Jul 29 Podcast #489: MOHU Paper Thin HDTV Antenna
We’ve been talking about cutting the cord quite a bit lately. One of the primary components required is a TV antenna so you can pick up all the free digital goodness flying through the airways. If you are those lucky enough to live within 30 miles of your TV Transmitters then we have discovered probably the best thing you’ll ever plug into your HDTV. Its the paper thin HDTV antenna made by MOHU and it goes for $44 (Buy Now) and its made in the USA.
Listen to the show
Today's Show:
Blu-ray Reviews:
News:
- NPD: 3D Purchase Intent Takes A Tumble
- LG to launch 55in OLED TV next year
- HDTV Almanac - Zediva: Rent-a-DVD-Player Service under Fire
- Global VOD Revenue to Climb 58%
- Samsung-funded study finds 3D video causes extra eye strain, fatigue
- Lack of similar services means most Netflix customers sticking around
Other:
- Download the HT Guys Android App
- If you use Twitter, follow our friends @ovman24 and @randb44
- Help out with the UK Consumer Electronics Market Survey
- Fox Network to limit Web access to its shows
- What are Netflix and Hulu users watching, and how?
MOHU Paper Thin HDTV Antenna
We’ve been talking about cutting the cord quite a bit lately. One of the primary components required is a TV antenna so you can pick up all the free digital goodness flying through the airways. If you are those lucky enough to live within 30 miles of your TV Transmitters then we have discovered probably the best thing you’ll ever plug into your HDTV. Its the paper thin HDTV antenna made by MOHU and it goes for $44 (Buy Now) and its made in the USA.
The Mohu antenna looks like a lamented piece of paper with cable connected to it.
It is designed for indoor use only. If you use it outdoors it will eventually deteriorate.
Specifications:
- Dimensions 9 X 11.5 (inches)
- Cable Length 6 feet
- Connector 75 ohm F connector
- Pattern omnidirectional reception
Since the HT Guys live about 70 miles away from the TV towers for Los Angeles our tests we performed in Fresno CA. Ara’s in-laws live 20 miles from the TV towers which is right in the sweet spot of the antenna’s performance range.
Performance
We placed the antenna high on the wall behind the TV and then we connected the cable to the TVs antenna jack and hit scan.
The scan took about three minutes and found more than 50 digital channels.
It even found 6 analog channels which surprised us.
According to the MOHU instructions the antenna needs to be positioned with the cable pointing towards the floor. We found that this was the optimal as far as number of channels it could receive. However since Ara’s in-laws didn’t want the antenna hanging on the wall he simply threw it behind the TV and hoped for the best.
As it turns out, most of the channels still came through. Now Ara can watch football in HD when he visits his family.
Stress Test
For fun we did try to see if we could pick up any signals from our homes in South Orange County. We didn’t have high hopes so we weren’t disappointed when we only got one channel and that was from San Diego.
Conclusion
We have tested plenty of antennas, both indoor and outdoor, in our six years of doing this show. Many have made claims of being the best. Let the HT Guys be the first to tell you that the MOHU Paper Thin Leaf HDTV antenna is THE best indoor antenna we have tested!
Reader Comments (6)
I wanted to respond to the question about mkv conversion. First, it's a technical impossibility to convert audio or video to a different format without any loss in quality. Audio can be 'encoded' (not converted) losslessly but that's a process that’s only helpful for uncompressed sources. For video, all consumer formats are already compressed so losslessly encoding the file would save little if any space and wouldn't solve any codec support issues.
So that's the technical answer - you cannot convert a file without some loss in data, and thus some loss in quality.
Beyond the technical answer, it is possible to convert without any perceived quality loss. I use Handbrake (available for Macs and PCs) and its Constant Quality setting. Most people on the Handbrake forums say any Constant Quality setting lower (lower = better, logarithmic scale) than 16-17 is overkill and without benefit (users most commonly suggest somewhere between 18-21). I respectfully disagree and use 15 for my server files and the result is beautiful.
As mentioned earlier in the show, audio can be passed through in Handbrake without conversion - though the relevance of this to the current emailer depends on the audio format. Handbrake can convert to mkv or mp4 formats and unfortunately the mp4 container has limitations on what kind of audio formats can be included (I'm just going to take a wild guess that the emailer isn't terribly interested in converting from mkv to mkv).
A couple of Handbrake tips; first the Handbrake ‘motto’ is “speed, quality, size – pick two”. In other words, you can play with the settings to get faster conversions, smaller file size, or better quality, but never all three. I prefer smaller file sizes with great quality, so my computer takes forever to convert a movie – but in the end I get gorgeous files and can shrink an original blu-ray rip down as small as 3 GB. The other tip is that new users of Handbrake will want to do a single conversion with the desired settings and then test the resulting file on all devices they want to be able to play it on; some devices cannot play the more advanced audio/video codecs and some cannot play mkv files – converting a large number of files only to find out later that there’s an incompatibility problem would be incredibly frustrating.
If you're looking at HD content, vob files will be of limited use. Vobs cannot handle the AVC nor VC-1 video formats, only the rare Blu-Ray uses MPEG2 (of course, these are mkvs we're working with, but I'd assume the user hasn't already transcoded the video to MPEG2 in an mkv container - that'd imply a familiarity with conversion software which would render the original question moot). Vobs are also limited in audio formats, no advanced codecs allowed - DVD audio formats only. And finally, file sizes are limited to 1GB so an original Blu-Ray source with the appropriate video/audio formats will still result in about 20+ files to constitute the same content of a single mkv.
Of course if you're working with SD content and/or need a vob file, this may be just what the doctor ordered.
On a related note, if you're interested in remuxing the content in an mkv container (add/remove audio, video, subtitle streams), check out mkvtoolsnix. (I sometimes use it to edit scenes out of movies which are inappropriate for the eyes I expect will be watching.)
Good point, Brett, on the downside of using mkv2vob to create VOB files. I'll have to try Handbrake.
Thanks for the mkvtoolnix tip.
I listened to this episode and the one before it and was intrigued, I have a lot of similar in home antennas rusting away in the "frustration pile" so my ears pricked up. I went to their website and requested more info about compatibility with Australian signals and availability - I await a reply. If it works, I could see a place for this in a bedroom that does not have an antenna point. By chance I put ".au" in my domain searches and Ebay popped up with a seller but I just want to warn Australian listeners he has negative reviews.
FYI, based on the HT Guys rave review, I bought a MOHU antenna. It worked great! Thanks Guys!
Steve
Hey guys,
I bought my first indoor HDTV antenna 10 years ago used for about $15. There's no brand or model number, but it looks identical to the Channel Master 4149. It's not pretty, but it seemed to work well. When I listened to this show, I put the Mohu on my upgrade list. I finally got around to getting one, but when I did my comparison test I was disappointed. I live about 40 miles from the Boston towers, but I live on top of a hill with great visibility. I benchmarked the Mohu against the Channel Master using TiVo's signal tester(higher is better). Here are my results....
Channel, CM4149 Score, Mohu Score
2, 73, 55
4, 81, 46
5, 59, 48
7, 86, 58
25, 55, 20
I stopped at that point. It may be ugly, but I think the score justifies the ugliness. Perhaps if I got a signal amplifier the Mohu would catch up, but that would make the Mohu more cumbersome than what I have today.
Cheers.
john