[auburn97]

I have had my HD-ready set for about 8 months now and am financially ready to pull in some HD signals.

Which method provides the highest quality (lowest compression) HD signal- Cable, Satellite or over-the-air?


Sat is available to me any time I want, HD cable is coming to my area this year, and I really don't want to go tht OTA route because of the unsightly antenna, but am more concerned with signal quality. I live about 40-50 miles from the signal tower and that would require a medium directional antenna with pre-amp according to antennaweb.


My display is a Toshiba 34HDX82 with DVI/HDCP input.


If HD satellite is a good option, which is the best- Direct or Dish?


Any help you can provide is GREATLY appreciated.

 

[DonBerg]

The highest quality (lowest compression) is OTA, followed by cable, and then satellite. Direct-TV and Dish-TV only provide a couple premium channels in HD (HBO and Showtime) and not all of the movies are in HD either. Discovery-HD and HDnet are available on one or the other, but no local/network HD channels at all and that is where most of the HD programming is, so you need OTA HD for those anyway unless your local cable system has the local HD channels, if so that is the cheapest.