The title might be a bit misleading.  First, it's not a terrible thing (implied by the quotes around unfortunate).  Second, it's not really a discovery as I basically expected the results although I certainly didn't expect the scope of the results.

When we moved to our current location (6-7 years ago) we had cable for a few months before we cancelled it.  We've done Netflix since then to cover movies and TV shows.  Occasionally, we've plugged in an antenna.  However, we barely get KSBW-8 and nothing else.

About an hour ago, I tried again.  This time, the results were a bit different.  Channel 8 still barely comes in, but 8-1 (KSBW NBC) comes in perfectly and 8-2 has weather on all the time.  That's not the end of it, either.  35-1 (KCBA FOX) also comes in pretty well, although not perfectly.  KION-DT CBS (46-1) and The CW (46-2) also come in nicely.

The HD channels look great!  They are all either 1080i or 720p.  These are 8-1, 35-1, and 46-1.  The secondary channels are still 480i (8-2, 46-2) but are digital so they still look pretty good, although the pixelation is more apparent.  In fact, pixelation is much more pronounced on all of the digital channels than you'll see with HD-DVD or even a DVD (the entire channel gets about 20 Mbps where a DVD gets 10 Mbps, but only has to handle a single SDTV video stream).  Still, though, it's much better than analog while it's coming in.  And it seems to be able to lock on even in fairly weak areas (meaning it probably has some built-in error correction).  The analog sides of all of these channels are un-watchable (IMO, especially coming from DVD, HD-DVD, and other media such as XBox 360 downloads or high resolution video podcasts).

The content of the channels is still in question, of course.  It's actually strange to think about waiting for something to come on or missing the start of something because I set down a few minutes too late.  Sure, a ReplayTV or Tivo can solve all of that, but they've got limited memory and either guess at what you want to record or you have to remember to tell them.  With Netflix, we can watch what we want when we want, with commercials professionally edited out.  This comes at no cost over a normal Netflix subscription, so it's basically free.  The downside? The TV shows are still on regular DVD and not HD-DVD so technically the broadcast is better -- if it was in HD to begin with.

This whole digital HD TV thing is intriguing, though.  With lots of channels (5 is a lot, right? :p) it's almost like basic cable (without all those shopping channels you never watch) but completely free (aside from needing an ATSC tuner and having to sit through ads). Now the predicament: do we keep the antenna plugged in and wire it in nicely, or do we get rid of it again and stay with just basic Netflix service?

Posted by Shane on January 2, 2007 10:50 PM | Permalink