Which Brand of Digital TVs Works Best With An Antenna?

Which reliable brand of digital TVs works best with an antenna?

For weak signals or multipath problems, LG/Zenith, Samsung or Sony are known to have excellent tuners. There are others. I would buy one of the above.

If you have to rotate the antenna to find all your channels, the above are suggested, too. They all allow you to find additional channels not found during the initial channel scan and add them to the first list of channels found. Some TVs do not have this important feature.

Eureka, I have found it (like Archimedes). That's a perfect answer. Thank you.

You're quite welcome. Good luck in your quest for improved free OTA viewing.

Which ones have you all had a bad experience with?
This is one of my peeves... I know of no store that has their TVs hooked to an antenna so you can do side by side comparisons! Remember back in the "OLD DAYS" they had at least rabbit ears you could try OTA with?

A blueray will look good on almost any TV.

Hi Folks,

I recently purchased an 37 inch LG DTV for my Mom. She lives about 60 to 70 miles northeast of Atlanta, GA. I hooked up the new TV to Mom's 20 year old outdoor antenna and antenna mast pre-amp. I was able to pull in most of the Atlanta stations and a few other closer stations. The picture quality is excellent. Mom was very happy.

I live in the Winston-Salem, NC area. I have an older wide screen Sharp TV. I love the picture quality for playing back DVDs but I really hated the built in digital tuner. Eventually, I purchased a Samsung DTB-H260F tuner. I am still very pleased with this tuner. I am feeding the tuner with an amplified (Channel Master 7777 pre-amp) homemade indoor antenna (about 5 feet above ground level) and I can reliably receive all of the local stations within a 40 mile radius.

Good Luck,
DTV Student

Originally Posted by RCA Sucks

Which reliable brand of digital TVs works best with an antenna?

The actual reception quality on a DTV tuner is directly related to which chipset the manufacturer chose to use in their receiver. Research into which chipset a given tuner uses is a direct indication of its ability to lock onto a given signal, and its ability to deal with multipath signals.

The later generation chipsets are in their 5th and 6th generation, and these versions deal with multipath much better than some of the older chipsets that are finding their way into some of the lower priced receivers and TV sets.

A minimum generation chipset would be 5th, and finding this information is sometimes a challenge, but it is doable, and greatly worth the effort to find this information before buying any TV set or receiver.

Originally Posted by FOX TV

A minimum generation chipset would be 5th, and finding this information is sometimes a challenge, but it is doable, and greatly worth the effort to find this information before buying any TV set or receiver.

How does one even begin to find this information. I see two problems even for those like me that are knowledge about hardware in general but not these specific chips.

1) How to identify to which generation a chip belongs.

2) Which chip is in a receiver.

I see this information given a lot and it's good advice from what I have read from those that know, but never a pointer the source of the information.

Originally Posted by MrPogi

Which ones have you all had a bad experience with?
This is one of my peeves... I know of no store that has their TVs hooked to an antenna so you can do side by side comparisons! Remember back in the "OLD DAYS" they had at least rabbit ears you could try OTA with?

A blueray will look good on almost any TV.

PC Richard in NYC has/had an antenna hooked up to their TVs in the store, at least they did when I was there last.

When Circuit City was in Union Square as well they had a few TVs with antennas hooked up. But this was even before Time Warner Cable had any HD at all...

A lot of stores don't even have cable, they just run all tvs from one or a few blu rays. While you can compare pictures side by side on blu ray, there's no way to really test drive a tv without an antenna or QAM cable. Most tvs provide a decent picture, but how the unit behaves when surfing channels is important. Does it switch channels quickly? Does a big box appear over the screen every time you change channel? How does it handle different formats? Nobody reviews these things, and if you can't see it for yourself in the store, you basically have to buy the TV to find out if you like it. Salesman would probably kill you after you came back to return your 5th 60" Plasma!

One more reason I buy online. Makes no difference whether you buy it in the store, except that the stores charge sales tax. But I still think PC Richard has theirs hooked up to OTA. I'll check the next time I go to a store. RadioShack may have also had some of their portable TVs showing OTA programming too, but I will never buy a TV from RadioShack...

n2rj wrote:

... "RadioShack may have also had some of their portable TVs showing OTA programming too, but I will never buy a TV from RadioShack..."
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n2rj,

Bingo. Did you read my earlier post here?

Jim

Radio Shack exploring sale and share buyback options (article)

LOL... you know (Radio)Shack has a bad rap among hams... They are handy in a pinch though, when I need stuff and I need it now. But even for that they are becoming less useful.

Ryan,
When my local Radio Shack opened in 1974 I was one of the first in the door but the manager and staff had no clue about what they were selling at all. Since then with rare occasions, I have not gone to that particular store ... however ... 35+ years later, the current store manager is both savvy and he is a strong OTA TV supporter! I genuinely hope the Radio Shack franchise doesn't fold.
Jim

I have owned some shack stuff. In the 70's I bought my first stereo from them. I could have gotten better for what I paid. Most of their stuff is overpriced, but My current OTA antenna is a $35 RS and its sweet!

You're right, staff ranges from pimply face kids without a clue to true electronics nerds. You can't keep those kind of people on the money they pay them.

They're changing for the worse. They want to sell you a cell phone, not electronic parts. I wish they were more like they used to be. That being said, I Don't know where else to buy a blister pack of 3 resistors (for $4.99!) without waiting for the mail, so I hope they don't fold or stop selling those overpriced parts!

If only FRYS would expand and have more stores. They have just about EVERYTHING I need. I ALWAYS go there whenever I go to Vegas! (I must be some kinda geek, huh?)

Pogi,
I spent my first 'real' paycheck at my 'new' Radio Shack store and I bought a 30 k-ohm/volt VOM. I still have it and its been one of the best and most used tools I own. I think it has survived so long because I keep it in a padded leather shaving-kit bag loaded with a variety of test leads and adapters. Back in the day, I preferred the Lafayette Radio stores because they had a much wider variety for sale including the Midland line and some Knight Kit, plus, one of their stores was two blocks away from Heathkit and a block away from an RCA Manufacturer's store where I could buy vacuum tubes without a delay. Of course, all three stores are long gone. Sigh...
Jim

They should change their name to "The Cell Shack", cause that is where they make most of their money !! Real electronics (Parts, components etc.) are from the dinosaur era, and we live in the days of disposable electronics that actually have an expiration date built into some of the software or hardware in some cases. Such is the case with high end commercial copier and toner assemblies that actually count the number of copies made, and then open a thermal fuse when that count is reached so that toner or OPC drum or some other part reaches their predetermined number, it has to be replaced.

As for my second HDTV my VIZIO 22 inch HDTV does a great job picking up DTV signals while using a RCA flat panel antenna with the amplifier. I can pick up on some nights WHIZ DT from Zanesville Ohio. (BTW I live in down town east side Columbus Ohio) It can pick up the LP DTV station WDEM that currently broadcasting a 1.05KW. The Samsung TV's are great.

RELATED QUESTION: I have a 23" Vizio, and I split the set-top flat antenna (w/rabbit ears) into 1)the TV and 2)the VCR for recording shows. It seems to me like the Vizio signal breaks up more than when I used to have a single antenna to analog TV. Does it need an amplifier? What type of amp would it need, and where would it go (before or after the splitter)? Are amps expensive?

My Samsung and Vizio HDTV's work quite well. I'm using a RCA Flat Panel antenna and I'm able to pull in all of the Columbus Ohio stations. Including a low power VHF station broadcast at 120 watts.