Free HDTV for you and me!

So I recently moved to a new condo and we dont have a TV and are not going to get one anytime soon. So I thought I would try to get free HDTV. Several HDTV channels are broadcast over the air for free. And supposedly they are not compressed streams like when you get HDTV over cable or satellite and the image quality suffers apperently. So I picked up a NewPoint HDTV Antenna and a KWorld HDTV USB Tuner from Outpost.com

I headed over to AntennaWeb.org where I found out what channels I should be able to recieve, what type of antenna I shoud use, and what direction to point it in.

In theory it should have worked, but no matter what I tried, I could not get a good signal on most of the channels. Most of them were fuzzy, and I couldn't even get any HD channels. I have heard of other people getting channels but they were not in Downtown San Diego like I am, they were closer to the actual television station broadcasters.

Currently there are limited options for getting HDTV to your computer from cable or satellite. What you need to look for is a QAM HDTV tuner. Dvico makes such a product but you still can not view encrypted channels which might include HBO and premium channels.

If you are looking to watch HDTV on your computer, it would be best to wait for the technology to mature. Check the AVSForum website to do further research.