Basically the deal that cable and satellite companies want you to believe along with your local electronics stores (they get commissions for signing you up) is that you have to subscribe to cable or satellite to get HD Programming. This is simply not true. Basically all your local channels are free over the air through an antenna. You may laugh at this idea however cable and satellite providers compress and rebroadcast the same over the air signal that you can get yourself. All you need is an antenna, and an HDTV equipped with a digital tuner. Most markets have all the locals available in HD free over the air and the quality is better than dish and cable. This is especially great for those of you living in an area where dish doesn't provide your locals in HD yet you don't want to subscribe to cable to get them. The other trick is that if you don't want to mess with an antenna, your cable company by law can't encrypt the local channels, so what that means is that all you need is the cheapest $10 package and a TV equipped with a QAM tuner and you can get the locals through your cable provider without subscribing to HD programming or digital cable.
Digital TV Tuners were required to be placed in all TV's starting this past spring 26 inches or larger and actually even earlier for larger sets. This is all part of the mandate by congress that all over the air broadcast stations are digital, however this doesn't specify HD necessarily.
Refer to antennaweb.org to see what free over the air channels are available to you and what type of antenna (indoor or outdoor) you need. For me in Baton Rouge, I'm able to get ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, PBS all for free in High Def with a simple $30 antenna.
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