Category: Home Theater

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7 Misconceptions about Over-the-Air Digital TV

As I help people with home theaters and TVs across the Washington D.C. area, I run into many misconceptions about over-the-air digital TV.

1. Digital TV? What is that?

Most people still don’t seem to realize that they can receive high definition television over the air.

Not only is it high definition, but over-the-air (OTA) broadcasts also generally provide better quality video than cable or satellite. This is because the bitrate (amount of data transmitted) of OTA broadcasts is typically higher.

While not all the channels are available (no CNN, Comedy Central, Discovery, Home & Garden, etc), you do get in Washington D.C. and generally: ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, Fox, CW (formerly WB), Univision (Spanish language), and an independent channel or two.

2. The digital transition, whenever it occurs, will be a switch from analog to digital.

Not exactly. The digital channels are all available now. The “digital transition” date is actually just switching off the analog channels. The analog spectrum was sold a year ago by the US government sold to a consortium of bidders including AT&T and Verizon.

3. The analog shut-off date is when?

It was originally today, February 17, 2009. But Congress and Obama passed legislation to delay it until June 12, 2009, because many people are still unprepared for the transition and the government ran out of coupons for people to buy converter boxes.

The complicated bit is that because of costs associated with running the analog systems, hundreds of local stations will still try to shut down their analog signals today, if they can get the FCC to go along with that. In Washington D.C., all stations will continue to offer analog channels until June 12th.

According to the Associated Press:

A patchwork of 641 stations across the country, mainly in thinly populated areas, are still turning off their analog broadcasts this week or have already done so. The most populous markets where many or all major-network stations are cutting analog include San Diego and Santa Barbara, Calif.; Providence, R.I.; La Crosse and Madison, Wis.; Rockford, Ill.; Sioux City, Iowa; Waco, Texas; Macon, Ga.; Scranton, Pa.; and Burlington, Vt.

4. I need a coupon and converter box.

TVs sold over the past few years typically have a built-in digital tuner. Also, the $40 coupon is only good for the converter boxes that output their signal in analog.

This means that if you have a shiny new HDTV, you are probably fine because it has a tuner already. And if you have a slightly older HDTV that does not have a tuner, you will be better served with a converter box that has an HDMI or component video out so that you get a digital signal to the TV itself instead of analog. And those better converter boxes do not qualify for the $40 coupon.

5. I just need to plug my antenna into a converter box to get a signal.

You will need an antenna and just plugging in your existing one might work. But the antenna is probably best not placed where you used to have it.

Digital signals tend to be more sensitive to placement and interference from walls and obstructions. Therefore you want the antenna to be as close to possible to line-of-site to the tower as you can get it. This means placing the antenna in a window, on a roof, or high up in your attic. People who live close to the transmitting towers (within 5 miles) should not have problems. People farther away will need to spend more time and money to get the right equipment.

6. My “rabbit ear” antenna will work fine.

It might if you live within a couple of miles of the antenna. But most people will be better served with a new antenna and spending some time placing it correctly in the best location.

My favorite resource for determining antenna needs is antennaweb.org, which has a Choose an antenna area. This will allow you to see how far your towers are from you and the direction of the towers. Direction is important because most HDTV antennas are directional.

For my installations, I generally start with antennaweb.org’s data and then paste it into a spreadsheet like this. Then I can write down the signal strength for each channel using different antennas and locations. It usually takes a while to get the optimum setup.

Also note that in the D.C. area, most digital channels are on the UHF spectrum, but after the analog shut-off both ABC and CBS will be changing to transmit over VHF. The implication for customers is that several antennas only work well for UHF or VHF. Keep that in mind when looking for an antenna. Many stations across the US plan on changing their transmissions after they shut down their analog stations. Antennaweb.org lists these planned changes.

AVS Forum has a vibrant discussion of what antennas are best. I agree with their list and have had great luck both with the Winegard SS-3000 and Terk HDTVa. Both of these have amplification which you may or may not want to use depending on how it affects your signal.

7. I can’t watch over-the-air television. I’d miss my TiVo or Cable DVR too much.

The TiVo Series 3 and TiVo HD do actually tune and record OTA broadcasts. Not only that, but they can record both OTA and cable signals at the same time. So you could get basic cable for a few channels that you are missing, and get pristine high definition content over the air. TiVo does have a monthly service fee (also available as a lifetime purchase for the life of the box).

