Now what, cable (digital) TV box dosen't have any digital outs. (1 Viewer)

[Meaux]

My "so called" digital cable dosen't have any digital outs and my McIntosh (mac-3) processor needs them.

If it ain't one thing it's another.

 

[KevinFC]

Meaux,

First off who is your cable providor? All the digital boxes I have seen has at least one digital audio connec on it. Mine has 1 digital audio, s-video, composite video and audio, usb and firewire. I would look at a diagram of the box just to make sure your not overlooking it. But if so contact your cable company and found out why there is not a digital connec on the box.

 

[Meaux]

What happened was I looked at the owner's manual for the Motorola DCT2000 cable box and it shows 1 digital optical out, 1 S video out, 1 coaxial out, so I go buy a McIntosh Mac-3 dolby digital decoder, and when I went to hook it up I noticed the cable box has "blanked out spaces for the connections, only RF out. Another pile of junk I've gotten involved in. I'll call these clowns tomorrow. I can just imagine what that bumpkin is gonna say, "digital out?, what da heck is dat?"

 

[Scott Kriefall]

The digital and s-video outputs are generally sold by the manufacturer as extra options. Most cable companies are too cheap to buy those extra options.

 

[Colin-H]

If you specially request an s-video box, the cable provider will usually give you one, but many don't give them out to everyone when most people can't tell the difference between an s-video cable and a toaster.

 

[John Gido]

Every month BEFORE I pay my cable bill I contact the cable company requesting a box with digital outputs. Same story every time, "We're working on it" or "It's on the list for the first quarter of next year."

The average person that subscribes to "digital cable" doesn't even realize that they are missing the digital audio outputs and S-video because most have 27" TVs connected via the RF coax through their VCRs.

 

[EarlIngalls]

I live in Colorado and this is what's posted on the AT&T website concerning the Digital Cable Service.

"At this time our digital receivers provide two channel (four derived) Dolby Surround Pro-Logic versus the six discrete channels provided by Dolby Digital. Just as with Dolby Digital, your equipment and programming must be equipped with a Dolby Surround Pro-Logic decoder to take advantage of Dolby Surround Pro-Logic programming."

So, they are not passing a digital audio signal nor are they passing any HD signals. Kinda defeats the purpose doesn't it.

Earl
Longmont, CO

 

[Meaux]

It just hacks me off that if you advertise "Digital Cable" and collect a premeuim for it, then thats what you should be delivering. I haven't talked to those guys yet, my electric co. just started sellin cable. I'm in a foul mood and might say too much. I might not be a customer for long afer I get my DVD set up, besides theres not much to watch these days unless you spend "extra" bucks every night on PPV. HBO really let me down w/ that last soprano episode, and I missed 90% of the Iron Bowl because the service went out. Thinkin bout that is really gettin me mad.

What I was trying to find out in the first place was, is there is an adapter that converts "digital cable" out of the RF to a coaxil or optical connection?

I found one, but it's in Portugal.

 

[Allan Jayne]

On some cable systems, "digital" is used to provide quantity of channels through more compression, as opposed to quality. Digital cable also means you must have the cable box, you can't plug the cable end into a cable ready TV set.
On many digital channels, the signal is still a composite analog signal after it has been tuned in, and you might even get a better picture connecting the cable box to the TV set with composite or RF instead of S-video or component. This would be true for just those channels if your TV has a good comb filter.
Video hints:
http://members.aol.com/ajaynejr/video.htm