im thinking about getting a 42" lcd or plasma because pops is offering to pay a hefty chunk for christmas. the only thing im running into is since i live at Ivy Chase (the worst place to live ever) we dont have a cable provider that even gives us a box. appearently digital cable is coming in the next 6 months. on the 2 tvs i looked at neither have a coaxial hook up on them. is there anything i can buy that i can hook a coax in to (from the wall) and it leads to a component output? we mainly watch dvds on the tv so im not too worried about the cable picture quality. just want to buy a decent tv while pops is willing to pay for most of it. any ideas would be great. thanks

12/22/2006 10:28:00 PM

you mean like, a vcr?

12/22/2006 10:46:33 PM

you are going to get a standard and hd tuner built in in all new tvs over 36"

12/22/2006 10:47:07 PM

i guess a vcr would work wouldnt it

12/22/2006 11:00:17 PM

why dont you give us the make and model of the tvs that checked out?

im interested in why you would be stupid enough to not get a tv with an atsc/qam tuner

[Edited on December 22, 2006 at 11:11 PM. Reason : .]

12/22/2006 11:04:32 PM

westinghouse Model: W4207 lcd and maxent MX-42HPM20
i know that these arent the best tvs but with the 4 year service plan it will do alright until i get a decent job

12/22/2006 11:11:18 PM

if you get a tv with a atsc/qam tuner built in you will be fine with normal cable and an external hd atenna for local over the air broadcasts in hd (which are better than cable because they are uncompressed)

12/22/2006 11:12:38 PM

well i know nothing about these things thats why i came to tww

12/22/2006 11:14:55 PM

then you should pm Noen

he has all the answers

in all seriousness, get a tv with a built in tuner and you will be gold until you get digital cable at you complex

know that you could always go the dish route, they can not legally block you from putting up a dish (check to see if you are on the side of the building that gets reception and dont have anything blocking you like trees)

[Edited on December 22, 2006 at 11:33 PM. Reason :  ]

12/22/2006 11:17:44 PM

Quote :

"if you get a tv with a atsc/qam tuner built in you will be fine with normal cable and an external hd atenna for local over the air broadcasts in hd (which are better than cable because they are uncompressed)"

If you have an ATSC tuner you don't really need the HD antenna.

12/22/2006 11:41:25 PM

but how do i hook the cable up since it has no connection on the tv?

12/22/2006 11:52:37 PM

if there is no coaxial connection on the tv youre buying...then there obviously is not a tuner of any kind inside of the tv

12/23/2006 12:15:07 AM

ok what do you guys suggest? i have no idea what to do....

12/23/2006 12:19:12 AM

Quote :

"then you should pm Noen he has all the answers "

I defer to my buddies Quinn, Stein and SandSanta when it comes to TV topics.

12/23/2006 12:47:40 AM

12/23/2006 1:32:57 AM

what? i don't think i understand your situation. but i can say this... don't even consider the fact that ivy chase sucks in buying an expensive tv cause the tv will be around much longer than the apartment most likely. normally you would hook the coaxial into a cable box and the cable box into your tv via hdmi or component which I don't see why you couldn't do anywhere, but there are devices that will take a coaxial input and make it av (the red/yellow/white cables) that are cheap and work in most cases. If I understood exactly what your problem was I could help you out better but I'm not making too much sense of it right now. probably cause... nevermind

12/23/2006 1:44:46 AM

my problem is... ivy chase's cable provider doesnt offer the box. its just straight from the wall.....

12/23/2006 1:55:18 AM

okay, well then forget about hdtv for cable. you can still get it for your game system or dvd player but if you don't have a hd box you're sol as far as normal cable goes. I don't know about satellite. you can still get normal cable even if your tv doesn't have a coaxial input. there are converters that will take a coaxial input and output av. they're fairly cheap and i think pretty much all tv's still have av inputs.

12/23/2006 2:01:12 AM

i appreciate it

12/23/2006 2:12:30 AM

Those are both pretty medicore TVs.

You can spend about $300 more and get a Panasonic plasma, or a JVC or LG LCD which are both MUCH better than those tvs.

Whichever TV you choose though, make sure you get some component video cables for you DVD player, and make sure your DVD player is progressive scan, and when you hook it up, make sure it's set properly for wide screen and progressive scan.

12/23/2006 2:43:53 AM

thanks... im going to the best buy tomorrow and might check out those other tvs

12/23/2006 2:44:56 AM