For those who want to get rid of all monthly bills and just have an OTA DVR, the satellite folks at Dish network came out with the DTVPal DVR currently for $249. You don’t use the Dish network at all. They simply took the software in their good (not as good as TiVo) DVR and repurposed it. There is a discussion of the DTVPal DVR at AVS Forum, which they jokingly refer to as the reboot/upgrade club because of the problems that the early adopters are facing. Currently the DTVPal DVR is out of stock. I would expect Dish to iron out the issues and make this a solid box, as their satellite DVR is pretty good.

Cut the Cable or Satellite Bill

While the hurdles may seem daunting, the ability to get great content in high definition over the air is great. With some time and research, you might even be able to ditch your cable or satellite.

Internet TV

Another option that complements OTA programs is Internet based TV. Projects like Boxee are promising. They connect to CNN, Comedy Central, and tonnes of other streaming media. While the quality is not HD, this provides another way to cut the cable or satellite bill.

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Delay of Analog TV Shut-off

Last night the Senate passed a bill to delay the shut-off of over-the-air analog TV from February 17 to June 12, 2009. The Obama administration had urged the delay, saying that many consumers are not ready.

Nielsena said last week that more than 6.5 million U.S. households are not prepared and could see their television sets go dark next month.

The House might not immediately pass the Senate’s version of the bill, which does not specify how the costs of a delay would be covered. The House could add its own provisions, which would require further Senate action. It could also waive budget rules and seek funds in the stimulus package. Still, it looks like the House will pass some bill that will delay the shut-off until June 12.

See our previous post on Digital TV Transition to see if you might be affected by this transition. Or go to the government’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) site for more info and your free $40 voucher for a digital TV converter.

UPDATE: Despite the unanimous vote by the US Senate to delay the Feb. 17 deadline to transition to digital television, the changeover will proceed as planned after a vote Wednesday by the House of Representatives.

It is unclear if this permanently kills the delay. With less than three weeks untill the planned analog shut-off, the window is almost over for a delay. The television stations need time to make preparations so unless something else happens this week, I now expect the Feb 17 transition to happen.

UPDATE 2: Today (February 4, 2009) the House of Representatives voted again and this time passed the delay of the analog shut-off until June 12, 2009. Now President Obama will sign the delay into law.

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Delay to Digital TV Transition?

The incoming Obama team has written Congress asking for a delay of the planned February 17th turn off of analog over-the-air TV signals. While most people won’t notice this eventual transition, there are some hurdles.

Most People Aren’t Affected

The loss of analog over-the-air signals will not affect most people who use one of 1) cable, 2) Satellite (Dish or DirecTV), 3) digital over-the-air (still using an antenna), or 4) fiber (FIOS TV service). Most people in the D.C. area will not be affected. TVs made in the last couple of years should have digital tuners, known as ATSC tuners.

Expected Problems

In my experience setting up home theaters and TVs in the DC metro area, I have found some problems that will likely come with this transition:

  1. Analog signals travel better. While the term “digital” seems like it should mean “better”, it has a big downside. Analog tuners deal with missing data (the result of a poor signal) much better. Digital signals that do not have enough data quickly turn to jaggies and then a blank screen. This is sometimes referred to as a digital cliff effect. The same concept applies to HD Radio. Digital therefore does not travel as far as analog and it does not work as well through walls. Even in Arlington, Virginia, not far from the TV towers, a good signal usually requires an antenna to be placed in a window, on the roof, or in a high attic. People farther away will have more problems. Residents in rural Virginia might now be too far to get any over-the-air signal.
  2. Old homes in D.C., Virginia, and Maryland can not be easily wired for cable. The house walls might be made of concrete, brick, or stone that is difficult to wire through. This has caused some local residents to opt for analog over-the-air TV instead of cable or FIOS. Other people have decided to only wire their living room, and still use analog over-the-air in other rooms. The old construction can also cause problems running an antenna to a window, roof, or attic.

Possible Delay

The Obama team has requested a delay because the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), which is to provide education and $40 vouchers for people to buy digital TV converter boxes, ran out of money on January 4. There is also concern that many people, especially poorer and more rural areas, have not yet heard that they will need a converter and a larger antenna.

