Morgans wrote:

"Newps" wrote


It is also irrelevant for the vast majority of people. If you have cable
TV or satellite the changeover is a nonissue. It only matters if you are
getting your signal over the air such as by using rabbit ears.


How so?

Most of the cable system's local channels are picked up from over the air
broadcasts, and then transmitted to the user over the cables. If there is
no analog signals being broadcast, the signal being sent to the consumer
will be analog. That will require a converter, then.

It is irrelevant how your provider gets their signals or in what form
they get them. I have satellite. All satellite signals(Directv and
Dish) are digital. All older satellite boxes output analog only
signals. These would be the cable jack, RCA jacks and the S Video jack.
Newer boxes eliminate the cable jack but keep the other two. My
current generation Directv HD boxes do this. They also output in
digital format as well, these being component video, DVI and HDMI.
Cable TV is virtually the same. Standard cable is analog. Digital
cable is of course digital but the box will output both formats just
like satellite.



Are you thinking that the cable system will be using boxes that will have a
built in analog output? I have not heard that that is what they will do;
have you?

They do this now.




If that is so, I will still have a problem. I have 1 TV in the house hooked
to the box, with the rest using the raw cable signal, to provide independent
viewing, at least up to channel 77. I would still need converters for those
channels.

I am not aware of any cable system that allows direct hookup of digital
cable right to the back of the TV without first going thru a converter
box. It's certainly possible but I think the hangup is a lack of a
standard. So you're forced to run it thru the box first and the box
simply converts it to channel 3 or 4 if you have an analog TV.