So I spend a few thousand dollars to get a Sony 60" SXRD TV, a good stand, a good waranty, and a PS3. *I* love it and wouldn't take it back if my life depended on it.

A few weeks before, I signed up for Dish Network and got an SD receiver. Blu Ray movies look unbelievable, but SD content on Dish looks terrible. Now my wife is really not happy that I spent all this money to only watch movies and repeatadly tells me that we have a crappy TV and the picture on our TV is crap. I had intended to buy a high-gain UHF antenna to pick up local digital broadcasts, but we're so far away from the city (35-40 miles away from most towers) I'd have to get an external one which is not an option.

So what do I do? The HD receiver is more money every month, but is there that much HD content? Won't all the other channels in SD still look crappy? SD DVDs still look really good... does Dish just suck? How do I make the Mrs. happy (don't answer that one)?

My AV receiver has DCDi which I can't utilize until my HDMI cables come in
(a few more days)... will this provide a significant improvement in quality if I run my Dish receiver through it, or am I just screwed without a HD receiver?

DVDs played on a progressive scan player are EDTV (480p) and are considerably better than SDTV (480i) or analog (480 interlaced lines with the chroma mixed with the luma and limited to 6Mhz). I don't know how Dish gets their SDTV but if they take analog feeds and digitize them, that's not going to look good.

Why is the antenna not an option? If it's local restrictions, you should know that the FCC has overridden them in many cases.

The Dish on the roof was almost not an option. It'll be a cold day in hell before I can convince my wife to let me mount a UHF antenna on the outside of the house. Unless there's some small, high-powered antenna that I don't know about that doesn't look like two semi-trucks hauling close hangers got into a head on collision.

Tell your WIFE if she wants to see what you bought that expensive TV for, you WILL be putting an antenna up.

can you call her for me?

So , does your local cable bandit not offer the local stations HDTV offerings ? Plus whatever else they have ?

Unfortunately it's a brand new subdivision just on the boonie side of the border of several large sprawling suburban cities and the boonies.

There aren't enough houses up yet so the cable company won't provide service... so I'm stuck with air waves.

If you have Google Earth, you can view my delima.

Will all SD content always suck? Is there ANY better option for SD material? I'm hoping that the DCDi will help through my AV receiver. I'm sure there will be some stuff she'll like that broadcast in HD, but even if I subscribe to HD service or manage to get an antenna to work, I'm concerned she's going to want to watch her Cosby show re-runs and not like what she sees.

I'm hoping that the DCDi will help through my AV receiver.

It may, but don't count on it. You can't make a silk purse from a sow's ear. GIGO. ;)

I'm familar with the St Louis Area (lived there for about 6 months in 1984) - where are you ?

I'm just north of Wentzville off highway 40/61 in St. Charles county.

I don't get why you bought an HDTV to watch SD stuff. We bought the 55" SXRD recently and we have Dish with HD. You really stop watching SD after awhile. But, even the SD stuff we watch doens't look all that bad. The ViP622 HD-DVR upconverts the signal and so does the TV, and it looks good.

As for the antenna, is it possible to hook it up in your attic?

SD DVDs still look really good... does Dish just suck?

Yes, Dish mpeg2 compression just sucks. They are transitioning to mpeg4 eventually, that may or may not look better. OTA digital broadcasts (HD or not) look good on a HDTV, IMHO, so you're best bet is to try a good attic antenna/amp install to pull some of these in.

Is the set top box doing any upconversion? If so, I would configure it (if possible) to pass the signal it receives and let the TV do the upconversion.
(All the Sony's I've seen do a great job with upconversion.)



Mitch

Will all SD content always suck? Is there ANY better option for SD material? I'm hoping that the DCDi will help through my AV receiver. I'm sure there will be some stuff she'll like that broadcast in HD, but even if I subscribe to HD service or manage to get an antenna to work, I'm concerned she's going to want to watch her Cosby show re-runs and not like what she sees.

