HD Content

When looking to add High definition television content into your home theater you have several different options including:

• Satellite tv
• Cable tv
• Broadcast/Over the Air (OTA) tv

Satellite TV - Satellite TV is an extremely popular way of receiving HD content.  Satellite tv, like the local tv stations broadcast through radio waves.  In order to receive a signal for satellite tv or broadcast tv there needs to be line of sight between the broadcaster and the user. 

While local broadcast/over the air channels begin to lose signal with the natural curve of the earth and large obstacles such as mountains, satellite television solves the problem of line of sight by broadcasting from satellites which are up in the sky.  These satellites are designed to orbit in the sky along with the rotation of the earth so that they remain in the same spot in the sky.

In order to receive the signals, users need a powerful antenna, which is what the satellite dish is.  Satellite dishes are mounted on a home's wall or rooftop and are much more compact then the huge metal monstrosities from several decades ago. 

Satellite tv is completely digital and covers most areas with great reception which is nice if you are in a rural area without access to a cable system.

Satellite tv offers access to hundreds of clear digital channels with dolby digital sound as well as digital music channels. 

The two main competitors are:

DIRECTV

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DISH Network

Cable TV - At the end of World War 2 television sets became widely available, however for those in rural areas and areas surrounded by mountains it was nearly impossible to get tv reception. 

The birth of cable tv took place in a rural Pennsylvania town where a local appliance salesman realized that he couldn't sell many tvs to residents in his home town if they couldn't get tv reception so he set up an antenna on top of the mountain and ran a cable all the way down to his store where he could demonstrate the tv broadcasts.  In addition to his store he also connected the cable to some of his customers homes who were along the path of the cable, thus beginning the first cable tv system.

Early cable systems experienced picture quality issues due to needing multiple amplifiers in order to boost the signal strength to an acceptable level.  In the late seventies fiber optics was introduced as a cost effective solution for carrying cable signals over long distances with less signal loss which resulted in a higher quality picture.

Todays cable sytems incorporate digital conversion and MPEG compression to achieve many more channels of video on a system with a higher quality signal.  Digital cable allows for transmission of HDTV, where analog cable can only transmit up to 480i.

Like satellite tv, cable tv stations can offer hundreds of channels of digital programming, including music channels.  Digital cable traditionally will have a strong line up of local HD stations along with the national HD channels.  Most cable systems now also offer Video on Demand services allowing you access to a library of shows that you can order at your leisure.  

Many cable stations will also give you the option of "renting" a DVR (digital video recorder) in order to record shows to the unit's hard drive.

Broadcast TV - Broadcast stations send out radio signals through a powerful antenna.  Broadcast tv's radio signals are sent out in a straight line and must be received in the line of sight.  Since the earth is curved the signal is limited in range.  Typically the closer you are to the antenna the better.

With the upcoming February, 2009 Congress mandated digital tv transition, television stations will cease broadcasting in analog and need to broadcast in digital.  Owners of analog tvs will need to purchase converter boxes in order to receive over the air broadcasts.

Many people fail to realize that you can receive digital High Definition reception over the air, for free through local broadcast channels.  If you have a rooftop antenna that you used to tune in to "regular" analog tv, you should also be able to tune to the digital, HDTV channels.  You don't need a special HD antenna.  In fact if you live close enough to the tower you could even use an old set of rabbit ears antenna. 

Keep in mind that unlike an analog signal where you might get fuzzy reception if the tower is near the limits of your antenna, digital signal will either be clear or else you won't be able to get a picture at all.  Many will argue that OTA HD reception, once locked in to the local channel, will yield a better quality picture then HD over cable which can often times be compressed.