I’m a technology person by interest and training, but realized today that I really didn’t have a clue about cable TV. I always referred to my basic cable server as analog cable as I don’t have a cable box and simply have the coax go right into the TV/TiVo. What didn’t help is a quote from my cable company’s website:
Just bought a new HDTV set? HD service is FREE with Digital Cable from Time Warner Cable*. Upgrade today and start enjoying an enhanced HDTV experience.
This led me to believe that my basic cable service didn’t get me ANY HD channels and didn’t get me any digital content. Last week I read that cable companies had to carry HD channels at no additional charge for the broadcast stations, i.e. NBC, ABC, CBS. I saw this and was excited that I didn’t have to pay more for cable to get some HD channels.
When I plugged in my new TV, it scanned for channels and found 46 digital channels and something like 69 analog channels. Wow, that was quite promising. This, of course, meant that the basic/expanded cable I have is not just analog, but also carries digital channels. This should have been obvious to me, but it wasn’t.
So, with just a new TV and basic cable, I get a number of digital channels as well as some HD channels. The cable companies don’t seem to want people to know about this so that they can upsell people on the cable packages that contain lots and lots of channels that many people don’t watch. At this point, I can’t justify upgrading my cable to get more HD channels.