6 Tips to receive HDTV over-the-air on a PC

Sat, Oct 7, 2006

Blogroll

Most television stations in major cities broadcast in high definition. Receiving high definition (HD) over the air is free, except for about $100 in hardware costs. Over the air HD is perfect for watching sporting events, especially since most sporting events are broadcast in HD. For a sports fan, the only thing you are missing is ESPN. I must say that it is very cool to record Redskin’s games in high definition. If you have a widescreen monitor, I would highly recommend trying to see if you are able to receive HD broadcasts where you live. I have listed 6 tips to receive HD broadcast over the air on you computer.

  1. Visit antennaweb.org. By putting in your address, Antenna Web will tell you how far you are from a broadcast tower, what stations you should be able to receive, and what direction the tower is in location to your residence. This site will give you a good idea about your prospects to receive high definition broadcasts. A very useful site indeed!
  2. Buy a Phillips Silver Sensor HD UHF antenna. I highly recommend one of these silver sensor antennas and you can buy one cheap from Amazon for under $30. It is relatively small and the price cannot be beat. Make sure you get a UHF antenna.
  3. Purchase a cheap ASTC HD tuner card. A tuner card for HDTV reception is pretty cheap, in the $70 range. My card of choice was VBox’s Cat’s Eye DTA-150, which I purchased from www.pcalchemy.com. One thing to keep in mind is to look at the bundles offered with card. You can purchase a Firefly remote, Beyond TV and a tuner card for $110. I opted not to do this and I regret it. If you have a widescreen laptop, the USB version might your best bet.
  4. Download a media center front-end. You will need a software package like Beyond TV, SageTV, or Media Portal. Media Portal is a free front-end and is a nice way to test the HD waters. Both BeyondTV and SageTV offer trial versions of their software as well, and are slightly more polished than Media Portal.
  5. Try the antenna in different positions. By moving my antenna just one foot closer to the window, I was able to pick up all the local network affiliates. The most extreme case would be moving it into you attic. For me, I got good reception in my office.
  6. Make sure your computer is up to the task. HD Mpeg-2 files run about 8 GBs per hour! For long-term storage, compress your files. Also, an empty PCI slot is needed.

The last step is to install the tuner card into an empty PCI slot and connect it to the antenna with the cable provided.

Enjoyed the post? Subscribe to the full feed for daily updates.

Related Posts on Floppyhead.com: