HDTV Antenna

Getting Free HDTV in Santa Cruz?

Lots of people ask about getting off the Cable TV bandwagon and trying to get HDTV off-air signals in Santa Cruz County and while it’s not my business to tell them they should or shouldn’t. Here is what I’ve found when installing HDTV antennas.  If you are in an area that doesn’t have Comcast CATV, and you are on a mountain or hillside with a view of the Monterey Bay area, you will receive about 6-7 stations.

KQET-DT9.1  PBS  Watsonville, CA
KCBA-DT35.1  FOX  SALINAS, CA
KSMS-DT31.1  UNI  MONTEREY
KSBW-DT8.1  NBC  SALINAS, CAen
KION-DT46.1  CBS  MONTEREY, CA
KYMB-LD27.1  TBN  MONTEREY, CA
KLFB-LD21.1  IND  SALINAS, CA

Now realize that of these 6-7 stations, three of them are in Spanish.

A great resource for finding stations in your area is:  http://www.antennaweb.org for more information on what you might look for in the area.

Just a quick note to thank you for your prompt and professional installation of our
ZVOX sound bar and moving our flat screen TV up the wall from it’s original location.
I contacted ZVOX early wednesday morning and the wall plate parts were delivered
to my home on Friday….for free.

Your advise on installing the wall plate worked out very well as did the distance you moved
the TV up the wall.

Thank you for you service.

Richard Bergman

Lots of people use electricians to do their low voltage work. (Voice/Video/Data) as well as music and home theater. You have to remember that the electrical business really hasn’t changed in 20 years. Home Technology for entertainment, phone, and data is constantly changing. That’s what we specialize in.  I see contractors who don’t specialize in Home Technology mis-wire connections so that phones work but leaving the data that can travel with it unusable.  I see the wrong gauge speaker cable being used which results in more power being required to drive speakers (heating up amps, shortening life and reducing listening frequencies.  Lots of people who don’t do this everyday miss seeing the little things that will change in the next few years.

HDTV 3D

Lots of people have been asking about 3D television and how it works what they need and if they can use what they have to watch it.   Here is a short rundown:

How it works:

3D TV uses stereoscopic active shutter glasses. These glasses allow you to see through only one lens at a time and create an image for each of your eyes. Your mind merges these two images and allows you to perceive depth, making the picture on the screen appear 3D.

Although manufactures have agreed on the use of active shutter glasses, they have yet to agree on how the glasses synchronize with the TV. This means that glasses will not necessarily work across brands of TVs and that you should purchase glasses of the same brand as your TV. Not that big a deal, but it does mean if your friends come over to watch a 3D movie or sports with you, they may not be able to bring, and use, their glasses if they have a different brand of glasses than your TV. So you will need to be able to supply enough glasses for everyone that will be watching 3D TV.

What you need:

Player: Blu-Ray player or a Sony Playstation 3 (Many find the Playstation cheaper than the players) If you have a HDMI 1.3 and BD-Live (Profile 2.0) compatible Blu-Ray Disc player, there is downloadable software to update rather than having to buy a new Blu-Ray player. However, the image is not as sharp as the new HDMI 1.4.

Television: LG, JVC, Mitsubishi, Panasonic, Philips, Samsung, Sharp, Sony

Connectors: HDMI 1.4  (While HDMI 1.4 devices will be capable of transmitting 3D pictures in full 1080p, HDMI 1.3 does not include such support. As an out-of-spec solution for the bitrate problem, a 3D image may be displayed at a lower resolution, like interlaced or at standard definition.

Movie: 3D Movie (Blu-Ray) Lots of choices and more coming every day.

Glasses: Active shutter glasses from the maker of your television are the wise choice here.

We serve the Santa Cruz county area from the Summit Woods to Watsonville and from Bonny Doon to the top of Rodeo Gulch!