What do you get?

Do you live in an area with good over the air reception?

This is key to going OTA, but, there are some examples where streaming video alone is a good option. For instance, you're attending college away from home and don't really care about local news or sports and just want to see your favorite broadcast shows and movies. In this case streaming TV shows through Hulu and movies through Netflix, to your PC, may be all you need. Most people do want some local programming though, so this is not a typical case...

So how can you find out what channels you can get in your area?
A good way is to check this web site for a reception map of your area:
http://www.antennaweb.org/aw/welcome.aspx


Click the "choose and antenna" button and enter your address to see what stations you should (theoretically) receive. I say theoretically, because your tuner and antenna need to be up to the task. You also may need to mount your antenna on the roof of your building or nearby ridgetop to get the best reception.



A better way is to plug an antenna in to your TV and see what you get. This is of course more realistic (since it is *real*) but you will be limited by your tuner and antenna's capabilities. A cheap way to do this test is to get a pair or rabbit ears and plug them in to your TV input. You will probably need a 2 wire to coax converter (the cable your cable TV uses), since most current TVs have don't have a 2 wire input, only coax. The good news, is that even if you're reception is limited, you can probably do better with a proper external antenna.

Say you checked the map and hooked up a good antenna and do get some local channels OTA but not all the major networks - do you give up and stick with cable or satellite?  You don't have to.... consider supplementing your OTA reception with Hulu (or Hulu Plus) to fill in the gaps.


More on this later...