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I have OTA DTV boxes by Channel Master, Digitalstream, and Magnavox. All of these have the zoom feature. I have one box connected to a '69 Zenith tube-type B&W console and the other box connected to a '78 Sylvania solid state B&W console. The third box is used for testing TV's on the bench and the fourth box is used for a spare.
The other TV's in the house are connected to comcast cable. For now, 2-12 can be received by an older analog set. Any channel above 12 requires the use of one of their "digital devices". Their basic digital transport adapter is about the size of a deck of playing cards and it tunes the digital cable channels and outputs an NTSC signal on either channel 3 or 4. There are no buttons on the box and there are no A/V output jacks. If you lose the remote or if the remote fails to operate, you are stuck. The other box is the big Motorola model that allows the user to access PPV movies, etc. I heard that sometime in 2012, they would be stopping analog delivery of channels 2-12; but, I guess only time will tell.
How long will we be able to use our older TV's? I suppose that we'll be able to use them as long as there is some type of D2A converter available. As far as OTA boxes, they are already getting hard to find on the new market. In fact, most stores around here discontinued them not long after the DTV transition. AFAIK, Radio Shack still carries the digitalstream box. I'm trying to get as many boxes as I can because I know there will be a time when they are NLA and the ones we currently have will eventually die.
The cable boxes and the OTA boxes will work on virtually any TV that can receive NTSC channels 3 or 4. If the TV has 300 ohm screw-style antenna input terminals, an inexpensive 300ohm/75ohm balun can be used to connect the 75 ohm coax lead from the box to the 300 ohm VHF antenna input terminals on the TV.
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