Digital TV!!!

Today, I got my two $40 TV converter box coupons. One of my brothers got his as well.
After we researched a bit on the phone and on line. I decided to be the guinea pig and buy the cheapest, coupon accepted, converter available locally. There were supposed 2 at Walmart for $49.95, a Magnavox one and an RCA. When we got there only the RCA DTA800 was in available. So for $13 something after coupon, so I got it.

Some background:
I live in a stucco building, and the tv reception is what one might imagine from living in a chicken wire cage. I have a power rabbit ears that are huge and worked somewhat okay, until they fell off one too many times and now only 1 channel comes in with any consistency, the others are definitely full of ghosts. I had considered buying cable of local channels for $8 plus tax per month, and who knows how much installation, but as I really mainly watch PBS and a few other shows occasionally.

So I get home, open the box, can't get the remote to control my tv or vcr, but it controls my dvd player without my doing anything. So I decide to skip the universal remote thing, and just use the on screen programming to capture the channels. I had no idea how many channels here are digital but I knew PBS had at least 5 that were HD. Amazingly, every channel but one is digital, there are 19 channels (3 are dups) and 7 PBS channels!!!

The reception is great! I can see every seam in Sex in the City! ;-)

Draw backs:
The sound is not consistent from channel to channel, my tv's sound AI doesn't not seem to work so well with it. Occasionally a picture may break down into pixels for a moment or so.

Overall I am thrilled!!!