You apparently verified that you can receive the basic TV channels off the cable line entering your house that is connected to your cable modem by hooking up a TV. There is no "box" involved. All you need are a splitter or splitters connected as I indicated in my previous post. You usually want a 2 way after the cable enters the house to seperate for TVs and cable. Then, if necessary to split it more, you split the TV one again as needed. You can also usually split the cable side again, but only if it's necessary. Go to RadioShack and tell them what you want to do and they will have the splitters and cable. ========================================================================
I'd agree. Find a real electronics store and get decent splitters and cable - as well as someone who might actually be able to spell "electronics".
If you think most of the staff at the home centers know less than you do, you should try to get advice from someone at a Radio Shack.
It usually takes me a couple of days to feel good about myself again after I get lazy and go to a Radio Shack instead of driving downtown to the *real* electronics store.
I don't know what you mean by "real electronics store". In many places, like here in NJ, all you have today are stores like Radio Shack, Best Buy, PC Richard, or some other regional retailers which sell not only electronics, but stuff like appliances, air conditioners, etc. I guess you could go to a high end audio/video store for a splitter, but somehow I doubt they are going to have splitters that are superior to those at Radio Shack or that it's going to make a difference in hooking up a cable modem and TV. More likely, it's the same stuff made in China, marked up 3X over what it costs at Radio Shack.
I can't recall having a problem with splitters or COAX not working and I've bought them from a variety of places like Radio Shack, HD, Walmart, etc. There are probably a hundred million of these settups done by the average Joe just buying the stuff at any local store.
All I know is I bought the best splitters I could buy at The Source (formerly Shack in Canada) and I had issues with both my digital TV and my internet. I called in the cable company, they said throw that $HIT as far as you can throw it - replaced the splitters with theirs, and everything has worked perfectly since.
You how many people lament the absence of the Mom and Pop hardware stores, with the wooden floors, the drawers full of individual nuts and bolts and an owner that actually knows how to fix things?
Not only do we still have a few of those in my neck of the woods there are also 2 electronic stores of the same ilk. One's in an old house with a couple of apartments upstairs, the other's around the back of old brick warehouse type building.
I've seen Radio Shacks come and go in various locations in our area, but the "real electronics stores" somehow manage to hang in there. Maybe it's because they sell quality stuff at decent prices.
I've bought stuff at these stores that the staff at Radio Shack have never even heard off. I needed a thermal fuse for a toaster oven once and the guys at RS got all crossed eyed when I showed them what I needed. The guys at the electronics store looked up some numbers in a book, sold me an equivalent and I was on my way.
A TWC tech was over a few years ago. When he saw the first splitter that I installed to split the TV cable to their set-top box and to my amplifier - a splitter I bought at HD - he replaced it with a splitter with a Time Warner cable label, stating the HD stuff is crap.
I've had an HD splitters cause crappy reception on long runs. Tried more than one with no luck. Bought one at the electronics store and the picture cleared right up.
I don't doubt that some stores like that exist, but I don't think they are practical for most people to go to as was suggested.
Around here, NJ, we have several electronics distributors too. But they are located over an hour away, handle industrial accounts, don't have a retail store, have order minimums larger than a splitter and a couple lengths of coax, and don't have people standing around to give advice to walk-in customers.
You could order the stuff via the web, but it doesn't seem that critical to me when all you're hooking up is a cable modem and a TV. Obviously millions of people have done it and got it working.
Those channels may be available on digital, and not encrypted. Most newer TVs can tune them. However, you won't get a guide. You'll have to look around and figure out what is what. Cable co. may change it at any time.
My parents have what you might consider *worse* than no guide. The have Comcast basic cable (no box) and they have that one channel with a scrolling grid as the guide. Not only do you have sit there and wait until the channel/show you are looking for comes scrolling around, you can't even watch another channel at the same time. I don't know which channels are which on their system so I used to have to sit there (in pain) trying to find ESPN or whatever. It was brutal!
I finally printed out all of their channels from the internet so at least I can find the channels, even if I can't find out what show is on when.
Uh, don't bet on it. Unless the TV has a slot for the card from the cable company (which amounts to a box), TV likely won't even see them as valid channels. OTA digital is not the same as cable digital. Even for non-encrypted channels, cable compresses the crap out of their signals. I'm pretty sure that applies to SD feeds as well as HD.
Should there have been a standard so all these delivery methods and hardware could play nice together? Yes. Is there one? Not that I've ever seen or heard or read about.
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