Why do we require HDTV antennas?
Recently, HDTV has increasingly become a well recognized household name. As you surely know, HDTV stands for High-Definition Television which means that the broadcast image has a much higher resolution than a standard television broadcast.
HDTV antennas enable us to receive HDTV transmissions through the air and not through a cable company. The term HDTV antenna is actually misleading, since there is no such thing: your antenna merely requires having certain qualities in order for it to be the best HDTV antenna. We won’t go through the technical specifications since this is really not relevant for this post’s purposes.
There are several types of HDTV antennas: directional/multi-directional and indoor/outdoor.
Directional antennas are antennas that need to be directed in a very precise location (the direction where the broadcast comes from). Multi-directional antennas are not subject to this requirement, and can be used to detect signals from multiple directions (one such example is the db8 antenna).
As you can probably guess, hdtv indoor antenna are much more convenient for the consumer as they are placed indoors. This comes at a cost: every time you change the channel, you must need to slightly alter the antenna’s orientation. Outdoor antennas are - as you probably guessed - placed outdoors. On average, the reception they provide is better than that of indoor antennas.
When you buy an antenna, make sure it fits with your precise needs. The most important thing to remember is that although HDTV antennas are the most inexpensive component of your HDTV system, their likely effect on your HDTV reception is significant.