Cable Ready = Digital Cable Ready (1 Viewer)

[David Oliver]

My TV says it is cable ready, but considering it is almost five years old I am wondering if that means it is digital cable ready (JVC-27980). I want to be able to split my Tivo so I can watch and record different shows at the same time and am not sure how to do it if the TV cannot accept a digital cable signal.

 

[Marc Rochkind]

I think "cable ready" means that you can just plug the TV to the wall outlet, without a set-top box. In other words, it will tune all the cable stations.

But I think ALL digital cable systems require a set-top box for the digital cable signal. The connection to the TV is antenna or composite (if not better), and all TVs can take one or both of those inputs.

On my digital cable, TVs without the set-top box can receive the analog cable signal, if they are cable ready. This is an advantage for the extra TV. No HBO, but CNN and other basic cable stuff come in OK.

 

[Selden Ball]

David,

As Mark points out, you do need a digital decoder box in order to receive the digital channels. Only one digital cable channel will be decoded at a time, so if you want to watch and record different digital channels at the same time you need more than one decoder box. (Usually additional decoder boxes are relatively inexpensive. Most of the expense is in the initial channel subscription fees. You'll have to find out how your local cable franchise handles that.)

However, if you use a cable splitter, you can watch (or record) any of the unencrypted analog channels while recording (or watching) one of the digital channels.

I hope this clarifies things a little.