What are some digital cable boxes that will give me HD?

[Mike_Lowery]

Right now I have an LCD TV with built-in HD, no digital service.

Is it possible to get all the digital channels if I buy my own box? What are some good boxes I would be able to cop off of ebay or amazon?

[Konaguy]

Re: What are some digital cable boxes that will give me HD?

Right now I have an LCD TV with built-in HD, no digital service.

Is it possible to get all the digital channels if I buy my own box? What are some good boxes I would be able to cop off of ebay or amazon?

Nope, nada, nil. As far as I understand, most of the digital and HD channels Oceanic offers are encrypted. On top of that, they require you to use their
own proprietary set top box to access the digital/HD channels.

That all being said, I think most of the local channels (KGMB,KITV, etc) should be available "in the clear" without having to get the digital set top box. There
is exceptions to that though. To get the CW (ch. 93) I believe requires a digital set top box

[Konaguy]

Re: What are some digital cable boxes that will give me HD?

A good start to answer your HD questions is here

[mel]

Re: What are some digital cable boxes that will give me HD?

One of the reasons why I have not adopted HDTV is the fact that I would need to RENT a set-top box from Oceanic. And I really don't want to. I'll hold out with my 77 channel analog for as long as I can since I do not need a set-top box and another fee on top of that.

Plus with digital what standard channels do they give you? More shopping crap in HDTV? More junk with infomercials? Yuck. DRM... I hate that.

If I were in an area where over the air was good, I'd dump cable and just get the free over the air (OTA) signal, since they will all be in digital by next year... and most already are today. But damn, the signals here in town get messed up with all the buildings and stuff.

At least analog. Anyone get OTA with digital in the urban core? It is so ironic that I can't get a decent OTA signal when I live so darn close to the major TV stations and their transmitters in town.

For entertainment and news purposes its almost come to a point where the additional channels from cable are not needed since most programs are eventually sold on DVD, several show up on YouTube and network websites, news can also be grabbed from the web, blogs, etc., and services and products like iTunes and Apple TV allow even more options.

[Mike_Lowery]

Re: What are some digital cable boxes that will give me HD?

Thanks for the info, Konaguy and mel.

I had a box for just today--got one from OTW just for the Pacquiao-Marquez fight. Watching every channel before the fight had me wondering if I could just get my own box and see all this stuff. Now I'm hating OTW even more. *SIGH* I'll just live with OTA HD channels. At least the NBA network is available that way.