Meat Plow wrote:
On Tue, 05 Jul 2011 21:34:54 -0700, klem kedidelhopper wrote:

Recently we were notified by our local cable provider that they will
be eliminating the present analog service and going to all digital. I
realize the advantages this affords them and their digital customers.
However there are a great many of us who still have all our old
analog equipment, and don't give a rats ass about HD, never had and
never will. We just want to watch TV.
So now they tell us that even if we were to go out and purchae new
digital sets they won't work because the digital channels will be
"encoded" or scrambled if you will. Each analog device will need to
have a little converter, (a box a little larger than a pack of
cigarettes). This box will process the digital channels and provide
a channel 3 NTSC output. You can only get this box from them and it
must be rented every month.
Is this even legal? Why should anyone go out then and buy a new
digital TV with a tuner? You will be paying for a tuner that you
will never be able to use. Might as well just buy a monitor. Is
there any way around this? Thanks, Lenny

I forget what they call it here but to save bandwidth the cable "box"
only streams TV to your set on the channel you are watching. That way
your converter is not being sent bandwidth from every channel. Does
that make sense? It really doesn't to me since you can only watch one
channel at a time.

That can't be correct. How does the cable company know which channel you
want to watch? That's the only way bandwidth into the box could be reduced.
The only bandwidth reduction would be between the cable box and your TV set,
which is only getting channel 3 instead of the entire TV RF spectrum.
--
David
dgminala at mediacombb dot net