Been helping some cheapskate friends with HD set up. Like me, with all of the quality HD programming available over the air, they don't want to shell out extra to the Cable Company for what's already supposed to be free. Here's some simple tips I've come up with for over-the-air HD reception with amplified rabbit ears: 1. Before you buy the digital TV, make sure there is a signal strength meter accessible in the TV's menus for over the air (OTA) reception - this will help in orienting the antenna to get steady uninterrupted signal. 2. the worst place to put your rabbit ear antenna is the obvious place to put it - on or near the TV. The TV is an electronic device that will itself interfere with reception. Signal amplification will not discriminate against interference, so it's a good idea to keep the antenna away from any electronic devices that might produce interference (especially computers). 3. get a long TV Cable to extend from tv to antenna, place the antenna at different areas in the room. check out the reception you get (consulting the TV's digital signal strength meter on the Channels of interest - see this LIST for digital channel allotments in your area). 4. If you're lucky, you can find a place for the antenna where it can be hidden from view and still get good HD reception. If the cable to the antenna is long enough, you can run it along the baseboards to keep it inconspicuous.
"they don't want to shell out extra to the Cable Company for what's already supposed to be free." If you already have digital cable, just swap the cable box out for a High def cable box. Same price (for now anyway, don't know if that'll change with Comcast yet, it may). You also get TNTHD, INHD, and DiscoveryHD (or as I like to call it ****INGAWESOMEHD) You're probably better of with an OTA antenna though, you get all of the subchannels for all the locals (PBS Sprout, if you have little kids, sometime ABC/CBS will have other college games on their subchannels, plus you can get weather/traffic subchannels also I think)
Some friends of mine did get HD through switching out the cable box, but were dissatisfied with the quality of the HD from it. I don't know exactly why it looks worse (contrast was bumped up way too high, and SD & HD looked to be overcompressed - and fiddling with the TV's picture quality settings didn't help much at all). Could be a bad cable box or maybe they should use DVI instead of Component from box to TV (DVI cable not supplied - but TV has HDMI anyway so will need adapter for this)... cable guy told them it would be only $4 more a month to switch to digital, but hidden costs made it about $7 more a month (not much, but they're older folks/retired). They were very disappointed by the whole experience - they're ok about paying a little more but not ok with bad digital images - you're supposed too get more if you pay more. I'm going to advise them to request another cable box to see if it will solve the problem. Otherwise, it's back to good ol' reliable OTA.
But stupid Time Warner just took away a couple of their HD channels as part of the free package. Now if you want HDNet, you have to pay extra. And I don't even know if INHD2 is available at all anymore. All this when they already charge extra for ESPN HD.
HDNet/HDNet Movies has always been paid (at least since I've been there). Same package as Universal HD (probably gone soon) and ESPN HD. INHD and INHD2 consolidated their network and turned it into one (INHD). Yeah, OTA is probably best if you can do it for locals like I said though, I gotta have my discovery HD though
HDNet was free. HDNet Movies was the one that cost extra. I just hate the double standard that Time Warner applies to certain channels. If you pay for regular TNT, HBO, and Showtime, you get the HD channels. But I have ESPN, yet have to shell out extra for their HD station.
