Digital Home Thoughts: Sparkling HDTV Reception is Available for Free

"The best possible HDTV pictures — no exceptions, no quibbles — come from those you get using an antenna. Here's why: When cable or satellite companies broadcast HDTV programming, they use compression techniques to get all that data into their comparatively narrow pipeline. Compressing the data is good for the folks who deliver the signal — it lets them cram more programming into the bandwidth available. It's bad for you. Hey, condensed milk tastes different from fresh milk, and condensed TV looks different from what you get if you didn't tamper with the signal."



I've been saying this for months. HDTV over cable sucks. There are a few exceptions, like Discovery HD, which almost always looks stellar. But for the most part, the HD signal I get from Time Warner is terrible. Dark areas turn into a macro-blocked mess, and fine details are lost in compression artifacts. Don't even get me started on the signal drops I've been experiencing, which I could write a book about. For me, the extra expense for HD over cable isn't worth it for the small amount of premium content that I actually watch (Law and Order on TNT, Discovery HD). As soon as I can get around to it, I'm dropping my HD service from Time Warner, and switching to a good old-fashioned antenna.