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How do I get out of my cable contract with Direct Tv?

Will an HDTV tv work with just plain old basic cable without distorting the image?

  • I was resently told by a salesperson that if we purchase a new HDTV tv (the particular one we were looking at was Toshiba Renza 720p) that regular basic cable will not work properly with this TV. He said that the image would be in a letterbox and look squashed up and blurry. He said we would have to upgrade to digital cable. (which we are not ready to do at this point!) We just need a new TV to replace the one that just blew on us, and figured we should get a new widescreen HDTV, but didn't know it would not work with the cable system we have now. Is this all true or was he just trying to convince us to sign a digital cable contract through him? thanks for any expertise in this!

  • Answer:

    I would recommend that you buy an HDTV that has full support of the available resolutions: 1080p max. In addition, it is a good idea to just go ahead and get an HDTV now because analogue broadcasts will cease next February. As for the salesman's attempts to get you to sign up through him, I'd deal directly with the cable or satellite company instead. You may save money for not having to pay his commission if he makes money on that. As for the salesman's claims, yes and no. This depends on how well the TV can perform at deinterlacing and scaling a standard NTSC analogue broadcast. Some are good, some are okay, quite a few aren't so great. As for the "squished" picture, that's if you take a regular NTSC broadcast, which will be presented in 4:3 (a regular TV set's aspect ratio) and stretch it horizontally or compress it vertically to fit in a 16:9 space (HDTV aspect ratio) so that the entire display is illuminated. Otherwise, you will watch the image in a pillarboxed format (black or gray bars on the sides). The pillarboxing will be because the frame as is will not be able to fill the display on the sides because the frame is too square. You can zoom into the frame to fill up the display, but then you cut off the top and bottom. Personally, I'd settle for watching in pillarboxed instead of stretching or zooming for the same reason I'd watch in letterboxed: you preserve the image's aspect ratio so you will see everything the director wanted you to see (yes, this does apply on TV as it does on film) and the shapes in the frame will look right and undistorted. But he is right that you would have to get digital cable service to be able to enjoy an HDTV to its fullest with your cable hookup, but it's not a requirement (or at least, not right now). You can also get a regular antenna and get an HDTV to find and memorize any terrestrially broadcast digital HDTV channels. And, the beauty part of this is that it does not matter if the signal is weak in a digital broadcast; so long as the signal is there, you will receive it just as you would if the signal was strong. Hope this was helpful and not confusing. (^_^;)

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To comment on the person above: the transition to digital does not apply to cable. Analog (regular) cable will still work (and be available) after the transition. To answer your question, there is nothing wrong with regular cable on a new HDTV. The image will be slightly stretched since the TV will be wider, but it won't be noticable enough to bother you. Plus, the TV should have settings in its menu to accomodate for this. The reason he wants you to get digital cable is so that you can get HD channels, which look a lot better than regular channels. So in short, regular cable will work properly on a new HDTV.

SniDa

I've been seeing on educational TV that ALL programs will be broadcast in digital beginning in 2009,so the cable companies are going to have to provide it then as a part of your basic programming.If you sign a contract now,you're stuck paying a higher price for what everyone else is going to get anyway. If I were you, I'd hold off and just buy a regular TV -you can always buy thr better one next year and take advantage of digital then.

Mya H

Yes. You may need to tinker with the geometry control (it's a button on the remote, possibly labeled Display) that determines whether the display is 4:3 (the old standard) or 16:9 (the new HD standard). You can use analog cable, or over-the-air; if the latter, be sure that the new TV will handle digital (it probably will, but ask anyway).

rhsaunders

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