You're presenting us with an impossible situation. No outdoor antenna, no cable, and must watch highly compressed SD over the satellite. Sit 25' from your TV and SD won't look so bad. :)

I have both Dish Network and OTA here and I can tell you that my OTA SD picture is far superior to what I see on Dish Network when I compare the same channel. Of course you do run into poor quality SD video that looks bad no matter what.

Have you checked out antennaweb.org or tvfool.com to see how strong your local stations are? How about a test? Pick an antenna based on the prediction result and install it "temporarily" to see how much better the OTA SD is. Maybe seeing will make your wife relent.

www.antennaweb.org for Wentzville shows all your local digital stations are about 33 miles, in the same general direction, and UHF.

You could mount this little antenna low on the roof, back side even if your house faces the proper direction - and I bet no one would even know its there, Channel Master 4220 at $30 with mount
http://www.warrenelectronics.com/antennas/4220.htm

or a small UHF yagi antenna like the Radio Shack U-75R will work

I'm at 41 miles, and I can receive everything but the absolute, lowest-powered locals with an indoor antenna. I also have the U-75R mentioned above outside, and I get channels from over 60 miles away with it.

If you have an attic (without any metal in the immediate way) or 2nd floor (preferably in a window pointing towards the towers) where you can place it, you might not even have to put one outside.

Once your wife sees OTA SD, she should quiet down.

Barring that, it sounds like your best option is getting HD through Dish. They do offer something like 30 channels, though. And at least CBS, NBC, ABC & Fox for locals.

But OTA is free and normally of the best quality.

Well - if that's the way the wife feels about antennas - take the Sony back. Go buy a 27 inch SDTV that will have a ATSC tuner (Samsung makes some good ones - make sure it is SDTV and not larger than 32 inches). You can hook the DBS up to this and your wife will think you are a miracle worker as far as getting a better picture from Dish is concerned. SD DBS on a HDTV (especially a large screen) will look like crap - I'd suggest no larger than 32 inch screen even on an SDTV. Play around with the ATSC tuner some. If you can get a decent picture - go from there. Get a copy of Avia or Video Essentials (or Digital Video Essentials) and fine tune your TV to the best that you can.

Your other option is to do what the other people have suggested - try the UHF antenna in the attic - if it half way works - show THAT to your wife and tell her that you can get even better / more variety if you can put the antenna outside.

With an HD Dish receiver, I expect even your SD channels would look better, because you'd be using component or HDMI instead of s-video (right? you are using s-video now?). There's a limit to how good it will look, though. But SD doesn't have to suck -- Fios SD looks pretty sweet.

I continue not to understand why anyone thinks an antenna is any uglier than, say, a chimney.

I continue not to understand why anyone thinks an antenna is any uglier than, say, a chimney.

I think a bowtie antenna looks far better than a satellite dish! I changed from a big old Radio Shack UHF/VHF antenna to a Channel Master 4228, and the 4228 is way less noticable from the street.

As for the OP, I think he should go at least with a CM 4221, the 4220 may be too small at his distance. I have a pretty good line of sight at my towers and I barely pull them in with the 4228. My towers are 30 miles away.

James

balforth - check out the St Louis local thread for more info - http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=793006

So the Dish guy is installing the HD equipment today. Are you guys happy with this signal, or would you recommend still trying to get a digital UHF signal from 35-40 miles away?

If Dish is carrying St Louis locals in HD, it would be no more than the Big 4 (ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox). And they may still not be carrying the digital subchannels of them. - Go for the outside UHF antenna as well.

This is not a practical idea for everyone but if your room layout allows you to have a second TV in the room. Your old 32" or 27" will look just fine with the SD channels. Watch HD only on your big HDTV.

So the Dish guy is installing the HD equipment today. Are you guys happy with this signal, or would you recommend still trying to get a digital UHF signal from 35-40 miles away?

Hi Balforth,

I live 60 miles due west of Chicago as the crow flies, in a one-story townhome, low near a river valley. With a ChannelMaster 4228 antenna in my attic and a good preamplifier, I get everything but our CBS affiliate, which is at ridiculously low power.

With a ChannelMaster 4220 or 4221 antenna in your attic (go for the latter if you can), you should get most, if not all, the St. Louis locals.

