On Wed, 7 Jan 2009 05:31:06 -0500, "Eisboch" wrote:


wrote in message
...

On Jan 6, 11:53 pm, "Eisboch" wrote:
"Mike" wrote in message


As long as the tv is digital ready you are ok.. it's only older tv's
that will be effected. If the tv works now with cable from the wall,
it is digital and you will not have a problem if I understand
correctly..

--------------------------------------

I don't think that is true. The older analog TVs work now connected
directly to the cable (no box) because the cable company also provides an
analog signal in addition to digital.

The reason I asked is because the people living in the assisted living place
that my mother is in are all concerned that their older analog TVs won't
work. Most of them are on fixed incomes and have basic cable service that
does not require a cable box. I've tried to decipher the Comcast
advertisements on the subject and they are not very clear. They say, "if
you are a cable subscriber" you don't need to do anything, and the ads show
a TV connected to one of their boxes.

I guess the real question is, "How much longer will the cable companies
continue to provide the analog signal on their cable lines?" I suspect
that eventually (if not starting this February) that they will phase out the
analog signal and do everything in digital. It only makes sense because
analog consumes much of the bandwidth capacity of cable and they want it for
other things (like digital voice for telephone). If my assumption is
correct, then anyone with an analog only TV will eventually require either a
cable box from the cable company, a digital to analog converter box or a
digital TV.

Meanwhile, this is funny. I made a copy and sent it to my mother.

http://www.eisboch.com/digitalconversion.wmv

Eisboch

Rich, tell your wife to get those folks to apply for the $40 coupons! Hell,
the boxes are almost giveaways once you have the coupon. Here's an idea of
what they cost.

http://tinyurl.com/5f3wnl

I ordered from them last night. Ended up ordering two of them, the Zinwell
and the Tevax. With the coupons, the totol cost was about $34, for both.
About $13 of that was shipping.