Time Warner Cable in my area, near Cleveland, already has switched to digital; they made a big deal of it when it happened several years ago. The system still carries 64 analog channels; the digital channels are mostly the Cleveland network affiliates, MeTV and Antenna TV, etc. The day will come, however, when even those 64 analog channels will either go digital or will disappear completely -- I have no idea what Time Warner's plans are for them.
I can't help wondering in the back of my mind if or when I may need a cable box to get anything, even with my FP that has an ATSC/NTSC/clear-QAM tuner. I was under the impression that today's digital FPs do not need cable boxes under any circumstances, except to receive movie channels, pay per view and other specialty channels such as Travel Channel, ShopNBC, etc., for which subscribers pay extra over and above their regular cable bills. (Travel Channel and ShopNBC, et al. were formerly on TW's standard cable lineup here until about a year or so ago.)
For standard cable until you get to digital and/or HD (the latter operating on channels in the 1000+ range, at least on TW's northern Ohio/western Pennsylvania systems), I would think today's flat-panel sets would continue to operate perfectly well with the cable connected directly to the set via the RF antenna port. Or is this just another way cable companies have figured out to get more money from subscribers, through forced rental of cable boxes in order to receive anything, including local broadcast channels?
I realize digital cable and satellite are the future of TV, but to drag subscribers kicking and screaming into the digital age like this, even when they already may have a FP TV with a full-digital tuner, IMHO, is too much. There is also something else the cable/satellite companies may not realize (and in all honesty may not care beans about if they
do realize it): the fact that some people simply cannot afford digital cable or satellite, and may not be able to receive their area's local channels OTA. If Time Warner and other cable operators drop analog cable, this will leave hundreds or thousands, even tens of thousands, of people with a FP TV they cannot use, except with a DVD player or VCR. In this case, people may well just give up TV and take up reading, in which case the television industry could find itself in real trouble.