"Digital" cable vs "regular" (1 Viewer)

Has anyone had experience with both versions of cable and noticed whether or not the digital would provide a better picture on my 58" widescreen? The regular cable ranges from fuzzy as all heck to passable.

Thanks for any experience you might be able to share.

The only thing I can say about the digital cable I tried was that all the regular channels were still analog, only upper-tier channels were digital. The picture quality on the lower-tier channels wasn't any different than regular cable.
I don't know if all digital cable set-ups are the same or not. When I tried it(three years ago), they gave me the chance to try it at a discount for two months. Maybe this would be an option for you.

Regards
KrisM

It all depends on if you're getting a basic digital cable box or one that at least has S-Video out if not HDTV output on it. The Quality will be much better with digital cable on the digital channels, but your reception on anything below channel 100 will typically not change.

And I just realized you're in Seattle, so I can answer a little better on this since I work for AT&T Broadband here in Washington.

Your standard channels remain analog no matter if you get digital cable or not so reception will not change on them. Now the higher channels that you do not currently get with Standard cable will look quite a bit better (near DVD Quality depending on the channel.)

Now I dont know if you have an HDTV or not but right now we do offer HBO & Showtime in HD here in the Seattle area and are going to have locals very soon as well as Discovery HD Theater. Setup is free on HDTV with any Digital Cable Package and theres no additional charge for the HD box.

Right now you could get the Digital Silver Package for 54.99/month for the first 3 months with HBO free for 6months. So you'd be getting both HBO & Showtime with this package as well as Starz, Encore & about 200 other channels. After 3 months the Digi Silv. goes to 63.99 a month which is its regular price after the 6 months is up you'd start paying 15.99 for the HBO which if you wanted to keep both HBO&Showtime it would be cheaper to go with the Digi. Gold Package at 74.99 a month.

Hi Joe,

The amount of compression applied to the various digital channels varies--some of the movie channels seem to have very little, some of the other digital channels seem to comparitively have a lot (i.e., pixelation/artifacts in smoke scenes, facial tones, views of the sky, etc.).

Still, the images are better than many folks analog channels. (I'm lucky--my analog channels are great).

I'd also encourage you giving it a trial (assuming you're offered such a period), and making sure the cable box offers at least an S-vid and optical audio outputs.

Joe I can tell you we offer S-Video, Optical, and HDTV in your area just give us a call 1-877-824-2288