HD with a Picture
About a month ago I bought a 32″ Vizio LCD and for what I bought it for I really like it. It’s probably the best budget LCD on the market, but it surprisingly didn’t come with a digital antenna. Shopping around I found a lot of HD antennas all of which were pretty big and took me back to the days of bunny ears. While I was watching the recently bought Revision3 tech show Tekzilla they plugged Antennas Direct’s PF7 Picture Frame Antenna. I thought it was a clever idea and purchased the $50 dollar antenna.
From a quick glance you would never know the picture frame was actually an antenna (well, except for the black coax cable protruding from the bottom). The frames quality itself feels cheap, but you wouldn’t be able to tell from looking at it.
Setup is easy and requires screwing in a F-type connector (typical cable connection) to the back of your TV and scanning for a digital signal. On the Vizio it took about five minutes for the scanning to complete and the antenna found 14 digital signals.
The reception with the antenna is pretty good and the picture is much better than anything DirecTV’s (non-HD) receivers produce. I did find that if the antenna cord was touching another cord or it was bent the TV picture would pixelate. It’s typical for an antenna so I recommend cleaning up the back of your TV. Compared to analog television, the digital picture has deeper colors especially in the greens and blacks. It’s not Blu-ray quality and it’s not Apple TV quality, but it’s pretty good. Watching Conan the other night, I could actually see the fines strips on his suit, something I would have never seen on an analog signal.
The PF7 Picture Frame Antenna is a great buy if your TV doesn’t have a digital antenna included. The Picture frame aspect maybe a gimmick, but having long bunny ears shooting from the back of my TV is something I want to keep behind me.
Any ideas for what I should put in the picture frame?
