HDTV antenna site overwhelmed with traffic
Cory Bergman May 4th, 2007
Right after the AP published a story that explained how antennas might deliver better HDTV pictures than cable or satellite, the Consumer Electronics Association’s AntennaWeb.org was hammered with inquiries. That day, some 86,000 people filled out a form on the site to get recommendations on antenna choices, which crashed the site for a bit. As Broadcasting & Cable points out, broadcasters have been frustrated that more people don’t recognize the value of free over-the-air HD.
3 Comments Add your own
1. Steve Safran | May 4th, 2007 at 11:55 am
Then they offered everyone free Joost invites…
2. Dan | May 4th, 2007 at 8:56 pm
The fact is Off Air HD reception is superior to any
other delivery method of their product. This is because
both cable and sat TV re-compress the signal,
adding even more artifacts and noise to the HD
signal. But do you see broadcasters telling people this….? And they are frustrated no one knows this?
If broadcasters are frustrated, they only have their own
lousy marketing to blame. The fact is, Broadcasters
don’t know how to market their product off air.
They don’t ask people what’s important to them.
They have no instincts for figuring this out either
because they never had to in the past. They were the
only place you could see TV.
And they don’t help viewers, in any way, get in touch
with the people, technical or otherwise, at the station,
unless it’s news related. Try to find an email address
that relates in any way to “customer service”.
Try to find a phone number to get ahold of anyone
at a station, not news related.
Where is the section on a TV station web site that
goes into detail, with video clips, how to set up your
own antenna, which direction to point it, all the things
that make for easy and great reception. Show me
one TV station web site that has this.
Dan
3. Barry S. | May 6th, 2007 at 1:18 pm
I have a bit of bias in that a good portion of my work comes from those “re-compressors” of over the air content. But the bottom line is simple, most people don’t want to bother.
In order to guarantee good HDTV reception in a typical household, you’d need to measure the off air signal at the antenna, pad it down (or not) into a distribution amp, and then verify at the signal wasn’t overdriving at the TV (and pad down appropriately) and then what happens if it doesn’t work?
It could be a multipath component, low MER, overloading receiver front end, incorrect PSIP, and the list goes on. It’s not like analog where you could see the picture was snowy and could fiddle with it. Is it a big deal for those of us with access to all the equipment that IDs that stuff for us? No. For the average homeowner who just wants to watch ER, they don’t want to bother.
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