Cable without the box (1 Viewer)

I recently dump my fiber optic cable due to an over-priced monthly bill. I now have an affordable basic / local cable plan which has the coaxial cable connected directly into my TV, no cable box at all. I receive a fair amount of analog and digital stations, probably more than I’ll ever watch. What I’m trying to do is connect the incoming coaxial cable to my AV receiver then output the signal to my TV via an HDMI (specs to follow). This would handle my 7.1 surround and allow me to handle the entire system with my remote. What I’ve found out so far is that if I use a cable box to do so I’ll need to register the box, pay extra money for using my own box and (from what I understand) a number of the existing channels could be lost. This goes against my entire plan. My question is, is there an adapter to connect the coax cable to an HDMI then into my AV receiver? If not what is the next best course of action. The TV has a Digital Audio Out (Optical) but the HDMI would be preferred. Any help greatly appreciated. TV: Samsung LN52A650 52” 1080p 120Hz LCD AV receiver: Onkyo TX-SR606

You can't route the coaxial from the wall into the receiver - you'd be missing a vital component - the tuner. Your TV has the tuner built in, and that can't really be bypassed if you don't have some sort of cable box.


Your best option is to keep the coaxial into the TV and use the digital optical out from the TV to feed 5.1 audio to the receiver. Normally we tell folks that the digital output won't pass any 5.1 audio formats, but the lone exception to that rule is when you're using the TVs built-in tuner - which you are.


HDMI for broadcast/cable/satellite doesn't offer any performance improvement. No broadcast channels (cable, satellite, OTA, FiOS, etc.) offer anything more than 5.1 audio formats. Also, nothing other than Blu-Ray actually outputs 1080p (cable and satellite max out at 1080i).

Thanks for detailed reply, Jason. At least now I can move forward with a better understanding of the situation.