nytimes.com — According to surveys conducted by the Consumers Union,while 90% of the nation is aware of the transition, 25% mistakenly believe that one must subscribe to cable or satellite after February, and 41% think that every TV in a house must have a new converter box, even those that are already connected to cable or satellite.
Dec 22, 2008 View in Crawl 4
Closed AccountDec 23, 2008
I thought about running a slave off a nearby box. But then I would've had to hook up an IR repeater ($150) and crawled in a hot attic to run the coax and cat5. Not worth my time or money for a TV that hardly get's used.
socokoolaidDec 23, 2008
Thanks for all your comments. I will email these to him, maybe they will help.Currently he has a 20 foot pole with an VHF+UHF antenna on top.I really think Dish Network / DirectTV has the flexibility now to give him service, but he is stubborn. They came and surveyed a year or two ago and said they couldn't get the right angle. His problem is he is surrounded by wooded area. It simulates being in a small, but deep valley.I hope the signal strength increasing helps him. There is another concern though. The 8 public access channels only come in when he points his antenna to one direction. The majority of the other channels are in the other direction. He would be happy without the public access channels, but this raises a serious concern.My understanding is that these antennas are mainly directional. Would the requirement of a very good signal make things difficult for people who receive signals from several directions? Will there be a large number of people who need to turn their antenna one way to get channel 4 and the other way to get channel 5?
diemunkiesdieDec 24, 2008
It's called a "sub channel" and yes they do. I saw the same infomercial on a secondary channel from ABC. There is no way you can pick it up unless you already have a HD receiver. I thought it was hilarious!
kiahsmomDec 24, 2008
We were told that we wouldn't be able to get past channel 30 after February (we have up to 70 now) unless we got boxes for all of our TVs...
kratos76Jan 4, 2009
Yep, those blue, green, red, video cables you have going from your HD cable box to your HDTV are analog.
Closed AccountJan 9, 2009
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stephancomMar 3, 2009
Netflix streams start instantly. So do Hulu and many online sources. It doesn't take 10 minutes, it takes 10 seconds. The only problem with being able to discuss it the next day at the office is a business one, they delay the internet availability a little. Colbert Report, for example, is available sometime after midnight the day of broadcast. At least one of Obama's recent speeches was live on Hulu.In other words, for some shows, I can already watch them online and say "Hey, did you watch X last night" and hear "no, I missed it"Instant broadcast is alive and well on the Internet. It just starts when you want it to, pauses when you want it to, and does so without any hardware you don't already own.