Best Terrestrial/OTA HDTV Setup For an Apartment?

thesandbender writes "I don't watch TV but keep an HTPC for watching movies. One of my relatives is very ill and I'll have a lot of family rotating through my apartment and I'd like to have a few more options for entertainment. I'm running Vista MCE and bought a Hauppauge HVR-1800 with a DB8 HDTV antenna and I've used AntennaWeb to point the DB8 in the best direction. The results have been terrible and I'm looking for recommendations / suggestions for hardware and setup. I am on the first floor of a three-story apartment building and I can't mount any external antennas (I know this is a major issue). Thankfully almost all the transmitters are located in the same place so a good, compact directional antenna might be effective. And please... no platform bashing. They all have their issues (I have a lot of h.264 encoded files... hardware/GPU acceleration on Linux is very, very limited at the moment)."

Only solutions...

[Lumpy]

1- violate your lease and get your antenna higher.
2- get cable tv.

sorry but you cant find a magical antenna that will pull in signals without getting it off the ground. you have to get an antenna into the air and away from obstructions. you can try to get a pair of high gain UHF bowtie array antennas from wineguard or channelmaster, but those will look very ugly and take up 4 feet by 3 feet in your sliding glass door.

Idea

[legoman666]

Put a cheap antenna on the roof for the time being and run a small/thin copper wire (or something not easily visible on the outside wall of your apartment) down the side of the building and through a window.

Or just get cable for a few months.

A movie library

[Anonymous Coward]

The best movies are not playing on TV in general anyway.

Get fast internet and have a selection of streaming movies and tv shows from the internet.

HD is only all that great for movies that can actually use all that extra detail such as documentaries and such. I wouldn't focus on HD as much compared to selection for overall entertainment value.

Sounds like your best option is to bribe the landlord to get something better setup. For most people that's cable or FIOS but I guess you can't get them ??

A media library of movies and TV shows might be your most practical method. Hard drive capacity has gotten so huge and cheap it's not hard to have an endless supply of new content ready to go and easily searchable.

A netflix account might help, but in general you want to target the viewing audience, that is get stuff people in the house tend to like.

TV is only so rewarding for anything beyond lots of stream of mediocre programming. That's why god made movie channels and DVD's :P

Re:I like your style, young man

[jellomizer]

what does Vista crappy command line interface have to do about TV. It is really about the right tool for the right job. And sometimes GASP! Linux isn't the right tool for the job. It is not that it can't do the job adequately (TiVo has proven that (However TiVo took advantages of Linux's strength to be a good appliance OS (Yes I have programmed in LISP))) but it is not really the right tool for the job, Espectailly if you just want to get it up quickly and running right, with little effort. Normally if you get new hardware they tend to have drivers for Windows, Linux is hit or miss. While I am a Mac Fan myself it isn't always the best solution for these type of things as there is chance the OS will not support it like Linux and the fact that you kinda need to choose from Apple brand hardware which has gaps in its offering making it difficult to get the right computer for your needs. For this case Vista is probably the best choice.

Re:I like your style, young man

[AlterRNow]

Woah! *ducks*

I didn't intend on enticing that sort of response. I didn't even mention Linux ( except for quoting ). I was merely making a joke about the above-acceptable hardware requirements to run Vista.

However, I will make a small rebuttal. Vista is not always the right tool for the job. OS X is not always the right tool for the job. Linux is not always the right tool for the job.. but it is flexible enough to be.

And hardware support has always done me well in Linux, even with a random USB wireless dongle I was given during a trip worked without any issue or fuss. I do understand that not everyone has such a good experience.. yet :)

NetFlix

[BitterOldGUy]

Netflix has a $99 box (one time)+ monthly fee [netflix.com] that will allow you to get on demand movies from them. They have other plans coming that will work on other devices - I can't find the link for that one.

Or, get an unlimited borrowing plan and take out a bunch of movies at a time.

Re:Idea

[Lumpy]

That will not work. you MUST use RG6 or better (I suggest RG6 Quad Flooded for best HDTV antenna installs.)

running a thin copper wire will simply make him get crappy reception. you have to run the right stuff for the right job. and that's RG6...

Hulu + Netflix + Basic Cable

[Brit_in_the_USA]

A combination of Netflix , Basic cable and Hulu keep me very happy. Hulu(.com) has some of my favorite shows within a day of going out on air (Daily show etc.), netflix has instant streaming of old movies, and latest movies by DVD, basic cable has all the major networks. Cable modem Internet + basic Cable analogue channels should be $30 a month if you stand your ground with the cable company - they desperatly want to give you basic cable if you sign up with internet in my area.

Re:I like your style, young man

[AlterRNow]

Gah, ignore that. I just realised what you meant and you're right, it isn't a rebuttal.

Re:Platform bashing

[dave420]

Telling the truth != bashing. Just because you don't like it, doesn't mean it's bashing. He has a point.

Re:Only solutions...

[Cramer]

Can you say "installation fees"? I knew that you could.