HD Locals... Laws, and Regulations...

[Curtis Farris]

Ok here in Topeka, we have CBS, and NBC in HD. I thing that ABC is going to be in HD sometime soon but not soon enough to watch the bowl games, and as for Fox, they are way behind the game. Does anyone know, since my local Fox station is owned independantly, if there is a way I can get Fox on my Dish Network in HD from another market? I called a few weeks ago before I knew my Fox was independantly owned, and they told me that some law had just been passed and that prevented anyone from getting channels from other markets... This is so frustrating because Nascar is a month and a half away and last year every race but 3 were in HD, and this year I am thinking that I will be missing out on the whole first half of the season's HD coverage...



Any help would be awesome... Everyone here is very helpful, and I always get great answers from this website, so thanks again!



Birdy

 

[Danny Mas]

i have dish network but i am lucky to get all the channels in hd. your best bet is what i did when i had directv a few years ago and had a similar situation to yours. just get an over the air hdtv antenna which will get the local channels free how it is just like a regular rabbit ear. run that cable directly into the aux input on your hdtv receiver with dish network. it will p/u the over the air local channels (fox, cbs, pbs, wb, abc, ect_. the ant might run about $30-100 depending how good of one you want. just go into bestbuy or circuit city and they can help you out. hopefully that helps



danny

 

[Jeff C]

How far away should the local channels work? I'm about 50 miles from the nearest "big" city. I was planning on an OTA antenna at first, then when we talked to DirecTV, they said we could put in a waiver for local HD channels. They said it could be a week or a month. I honestly don't care about local news, I just want to be able to watch sports and watch my weekly shows like House and CSI in HD. I was looking at the Terk HDTV-S, but at $150 I'd like to know it's gonna work before I buy it.

 

[Thomas Rogers]

Jeff C, go to antennaweb.org to see how your OTA reception would be given your address:

 

[Jeff C]

Yeah, TJR, I tried that. It shows that I would get no HD OTA channels.



Then I went to http://www.avsforum.com/ and they have a section about OTA and discussions for most major cities in the country, and it looks as though there are some people nearby that are getting OTA channels using different antennas than the ones available at BB. One of the antennas I'm now looking at is only $60 shipped, and there are people in my area who seem to be having luck with it. I'm trying to contact one of them to see if I can get some actual info before spending any money.

 

[Thomas Rogers]

JeffC,



Yeah, I spend a lot of time on avsforum (I am in that biz too) and you can't beat the info there. If some nearby are getting signals it is best to figure out their rigs.



Stillm the fact that antennaweb says nay on a signal for you is clearly NOT a good thing.



Good luck.



I have HD through Comcast cable and love it...the service, and the stations that is. The bill on the other hand sucks. I probably could get OTA pretty readily (zip: 18960)



TJR

 

[Jeff C]

Yeah, we have DirecTV HD, but we don't get Fox, CBS, NBC, etc, and it was no fun yesterday watching my team in standard def. I haven't cut the cable off yet, and will probably have it on for another month or so depending on how soon we get those channels. I don't care if they're from LA, NY, whatever, I just want my shows....lol

 

[Bill V]

Birdy--



I don't know about the laws or anything like that--but do you know anyone in an area that has Fox in HD? If so, and it's important enough to you to justify the cost, might you be able to use a Slingbox? I thought I had heard that there were now versions of Slingbox available that are HD compatible. I may easily be mistaken, though.



Regarding danny's response--to my knowledge, everything he said is correct; however it's of no help to you if your local Fox affiliate isn't broadcasting in HD OTA.



Otherwise, you may be SOL for the next 25 months. (ATSC broadcasting is required by February 2009, and NTSC goes away. Hopefully the feds don't chicken out and back off from that deadline.)

 

[Mark Grumpy]

Birdy,

check with Dish again if you have not lately. A buddy of mine here in SA just got Dish and has all the locals come in through the Satellite. I've had DirecTV for a year and had to get an off air antenna for locals because neither offered it. Point being, the Sat companies change their line up often.



Aren't Direc and Dish one and the same now??



grump

 

[Bill V]

grumpy--even if Dish is airing the local channels, if those local channels aren't broadcasting in HD, Dish isn't going to have them in HD. And that's what Birdy is seeking.

 

[Mark Grumpy]

Bill,

Maybe, I misspoke a little - some of the "locals" on the HD are not actually locals They may or may not be from a local source. What's the correct term, affiliate? Head office? - not sure.



Anyway, Birdy's primary concern, FOX (the NASCAR is much better so I understand his want) on DISH is NOT local although the local FOX does broadcast HD on air, which is what I have. My bud has DISH which shows FOX from Austin (I think from Austin), and other "locals" from local.:blink: Now I'm confused :huh:



EDIT: Checked Dish and DirecTV websites and neither offers "locals". May have to go the routs JeffC mentioned:

when we talked to DirecTV, they said we could put in a waiver for local HD channels.

grump



edited again for missleading spell checker :lol:

 

[Bill V]

grump, I follow you now. I didn't realize either Dish or DirecTV use non-locals on ABC, NBC, CBS, or FOX, unless you are in an area that is not serviced by a local affiliate for those stations. Must be a recent change--when I was on DirecTV (ended about two years ago), because I live within range of local affiliates of all four of those networks, the only versions of those networks they could provide me was the local affiliate--regardless of whether those stations had/have HD or not.