HDTV ON COX

[TBEAR]

Just wanted to pass on a little information.

About six months ago I was finally able to afford an Hdtv and bought the Sony Wega with the built in hdtv tuner. I did alot of reading on hdtv to learn some things about and how it worked and researched numerous tvs before buying. I chose the sony due to the high pixel count for the hd and its built in tuner to hook up an outside antenna.

I hooked up an open air antenna, (regular old antenna but it is a special made uhf antenna for catching the hd air frequencies), in my roof and was able to pick up local 10, 3, fox, and lpb. I then spent an extra 11 dollars with cox for their 12 hd channels and a dvr box.

I dont know if any here have seen hdtv in action but talk about make a difference. The clarity/sharpness is unbelievable and well worth the 11 dollars a month with the digital video recorder box from them. They have a discovery hd channel with the cox plan and discovery has special programs that just show scenery of locations around the world. One word describes it best, awesome. And as you can see by my avatar I like nascar, the races are incredible.

So as these things come down in price anyone who was considering purchasing one wont be dissappointed as more and more tv signals will be in digital and hd modes. the old analog signals are slowly being weeded out.

[zoe10850]

I have come to the same conclusion; the Sony looks like the best one available. I have to break down and get one soon. The analog is a dinosaur and we all will have to go to HDTV.
There is no comparison as far as picture/sound quality.

[TBEAR]

I ended up checking with consumer reports with the various models and that helped make my decision along with viewing the different models at best buy and circuit city. the repair factor was low with the sony in consumer reports, it had the best picture in my opinion, and the option of the internal hd converter was great. Most all are widescreen (16:9) now, so when you watch regular televsion (4:3) there are black boxes on each side of the picture. the sony has four different views that will enlarge the screen to fit so you dont have the boxes on the side.

I did note one thing with the dvr box which automatically comes
from cox if you order hd, the picture in the lower analog channels, 2 - 68, are not as crisp as if you ran your regular cable connection into the tv. I found out the reason after research and talking to some of the cox linesmen. The dvr box, which is a digital box hd converter, tries to convert the analog signal to digital which causes some minor screen fuzziness in the lower channels but the digital channels are crisp. Its not too bad but what I was able to do with the sony is split the connection out of the wall and go into the tv's cable coax input connection for basic cable and the lower channels. the other side of the split goes to the coax dvr input on the box which then connects from the dvr to the five rca jack inputs for hd on the sony. (cox supplies the five wire rca connector cable for dvr to hdtv in, with hd there are 3 videos and 2 audios, not just 1 video and two audios) Using the tv control I can switch from dvr to regular cable to watch the analog channels a bit clearer. Anytime now cox's lower channels are supposed to be going digital also which most analog tvs will need to buy a down converter to switch the digital signal back to analog for the tv to pick it up. all local digital channels are like 3.1, 10.1, 3.2, etc, which means a regular analog tv cannot tune to these decimal numbers only the whole number 3, 10, etc

I can also switch to my open air antenna, which plugs into the antenna coax input in on the rear of the sony, for the free hd 3.1,10.1,pbs, fox, when I want, 3 also has a full time weather radar screen at 3.2 which comes in handy time to time.

The difference between hd and digital is the screen ration and the signal. on the widescreen tvs when a program is in hd it will fill the screen, when in digital it will be regular 4:3 format, with black bars on the side, but way more clearer than analog. Usually commericials, the local news, and some minor programs are only digital not hd therefore it doesnt fill the screen and give that almost 3d effect, like you were actually there, as hd programming.

Forgot to mention too that the sony has a memory stick input on the front of the tv so if you have a sony digital camera which uses their memory stick you can plug the stick right into the tv and view your pictures from your camera as a slideshow or one at a time.

Alot of tvs dont have the built in converter like the sony which you have to buy seperately if you want to watch open air anetenna hd. If someone is not worried about connecting an hd antenna then dont worry about the internal converter because if you get the cox hd their box is the converter.

Heres a link to one kinda like mine but this is a newer model, they sell them at best buy and circuit city i just chose the crutchfield link because it has alot of pictures of it that slow shows the rear connections, how slim it is, and it also only weighs 80 pounds, i couldnt beleive it when i brought it home and put it in place compared to my old big screen that rolled around the floor and weighed a ton. You can also see how it uses one bulb for the lcd picture instead of three colored guns like the old big screens. But shop for them because one place may be 300 dollars different than the other.

www.crutchfield.com/S-Hm7G2X6VcR6/cgi-bin/ProdView.asp?g=147350&I=158KD50A10

None of the new lcds come with a stand either and dont buy the stand for from sony its $300.00. If you dont have something to put it on already at home, when i bought my tv at circuit city they have plenty generic stands for about $100.00.

I hope I didnt bore anyone just trying to pass info on to help someone if they are looking at buying one. In my opinion once you see hd in action its like a whole other world of entertainment and well worth the money.