Web Resources

To find out what kind of signal you can expect and what kind of antenna you need to get digital programs, see AntennaWeb site and click Choose an antenna. Another useful site is HDTV Hub, which lists many users experiences for their particular locations. You can find out through these sites what kind of over-the-air HDTV experience that you can expect.

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Tivo HD Hard Drive Upgrade Guide


There are several Tivo hard drive upgrade guides out there.  I recently had to upgrade a Tivo HD drive for a Virginia customer and realized that most guides out there either don’t work or are unnecessarily complicated.  As a result, I’ve collected the simplest way to do it which requires just one command if you’ve got everything you need.

What you need

  1. The Tivo HD itself.  That link is to Amazon which almost always has the Tivo HD for less than $250.
  2. A new larger drive.  I recommend the Seagate DB35 750GB.  Not just any drive would do as you want to get one designed for DVRs with appropriate performance and noise levels.  That drive should yield 106 hours of HD recording.
  3. MFSLive linux boot disc.  You can download the ISO of this here: http://www.mfslive.org/download.htm.  Burn the ISO to disc.
  4. A desktop computer with 2 sata connectors and cables for the old drive and new drive.
  5. A Torx T-10 screwdriver.
What to do

  1. Remove your original Tivo drive and hook it up to your desktop’s first sata connector.
  2. Hook up the new drive to the desktop’s second sata connector.
  3. Boot off the linux boot disc.  When booted, you should just see a command prompt.  You can now type the following command to see your connected drives: 
    cat /proc/partitions
    If hooked up correctly, you should see your smaller original drive listed as sda and your new larger drive as sdb.  If you hook them up wrong, you could copy a blank drive to the original drive removing all Tivo data.  That would be very bad which is why you need to run this command and check the drives.
  4. Execute one command to begin the full copy and expansion to the new drive.  This command will copy all your settings and shows as well:
    backup -qTao – /dev/sda | restore -s 128 -r 4 -xzpi – /dev/sdb
    This command is nicer than many in that it tells you how much time is left. It should take about an hour.
  5. Once the command completes, turn off your computer and plug the new drive into your Tivo.  That’s it, boot up the Tivo and you should have a working box with much larger recording capacity.  It is a good idea to hold on to the original drive in case your new one ever breaks so you could duplicate it again to keep your Tivo working.
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Add More Recording Time To Your Tivo

With a 1TB or 1.5TB drive you can record hundreds of hours of TV in a TiVo. You first need to decide between two approaches.

Option 1: Order a pre-made TiVo Drive

This is the simplest method. You can buy a hard drive already setup for your TiVo from weaKees (TiVo Upgrade Kit section). I have also had good experience buying from dvr_dude on eBay.

Purchasing a new drive is your only option if your original drive failed and you don’t have a backup (obtained possibly through the Linux option described below). Replacing a failed drive can also save you from losing your lifetime or multi-year subscription contract with TiVo.

The cons to this approach are:

  1. Buying hard drives with TiVo software already loaded can add over $100 to the cost of buying a blank drive.
  2. This method will give you a new blank TiVo. It does not keep any of your programs, to do list, recording preferences, channel lineup, or CableCard pairing (for TiVo 3 or HD users who use CableCard to tune digital channels). This isn’t a con if it’s a new TiVo.

Option 2: Build Your Own Drive

This method takes much longer. You remove the drive and put it and the new drive in a computer that boots off of a Linux Live CD. In Linux, you run a command to copy the old drive to the new one bit by bit.

TiVo HD users should follow our TiVo HD instructions. TiVo 3 users should follow the bumwine instructions. TiVo Series 1 and Series 2 should follow the hinsdale instructions.

Building your own drive can take hours but it is the cheapest upgrade method and it saves all your shows, preferences, etc.

My Experience

Since my first Philips TiVo Series 1 with 20-hour recording capacity, I have been upgrading or adding drives to TiVos for myself and D.C. area clients. It can change the way you use your TiVo. If you have hundreds of hours of recording capacity, the TiVo feels closer to a TV and movie archive. Give it a try if you find yourself running out of space or if you want more TiVo suggestions.