hughes E11, for 60 bucks..it was open box item, but carries same warranty and return policy. So for 760 bucks, i'm ready to go in HD.
As for Dish Network, you can find package deals online for their HD setup, which includes the 6000 receiver, dish 500 and 300 dishes and maybe even an extra receiver, for somewhere around 400-450 bucks. But, this does require 2 dishes to be installed, and if you want OTA HD signals, you gotta pay about 150 bucks for the tuner. And the kicker is if you want more than 2 receivers like I did, its another 150 bucks for the sw64 switch. So all in all, turns out to be about the same price in my opinion.
I think I am going to be very happy with Directv, eventhough its just HBO HD right now. I was already planning to get all the movie channels, so I might as well utilize the HD channel if I can.
If I can be of any help, don't hesitate to ask on here or email.
Hope this helps,
Neal
 

Michael St. Clair

Senior HTF Member
Joined
May 3, 1999
Messages
6,001
Timmy,
For the first weekend of the tournament, channel 12 (the local CBS affiliate) split their bandwidth into 3 SDTV channels instead of 1 HD channel.
So all of the local folks with traditional OTA or cable TV had the choice of (1) game at any given time. But the digital folks had 2 other games to choose from. So when the UK game was on, the NTSC folks had to watch the UK game...but the HD folks got to watch the OSU game if they so chose.
This is some 5-city pilot program, Cincinnati is one of the 5 cities. Same pilot as last year. Hopefully, by next year the whole country has such choices.
Neal,
Here's an article reinforcing that Warner here will have HD in 2001.
http://enquirer.com/editions/2000/10..._services.html
Don't bother trying to get any meaningful answer from their CS reps about this, they are kept in the dark. At least all the ones I have called on the phone are worthless from that perspective.
 

Marque D

Stunt Coordinator
Joined
Jul 13, 2000
Messages
222
I have a dish 6000 and the 8 VSB tuner ($100 OTA DTV tuner) And I really like it, the caller ID feature is great. My only complete is the fan noise (which most HD receivers have) and the unappealing menu. With Dish Network you get HBOHD, ShowTime HD, HD demo channel and a HD PPV. I recommend going to http://www.dishdepot.com or http://www.allsat.com (were the dish 6022 is only $298.95).
I received the following links from dhackney:
Who is a member of http://www.avsforum.com (which has a great HDTV section)
http://www.hdtvgalaxy.com - news and programming info http://www.howstuffworks.com/hdtv.htm - how it works, good overview, great links http://www.wral.com/digital/info/faq.html - good FAQ, nice site that demonstrates that there's a good amount of HD content out there right now on CBS http://www.princeton.edu/~conorneu/hdtv/hdtv.html - good site from a college student project. Not the most current but covers the basics well. Good introductory content. http://www.hdtvbuyer.com/Htm/HomeSet4.htm - video professional site, good pro perspective, news, links, etc. http://www.digitalmedianet.com/HTM/R...analogMORE.htm - survey of broadcast & production facilities, shows that 30% are already all digital; good adoption rate/conversion states that he/she will need http://216.168.63.180/hdtv/hdtvnews1.html - good newsletter site http://216.168.63.180/hdtv/history.html - history of HDTV http://www.novia.net/~ereitan/index.html - history of color TV, good for perspective on introducing new TV standards in the US market http://www.bettercables.com/mvawdvd.htm - good review of aspect ratios http://216.168.63.180/hdtv/hdtvlinks.html - good collection of links, including links to stations now on the air with HDTV, good source for interview quotes from the station perspective. http://216.168.63.180/hdtv/prodnws2.html - production news, including the first film to be fully shot on 24fps HDTV; good material on what's being produced on HD, implication is we can't watch it if it isn't created/produced first. http://www.hdtv.org/dtv/glossary.html - sparse glossary http://www.henninger.com/library/hdtvfilm/ - good overview of resolutions & conversions; resolution charts http://www.atsc.org/ - the people who set the standard http://gehon.ir.miami.edu/com/classes/cbr535/hdtv.htm - good links; very good collection of links to pertinent HDTV documents http://www.channel4000.com/partners/...26-195042.html - basic FAQ from WCCO Minneapolis http://tvschedules.about.com/tvradio/tvschedules/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.fcc.gov%2Foet%2F faqs%2Fdtvfaqs.html - FCC FAQ page, a little technical for the layman, but pretty informative http://www.digitaltelevision.com - good collection of info, good archive on CODFM vs. 8VSB http://www.digitaltelevision.com/dtvbook/glossary.shtml - full glossary http://www.highdef.org/ - HD production news and info
Also subscribe to these two newsletters. http://www.hdtvinsider.com/ Link Removed
 

RaymondS

Auditioning
Joined
Mar 8, 2001
Messages
2
Thanks for all the info! I am going to try to investigate to see if/when Warner will add HD in Mason. I read that Warner provides a STB for HDTV. Has anyone had any experience with this box? Thanks again for all the help and links! The local info is especially appreciated. The researching continues...
biggrin.gif

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+RJ
 

Michael St. Clair

Senior HTF Member
Joined
May 3, 1999
Messages
6,001
Raymond,
I just sent you some updated information. It does look like Cincinnati is coming up very soon (in fact, field tests are running right now).
The box is SA2000HD (Scientific Atlanta).
 

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