Use RG-6 cable from the attic antenna and go for it! You WILL be happy. And so will the wife. :-)

You put an external antenna in your attic? I didn't know that would work...

It's not ideal, but many people have reported that they get excellent reception of their digital stations that way. It depends on the construction of your house, orientation to the transmitters, etc.

You put an external antenna in your attic? I didn't know that would work...

Yep, that's how many people do it. If you are close or high enough in elevation, you can get everything from your market. If your attic entrance is 39" or larger, go with the ChannelMaster 4228 antenna, which is the best for attics. It's at
http://www.warrenelectronics.com/antennas/4228.htm . If you have a Fry's Electronics nearby, they sell them there, too.

You put an external antenna in your attic? I didn't know that would work...

Yes, you can put a outdoor antenna inside your attic as long the roof material is not made out of any kind of metal as metal roofing or foil lining under the shingles as it will degrade the tv siginal in the the attic. As I live in a apartment and the building does not have a master antenna so I have a homebuilt DB2 or like the new Channel Master 4220 2 bow tie antenna and I get UHF station 43, 57 and 73 miles away and I even get DT channel on 11 that is at 15 Kw at 57 miles away and DT on 8 that is at 25 kw at 43 miles away without any problems and the antenna is mounted indoor in my cloests shelf on second floor.

Beside it nice to have a OTA antenna because you can get local HD and SD with allot better PQ and it free and if the Dish goes down and you will have a backup siginal to watch the local channel as in bad weather. Try with a simple bow antenna, but put it by the window and in the direction of the tower and see what you can get then work your way up to a better antenna system. But key thing the higher the antenna mount it will be better as indoor mount the attic or highest floor would be better then the outdoor is the best and use a good quality coax cable as in RG-6 or RG-6 Quad, don't use the old RG-59 cable.

You won't know if will work, unless you try it.

As far as the DCDi goes...I don't know if it will help in your situation but I can tell you my personal experience. In my living room I have a highly regarded Pioneer 50" plasma which looks fantastic with HD content from my local Suddenlink cable as well as upconverted DVD's with my Panny S77.....regular SD programming ranges from acceptable to crappy though. On the other hand...my bedroom is home to a 4 year old Zenith 42" ED plasma (with integrated DCDi) which is a carryover from my single bachelor pad days, and my wife and I both agree that SD programming looks much better on it. Of course that could have more to do with the native 480p (for ED) being closer to the 480i signal with less upconversion going on. Also, it isn't clear whether or not the DCDi is utilized for tv programming or simply for dvd's....which also look fantastic simply using an older progressive scan player.

Gilbert,

Do you still have the link to your picture of your attic install ? That would give Balforth and others what a attic install would look like and you do have the cleanest and tiddest attic to show it off in :D . Someday when I can get hold of a digital camera, I will post the picture on how my homebuilt antenna is made and mounted.


-Willie

..just to offer another view from those expressed above......Agreed, OTA HD can not be beaten for a quality picture. But, after comparing local digital stations with OTA and Directv MPEG4 system, I can see zero difference. Both are excellent to my eyes.

So I spend a few thousand dollars to get a Sony 60" SXRD TV, a good stand, a good waranty, and a PS3. *I* love it and wouldn't take it back if my life depended on it.

A few weeks before, I signed up for Dish Network and got an SD receiver.

Well, this is your first problem. You bought a LARGE HDTV, and then you settled for a SD receiver. Why? An HD receiver is only $5 a month more.

Also, your connection wires are important as well. Obviously, HDMI is best. For example, I got my HDTV one day before I had the new HD satellite hook-up, so I ran my old SD receiver via S-video for a day. Picture quality sucked. But SD picture quality via HDMI is quite a bit better, but it still is not as good as if you were to have an EDTV.

The problem is the MPEG2 compression.

So what do I do? The HD receiver is more money every month, but is there that much HD content?

DISH has over 30 HD channels. 15 or so are from the VOOM HD Network. The others are HD versions of existing channels. Which align themselves channel number wise with their standard channel number. So ESPN-HD is Channel 140 too. DISC-HD Theater is channel 182 as well as the SD channel.