cas66ragtop,

As an FYI, I replied to your question, that was cross-posted, in the Home Entertainment forum.

hdtv ready? can display progressive scan images but has no built in hd tuner. i got one also. works fine with cable co hd tuner. you want premium content but do not want to pay. someone has to pay. espn, tnt, tbs, hgtv, gotta pay.

If you were to buy a new tv, most likely you would get one with the clear QAM (HD) tuner built in. After setup of my 2 Samsung, I found that Time Warner was supplying unencrypted digital streams for all my local channels plus a few others. I'm sure such offerings vary by company and location and they could be added or discontinued at any time but for now what I'm getting satisfies my need for HD without having to pay the additional $180 per year that TW wants for digital service. YMMV.

Not to quibble but you likely purchased "digital ready" televisions, which is to say they are capable of receiving digital over the air transmissions without the need for an additional converter box. Televisions are High Definition or not.

What few were saying is that "digital ready" means nothing for customers using cable, satellite, or telephone company service. Those providers use either analog, digital, or some combination of both (generally cable). In the case of all digital transmissions, the provider supplies a converter box and generally one is needed for each television at an additional fee (something that the providers often neglect to mention).

In your case, I'd suspect that the cable company was providing some analog or digital stations that the tuner in your TV was capable of receiving. The cable company has now migrated it service to all digital and encrypted the channels so that you need to buy (rent) one of their boxes for each TV you want to view.

Unfortunately you have two options, pay the bill or put up an antenna.

So far, most coax delivered cable companies are still providing "basic" cable over unencrypted analog or clear QAM digital modulation.

No, expanded basic and premium channels are not directly accessible.

Without knowing all the details of the OP, it appears he may only be talking about the basic service.

Yes, you can just call and ask - hopefully you'll get to talk to somebody knowledgeable.

Here is a link that might be useful: Comcast FAQ on the topic

We Have a Sony HGTV hooked up through a antenna booster to a rooftop antenea and a 30 yr old Sony analog on a digital converter box contented to the same antenea with a splitter.

We get 16 channels, with the analog tv getting better reception than the HGTV which sometimes gets no signal.