[Phire]

I got a Hipix card a week ago and I just got to installing it today (Yes, I'm lazy ) and I managed to set it up without a hitch. The thing that shocked me the most is that it's able to lock on to a signal at only 46% strength!! I had been pulling my hair out trying to get a stable signal on my HD-100 STB using Attenuators, FM Traps, Amplifiers, and I just couldn't get a stable signal at 90% (reported by the STB). I just hooked up my Silver Sensor Antenna straight up the card with no attachments and it got a signal strength of about 46% but it's able to deliver me a 100% stable picture with no dropouts on all 3 ATSC channels that are available! I'm very pleased. However this was just regular NTSC being fed through the ATSC channels, and I did have audio muted, does watching an HD broadcast put extra strain on an Antenna?

 

[rf22]

I'm not an expert but I have to say no. If all your getting at the moment is upconverted SD material you should receive HD material just fine because your receiving the same 19 Mbps that the station is sending out. The only exception is you might experience some blocking on your HD shows during fast motion sequences due to the low signal.


Rick

 

[PVR]

The low signal doesn't suggest blocking on fast motion. As long as you have a lock then you get the same data as you would get with a 99% signal. Blockiness during fast motion is an encoder artifact. If your signal is marginal you can get very bad picture breakup even if the scene is still.


Glad your HiPix is working well. The tuner in the HiPix is actually inferior to many newer devices.

 

[lescaudle]

PVR - could you elaborate on that?


I'm considering the purchase of a HiPix. Just tried a Samsung SIR-T151 and it pulls in channels quite well so far.


In fact, the Samsung seems to get better reception than the analog tuner in my Mitsubishi WS-65905.


The signal strength shows up at around the 50% mark. I'm supposed to be in an area that can have some problems.


I was hoping that I could assume if I the Samsung pulled in ok, that the HiPix would. Any comments?

 

[adaseng]

Phire,


where exactly do you live in new york city,


I live in mid-town and couldn't get a single channel off my silver signal antenna. where are you positioning your antenna to? thanks

 

[Phire]

I'm actually in Queens, I just connected my Silver Sensor straight up and pointed it to a spot that had previously given me some sort of signal. What I first did was to check Antennaweb and see what was available. Then I actually got 3 antennas. I got 1 Radio Shack Double Bow-Tie, Non-modded, then another RS Bow-Tie with Mod, then a Silver sensor. At this point in time I was just using my Sony HD-100 to recieve OTA. The Radio Shack Antennas did OK but they werent sufficiant enough to get a stable signal, the Silver Sensor was much more stable with it but still not nearly perfect. The RS Mod did not seem to improve my situation. The way I tested the signal on my HD-100 was to just connect it straight up and then set the STB to the signal meter mode and manually move the antenna by hand until I got a good signal. At one point I got the STB to say 92% using the Silver Sensor antenna, but it sure did not seem like it. At 92% the signal was still dropping every couple of seconds. I had used a ton of devices such as attenuators, amps, FM traps, RF traps. They did not help at all. BTW, The Hipix software has an awesome signal scanner that lets you balence it out between all your ATSC channels.


Then I got the Hipix and when I hooked it straight up using the Silver Sensor antenna it worked 100% stable at 40% signal strength. Unfortunatly I'm having a problem now though. At first I thought I was getting all 3 ATSC channels available here, but it seems I'm only getting 2. The Hipix picked up all 3 in the channel scan. But the channel I can't seem to get is 5.2 (WWOR-DT) and another station 5.1 is physically mapped to the same channel #. I am able to recieve 5.1 which is FOX, but I cannot recieve channel 5.2 using the Hipix, the signal is not an issue because I can get 70% on that channel, and it seems the window isn't showing any data at all, it's just a blank screen. However I do remember getting this channel on my HD-100 STB (even though I was getting a ton of drops I could still get a partial picture). Any idea why this might be happening?


UPDATE:


Ok I checked Antennaweb to see what WWOR-DT is and it seems it's UPN. FOX and UPN seemed to be both physically mapped to 44. However, Antennaweb is reporting that WWOR-DT's physical channel is 38 and isn't live till May 2003, weird. I don't know why the Hipix isn't able to tune into it though. I think I remember trbarry say that his Hipix couldn't tune into UPN either?

 

[Bogney Baux]

Quote:

Originally posted by Phire But the channel I can't seem to get is 5.2 (WWOR-DT)

It appears that WWOR programming is no longer on a subchannel of WWOR-DT's channel 44 transmitter. I can not receive it on all three of my ATSC tuners. This has also been confirmed in the local station forum. http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...hreadid=197999