CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

[EricO]

I would like to put over the air transmitted HD into my Sony G70. What type of HD tuner and cables are necessary to do so? Brand names and model numbers would be a help. I've tried searching for HD tuners, but I only seem to find the internal cards for computers. I'm trying to weight out the expense of getting only over the air HD vs going another monthly bill for cable or dish HD. Besides movies, the only reason to watch HD on my home theater would be to watch my precious Green Bay Packer games (Okay, I'm cheap too! ). Any help would be appreciated.

Also I've heard that the picture from over the air, not being compressed, is superior to cable. Is this true?

[Clarence]

Yes, if Madison has its own network broadcast stations, then OTA will be great. Plus, you can easily record the HD files (.ts streams) to hard drive.

Check http://antennaweb.org/aw/Address.aspx and let us know what channels are in range at your address.

Do you have a PC hooked up to the G70, or are you looking for a standalone set top box with OTA?

[ecrabb]

The OTA network feed is most definitely not "uncompressed". OTA MPEG-2 is HIGHLY compressed, it's just a little less compressed than the same signal might be on HD cable. A cable provider may or may not re-compress so the PQ may or may not be any worse.

Looks like you've got all the HD OTA options you need right there in Madison: NBC, ABC, CBS, Fox, PBS, CW are all broadcasting digital.

Here's the "walk in the store and grab it" option:
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8102796&type=product&id=1161734592183
Samsung - HDTV Digital Terrestrial Receiver - $179.99

If you're price-sensitive, there are also some cheaper used options via ebay or craigslist... Check out the Samsung SIR-T351 or SIR-T451.

If you're not price-sensitive and you're interested in recording, check this out...
http://www.digitalconnection.com/products/video/tvixM4000.asp

Then, there's the computer option like Clarence mentioned - Fusion or MyHD, or a couple of others.

SC

[EricO]

I was looking into getting a stand alone tuner, although a pc based one is a possibility if a mere 1.2 Atheon chip pc can be used for that (I'll be upgrading from that soon, so the old one will be available for the home theater is it has enough juice to do it).

[EricO]

Man! I just love this site. Minutes after I post, I get intelligent answers! Now, with my G70, is there any thing else I'd have to get to hook up to the projector to the tuner, be it pc or stand alone (the one with the hard drive is really interesting at $229). Do I need like the HD Fury or items like that, or can my G70 convert by itself to project? I am a real nubbie with the whole HD thing. Thanks for you help again!

[drice1234]

I picked up and then sold an OTA receiver off of e-bay for around $35.00 It had vga and component outputs that I took directly into my Sony D50.

[ecrabb]

G70 peeps... is the factory component input good to go for HD component?

That DVICO box is $329 w/an ATSC tuner. The $229 model doesn't have the tuner. For $329, you get a box that schedules and records OTA, can read and write to external USB drives, can ACT as a USB drive (to pull the TS files off to burn to DVD-R or whatever), and can act as a network client to pull files from a computer. It's a pretty neat device, and not too badly priced at $329. My problem is there's about 37 devices that I want that are ALL about $329.

If the G70 won't handle HD component (I think it will), the HD Fury would perfect as long as the source has DVI or HDMI output.

If you go the computer route, depending on which card you pick, the 1.2Ghz Athlon should be more than adequate as long as you have lots of drive space. I had the MyHD card working in an old P3 years ago. Now, it's in a P4/1.4. No problem at all. The nice thing about the MyHD is it's all hardware decoding, so the computer is hardly doing anything. Doesn't even use the computers video card for display. You could get the older MyHD 120 from digital connection for $100, and the newer (but used) 130's are on fleabay all the time for less than $100. Also outputs RGB on a VGA cable, so the G70 component question would be moot.

SC

[ronholm]

I use a samsung TS360.. to a extron 202 to the Barco and it works great.


even scales up the "SD" stuff.

[Person99]