The consumer press has picked up on the secret of how the best HDTV picture available can be had with a set of rabbit ears. The Arizona Republic has a lengthy story describing how HD service from a pay provider differs from the over-the-air signal.
“From a pure engineer’s standpoint, the digital or high-def signal you get off the tower to your TV set is a lot sharper than when it's passed through something else,” the story quotes Art Brooks, president of the Arizona Broadcasters Association, saying.
Brooks and local TV station executives suggest that people try using their existing antennas before doing anything drastic to receive DTV. Ed Munson, general manager of KPHO-TV, the CBS affiliate in Phoenix, tells the paper that signal compression results in a loss of quality.
“You really see it on DirecTV,” he said…. “They compress the hell out of our signal.”
