analog to digital converter box at radio shack

The coax cable is a different story though. It might have been installed during the Nixon administration, but antennas seem to hold up fine. That old antenna that came with your house will probably work fine for DTV. Through the magic of DTV, it might work fine. Note: You may want to try a cheap, Radio Shack indoor antenna before dropping the cash and time into a large antenna. Also, don’t forget to hook up a rotor to get those hard to reach stations. They provide better reception which could mean more stations. The large rooftop antennas do cost some cash, but they are an investment into your TV viewing pleasure. Even if you aren’t getting HDTV, but rather standard digital television off of a DTV converter box, you might as well get premium audio.ĭon’t be afraid to mount a large aerial antenna on your house. Use it if you have a surround sound system. Component is even better though with three cables dedicated to video and two to the audio.ĭid you know that most TVs that have a DTV tuner (ATSC) can also output digital audio over Toslink? Yeah, so can a lot of premium DTV converter boxes. You will be amazed at the picture quality difference over coax. These cables use three separate connections to split the audio into two streams and the video into one. It’s crap compared to the composite outputs. It’s worth the extra cash to get the better quality picture component provides even on an older tube TV.Įven if you opted to go with a standard DTV box, please don’t use the coax output. It can’t output HDTV resolution, but component will give you a better picture and only costs $69.99. For example, it has a component video output that isn’t found on standard DTV converter boxes. It has more video outputs and a quality remote. The DTVpal by Dish Network ( our review) is a great example of a higher-quality DTV converter box. Be warned though, you can’t use your voucher on some of these.

Spend a few dollars extra to get a more feature-filled converter box. These boxes were created under strict regulation so most of them should work just fine. The government is handing out $40 vouchers for DTV converter boxes, which in turn created a market for $40 DTV converter boxes.

Feel free to leave some of your own in the comment section below.

We’ve compiled a list of tips and tricks that will help ensure you’re getting the most out of DTV. The extra time hopefully means that more folks are ready. It was suppose to happen back in Februray but Obama and Congress delayed the transition a few months back. Really, it happens this Friday, June 12, 2009. The switch to all-digital television is almost here.

Analog to digital converter box at radio shack