Digital vs Analog Cable

[JeffASaul]

I currently have Basic Cable with Comcast in NJ. I received an offer via the mail to upgrade to Digital for free and they are sending me a box. They told me that you cannot get digital HBO and OnDemand w/o a box. OK, I am going to put the free box on my main TV. Not sure if I need the box to get the service without HBO and OnDemand.

My main question is does SageTV (with Hauppauge 150) need a box to get all the normal digital stations. Right now my setup in my den is 1 cable jack in the wall, a splitter with a line to TV and a line to PC. Can I get one box and split off that to the TV and PC or does each thing need its own box? I don't care about having HBO or OnDemand in den.

[ke6guj]

A PVR-150 will not tune in any digital channels on its own. It would require a cable box (STB) to tune in the channels and then output them to the PVR-150 via either coax, composite, or s-video connections. It will still tune in the analog channels that are sent to you, usually all channels under 100 or so. The digital channels are the new, higher channels above 100.

You can't split the output from the STB to both the TV and the PC. YOu could, but the TV-user and the PC would both be fighting over what channel to watch. Basically unusable.

YOu have a couple options if you want digital cable into the PC. The first is to get a second STB and hook it up to the PVR-150. It would be able to record any channel you subscribe to, but would record in analog format. And no easy on-demand usage.

The second is to get a STB that has firewire ports. You could record from the STB via the firewire cable in digital format any subscribed channels that the cable company hasn't encrypted via 5C. That may be nothing available but your digital locals to having every paid channel available, all in digital format.

The third way is with a QAM tuner to record any unscrambled channels that the cable company sends out in the clear. That too can range from just your digital locals to much more than that. YOu'd probably never see your premium channels in the clear, how else would they get you to subscribe to them. Available QAM tuners include the external dual-tuner HDHomerun and a software package that would let you run internal QAM tuners on a networked PC.