How to Choose the Right HD Antenna Booster - Never Miss the Super Bowl Again!
I recently watched the Super Bowl at a friend's house on his brand new big screen HDTV. It was fun, however, from time to time the signal got choppy. We were at crucial plays and it froze up and then skipped ahead. We switched back to an analog signal for awhile, but it looked so sad after having watched the HD. He had an HD antenna that ran through his computer. The problem could have been easily solved with a small antenna booster. O well, the company was good. But I vowed never to miss the Super Bowl again!
What are the causes of a poor signal and a poor picture on an expensive HD Television? Perhaps you failed to pick up a strong signal because you live too far from a signal tower or there is some obstruction that is hindering your HD antenna from getting a strong signal from the tower. There is, however a solution to that. You can get a HD antenna booster that will enable you to watch your favorite game or even Martha Stewart without the fear of losing the channel.
First, before rushing out to get your new HD antenna booster or HDTV antenna amplifier, you need to know the kind of antenna which you currently have on your television. Here are the basic types of TV antennas and some important words to know.
Just to clarify, there is no big difference between the antennas used for HDTV as well as with the DTV. However, some very sly marketers have made a false difference in order to get their products a higher ranking ahead of their competitors. This marketing ploy has really affected some of the major antenna manufacturers and caused them to have to re-label their products.
Reflector antennas work by the means of reflecting radio waves from a conducting plane. Most reflector antennas are used with the double bow-tie variation since it has such a large bandwidth.
The Dipole TV antenna is the most simple antenna used for the television. Some of the more well-known variations of the dipole antenna include the bow-tie which contains a wider bandwidth, the folded-dipole which seems to solve any problem efficiently, and the loop antenna which is another type of the folded dipole. These all posses the same amount of gain and the same radiation patterns.
As a general rule, a TV antenna should radiate in very few directions. The dipole HD antenna has a positive gain since it does not equally radiate in all directions. In the United States, the TV antennas are normally placed in a horizontal position. That is why no signal can be picked up if the antenna is positioned vertically.
In regards to the HD antenna or HDTV antenna, you need to become familiar with the following terms. Gain refers to the quantity of the signal that the antenna will be collecting. Beam width refers to how the directional the antenna can be. Bandwidth refers to how the gain differs with the frequency. A narrowband antenna can receive more channels clearly while some channels will appear to be unclear.
There is a new and possibly better solution to having an antenna. It is requires outside of the box thinking. It is having a computer dedicated to your television programming. By having a central computer dedicated to your tv programming you can watch TV through your PC. In fact, with current technology, you can even watch live tv on your pc.
HD TV programming is now also possible on your computer. Certain companies specialize in bringing High Definition programming from all over the world directly to your computer screen. Or, if you have a central computer which is dedicated to your household TV programming, then you can have HDTV programming directly to your TV from your PC. Some companies even offer a DVR recorder complimentary just for ordering from them. And, many of these companies offer a One Time Fee instead of a subscription. So if you want to forget about the antenna completely, just try going through your PC.
The good news is now there's a dedicated page on the Redbox website for finding kiosks stocked with $1.50/night rental Blu-ray discs, but the bad news is... we can't find one anywhere near our zip code. Apparently if we did live on such hallowed ground, it would even point out recent Blu-ray movies added to the kiosks making the decision to watch Matt Damon in The Green Zone tonight as easy as possible. Hit the source link to begin your own search for high definition movies, hopefully it turns out better than ours so far.
In keeping with plans to re-release two of its 14 classics each year, trailers on the Blu-ray edition of James & the Giant Peach reveal The Lion King (Diamond Edition) and Alice in Wonderland (Special 60th Anniversary Edition) will arrive in high definition next year. No real word on specs yet, but we'd expect to see the same care taken in remastering and restoring the audio and video to its highest quality that's been seen on previous releases. HighDefDiscNews has plenty of screengrabs and the two trailers (embedded after the break) so now with plenty of advance warning you can get the kids ready (or have them, if necessary) in preparation for 2011's obligatory combo pack purchase.
Nipping at the heels of announcements by Panasonic and Samsung, LG has just revealed that its first batch of 600Hz active-shutter 3D Plasmas, the 50" 50PX950 and 60" 60PX950, will soon be available in Korea for the price of $2500 and $4200, respectively. Measuring a svelte 1.2 inches wide, these sets will feature DLNA support, an USB port, and access web content from sources like YouTube and Picasa. Of course for those who can't stomach the agony of needing a physical ethernet or USB cable to access media, the Art Cinema DP1 WiFi multimedia player also announced in tandem by LG should spare you. Likened to a set-top DivX box minus the wires -- though it looks more like a blade in our opinion, the device will stream online content from the usual suspects as well as a laundry list of video files formats stored on your network, even in 1080p. Pricing and release details on this accessory, however, are still anyone's guess, and by the stern look on that model's face, mum's the word. Check out more images of the gear below. 
Ready to climb Mount Fuji and see what the next top Japanese TV will look like? Toshiba has just outed its trio of flag-bearing displays for this fall: the Cell Regza Slim 55XE2 and 46XE2, and the full-bloodied 55X2. Inch-based dimensions are already given in their model names, but you'll also want to know they offer 240Hz refresh rates, 1,000 nits of brightness and 9,000,000:1 dynamic contrast ratios on the chunkier X2 (augmented with local backlight dimming), and a 2D-to-3D conversion technology that'll translate your stale old 2D imagery into bodacious triple dimensionality. You're also keeping the 3 terabytes of storage and the capability of time-shifting up to eight channels at a time from the older model, though you're no longer limited to a hard cap of 26 hours per channel. Connectivity is also rich, with options for DLNA and/or up to eight HDDs, while jacking in a Blu-ray recorder will permit you to record straight to the optical media the same way you can do to the Regzas' own storage. All these goodies won't come cheap, however, as the flagship 55X2 will retail for a well-rounded million Yen ($11,430) in late October, to be preceded by its Slim siblings with prices of ¥700,000 ($8,000) for the 55-inch and ¥600,000 ($6,858) for the 46-inch earlier that month. Full press release after the break.
Panasonic's not letting us know exactly how cheap it's going with the new DMP-BDT100 Blu-ray player, but with an existing lineup that starts at $399 for the DMP-BDT300 it's not hard to see why it would need a mainstream option to compete with Samsung, Sony and the rest. The DMP-BDT100 still promises high quality playback and Viera Cast features including Netflix, Amazon VOD and Pandora access, but it does it in a smaller, energy efficient package as Panasonic's first single-HDMI out 3D Blu-ray player. It will ship in August, but we'll have to wait for any pricing info or possible new Blu-ray 3D pack-in deals (c'mon Avatar.) Press release and one more pic from HDTV.com.pl are after the break.