Hi-def cable with out cable box in San Francisco

yoyoyojo

I have Hi-def Comcast via the Comcast HD tuner, into my plasma I bought 3 years ago.

A friend in the same area has Hi-def Comcast without a Comcast tuner. He has some sort of security card and built in tuner. It took him a few weeks and a tech visit to his house to get it to work properly.

Another friend who lives in the City of San Franciso just bought a new lcd panel. He plugged the cable directly in to the tv. He did no configuration at all. he does not pay extra for digital cable or hd service. In fact he pays the minimum basic basic cable. He tells me he gets high-def signals. The hd channels usually a decimal. So regular channel 7 would be 7, hd channel 7 would be 7.1

I am surprised by this. I understand not having box, as per the first friend I mention. What i do not understand is it seems, at least in SF, the cable company is supplying HD signals for network channels as part of a basic service.

What's goign on here? Is the chanegthat is coming this year result in HD cable just being regular cable?

On a realted note: my old plasma doe snot have a HD tuner built in. Can I dump the Comcast tuner and get a generic one that I do nto have to rent? What abotu the DVR functionality (intigration with guide)

deadhead68

Most, if not all, cable companies include the locals in HD with just basic cable. It has always been this way, at least here in the Chicago market. Of course, your TV has to have an internal QAM tuner to do this. But if you want channels like TNT-HD, ESPN-HD, Discovery-HD, etc. you have to have a box or a cable card and pay for some sort of digital package.

Since your TV doesn't have a QAM tuner built in, you have only 2 choices.

1. Keep renting the box from Comcast.

2. Buy a Tivo Series III or Tivo HD box. They each have QAM tuners. But, you will have to pay a monthly subscription to Tivo which is probably more $$ than you are paying Comcast to rent their box.

DeadHead68

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