slcsnkman

Ok I have a 55in WS mistubishi with built in HD tuner. Now I am moving to a new apartment and the cable company says the hd package contains local channels as well. Should'nt I need an HD antenna for this? How is this possible?


Thanks

Brian Shannon

If the cable company says that they deliver HD local perhaps and you don't believe them, you should question them. If they are incorrect then you would need an OTA antenna.

chipmac

Why would you think you would need an antenna? It's possible in the same way any HD channel is sent down the pipe to your house. The cable company receives the HD local channel and retransmits it to you. You'll need their digital cable box to receive it and decode the signal unless they use the QAM standard and don't scramble it in which case you can use your built in HD tuner to decode the signal.

bboisvert

I get local HD channels from my cable company. And I'm sure thousands of others do too. I'm not sure I understand your doubts.

Red Dog

Comcast offers HD channels 'in the clear' (QAM). That means you don't need a box to pick them up assuming you have a HD-built-in set. However, I do have an HDDVR so I can 1) pick up HD premium channels and 2) to record HD progamming. Plus I have an antenna hooked up so I can pick up the Baltimore HDs (I get the Washington HDs via cable).

warcp

I have HD Cable and get all the locals except CBS piped in. The HD signal is sent through the cable, so no antenna needed.

KillerQ

Hello...

Keep in mind, however, that the quality of any local HD signals sent via cable will most likely be sub-par (as compared to using the HD antenna to recieve the local feeds) as they are being compressed just like the other cable channels. If you had an HD antenna, you may notice an inprovement in quality....

No biggie in most cases,

Matt

rdclark

Why would a cable company go to the trouble of decoding the already-compressed broadcast digital bitstream just to turn around and re-compress it? And how would they do that instantaneously so that realtime OTA digital broadcasts reach your house at the same moment as the cable re-transmission?

Answer: they don't. There is no difference between the two bitstreams. That's sort of the whole point of digital broadcasting.

RichC

slcsnkman

its just when I lived in Arizona the local cable company supplied me with the HD package but not local channels so I had to buy an HD antenna thats all