HVR-1600 at Circuit city on sale

[pcostanza]

If you only get half the channels available to you, the antenna or its positioning is probably the culprit. My stations are all grouped together 20 miles away except for one oddball about 40 degrees in a different direction. Using a DB4 clone 180-ish-degree antenna, I can get them all adequately, but aiming more towards one station or the other causes signal loss on the other one.

If that 36" TV isn't HD and you already get a good analog signal, that would explain not much picture quality difference. But if you watch HD even on your computer monitor, it should be night and day. To not see any difference even with downconverted HD to the 36" you must have a good analog signal.

On the same system I'm trying the 1600 on, I also beta test the OCUR for MS and I definitely can tell the difference between the analog stations and the HD stations coming from my cable company (QAM). Yes, it's a big difference. You can actually see more of some peoples faces than you want . :p
I didn't shop around for antennas but got the most expensive of the 3 that CC had. I don't do anything different as far as moving it around when testing it between GBPVR, Medica Center and WinTV. I also tried to position it to direction of the stations based on the info I got from http://www.antennaweb.org/aw/welcome.aspx.
I do admit that I'm a green newb at this so I may even try some tin foil on the ends and see how that goes.

[nitrogen_widget]

I mainly got the HD card so I can record all the new episodes of my favorite network TV shows when they finally air & watch them on my LCD monitor hooked up to my PC.

This way I don't fill up the TIVO & the wife doesn't yell when there is no room.

I was running into conflicts with my single SD tuner hooked up to the directv.
Usually with a network show & a cable show.

[Deusxmachina]

On the same system I'm trying the 1600 on, I also beta test the OCUR for MS and I definitely can tell the difference between the analog stations and the HD stations coming from my cable company (QAM). Yes, it's a big difference. You can actually see more of some peoples faces than you want . :p

I was thinking something was wrong in the setup somewhere was all and that you were missing out. I used to have GBPVR hooked to a 27" analog TV but it was getting an HD signal, and that looked great for primetime shows. On a clear day I can get a heck of an analog signal OTA, and while I don't think non-HD digital is "better" compared to a good analog signal, the downconverted HD shows just have that extra clarity to them.

And 1080 on a big 1080 display... oh yeah. If someone doesn't have a big 1080 display, hey, just sit closer.

nitrogen's post reminds me of a Tivo forum thread I saw the other week about how the Tivo was causing relationship problems with the husband and wife because she kept saving all these shows she never would get around to watching, and it was running out of room, and then it got into how it was paid for with one person's money and not "our" money, etc. The replies tended towards, "Dude, either get another wife, or get another Tivo."

Just was surprising to read how such big problems could be caused by such a little device.