Over The Air Hdtv

Winegard, a longtime leader in TV antenna products and technology partnered with Dotcast, a broadband communications and datacasting technology provider in early 2004 to develop new over-the-air HDTV antenna technology. At CES, we got a glimpse of Winegard's SS-3000, its first indoor/outdoor HDTV antenna using Dotcast's "e-field" technology. Targeted at metropolitan and urban customers who experience multipath distortion and multiple reflections of incoming DTV/HDTV signals as they bounce off buildings and other structures, the Dotcast technology effectively examines multipath signals, rejecting weaker out of phase signals, zeroing in on receiving the best DTV/HDTV signal possible.

The Dotcast e-field technology is proven and currently implemented in Disney's MovieBeam on-demand movie service receiver. Dotcast's "Ultra-Low Noise Amplifier" combined with Winegard's "Scatter Plane" technology is claimed to provide much better signal to noise ratios (less than 0.5dB) than competing products, and delivers an average beam-width of 65 degrees and a front-to-back ratio of 6.5dB. The SharpShooter's plastic enclosure is about 27" wide and 5 inches high. It can be placed indoors or mounted outdoors without grounding wires. Able to receive signals up to 30 miles from the transmit source, company reps claim to have received signals successfully up to 75 miles away when mounting the SS-3000 in front of a window indoors. Winegard says that reception is much better than other low-cost and small form-factor directional indoor HDTV antennas such as the Zenith Silver Sensor.

Dotcast's antenna technology uses an electric field ("e-field") sensing structure that is coupled to an electronic amplifier. The resonate characteristics of the e-field antenna design permits a small antenna that resonates throughout the entire VHF/UHF band-pass (channels 2 through 69). Dotcast says its patent-pending amplification technology delivers clear, distortion-free signals even in the presence of strong transmitters blasting TV, FM, cellular, and other signals. Dotcast further claims the technology in Winegard SS-3000 performs as well as a traditional five foot log-periodic antenna coupled with a low-noise amplifier, and that it works equally well for analog NTSC as well as DTV signals. The SharpShooter SS-3000 is expected to be priced between $99 and $129 and available in the first quarter 2005. We can't wait to test it!

Copyright © 2005 Ziff Davis Media Inc. All Rights Reserved. Originally appearing in PC Magazine.

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