Sound Advice
\nBy Don Lindich<\/p>\n
Q.\u00a0 I have a second home in South Florida and am considering getting rid of my cable service there to save money, since I am not there all the time.\u00a0 For a long time I thought you had to have cable to get TV anymore and thought rabbit ears went out 30 years ago, and now people are talking about using them to get HDTV.\u00a0 I figure the local channels will be enough for the time I spend there.\u00a0 Is it hard to get TV with an antenna and will the picture look as good as it does as with cable? I currently have a high definition cable box with a 720p Panasonic plasma HDTV.<\/p>\n
-Donald Carl, Milwaukee, WI<\/p>\n
A.\u00a0 There is a good chance the picture quality will actually be better than what you are getting now.\u00a0 Most pay TV companies, both cable and satellite, take the original feed from the network and compress it before rebroadcast so they can fit more channels on their system.\u00a0 If you get the signal with an antenna you are getting it in the original, unaltered form for the best possible picture quality.<\/p>\n
Digital TV is very easy to receive, especially in Florida’s flat terrain.\u00a0 Just connect the antenna, set the TV to receive signals from “Air ” or “Antenna” and run a channel scan.\u00a0 You may find a few extra channels as a bonus as many local broadcasters have two or three channels on the digital band.\u00a0 For example, where I live the NBC affiliate also broadcasts RTV, or Retro TV, and a weather channel on separate subchannels.<\/p>\n
Holiday product highlight:\u00a0 This week’s holiday product highlight goes out to those of you looking for a stocking stuffer for an iPad, iPod or iPhone lover.<\/p>\n