Minimum screen size for HDTV?

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by ChrisW6ATV

Jeff-

If you have "analog cable", how are you getting the HD channels into your set? What connection(s) go into the set, and what mode(s) are used on it? At the minimum, I would expect that you have the cable itself going into the TV (no cable box), and to get HD channels you must have mixed digital/analog cable. Also in that case, the TV itself will have memorized a combination of analog NTSC channels and digital QAM channels. Is all of that true?

Or, do you have a cable box feeding the set? If you do, what connection does it use into the TV? The only connections that could give you an HD picture on ANY channels are the component (YPrPb) multi-color RCA jacks (five total plugs on each end between the cable box and the TV for sound and picture) or an HDMI cable from the box to the TV. Let me know. I watch some HDTV on this laptop computer that has a 12-inch screen, and the difference from HD down to standard definition is easy to see.

Chris -

Yes, it's true. My cable connects directly to the TV (well, through my DVD's RF modulator, to which the cable actually connects, then to the VCR, then to the TV's antenna port). I do not have a cable box. My TV will scan for analog channels first, then digital/clear-QAM, when I do a channel scan, so the cable is carrying both analog and clear-QAM digital signals.

My set does have a six-jack panel on the back for the video connections you mention, but of course I am not using them since the cable connects directly to the TV via the RF antenna port.

Since I am obviously not getting an HD picture with the arrangement I described (direct cable connection to the set), does it make any difference at all whether I watch the HD or SD feeds of the local TV stations in my area? At least one channel here (WKYC-TV NBC channel 3) has both SD and HD feeds, while the other two stations (major network affiliates) have only HD feeds. The cable channels themselves (ESPN, CNN, AMC/TCM, et al. -- 64 channels in total for now) are analog NTSC feeds only. The other fifty or so channels are digital ATSC. I say "for now" in reference to the analog feeds because several analog cable channels have already been moved by TW to the digital tier, and the day is coming when the rest of them will wind up there as well. I can see a day when my TV will find absolutely nothing when its tuner scans for analog channels, but it will find well over one hundred digital ATSC ones -- the fifty channels that are currently NTSC analog will have been moved to digital at that time.

I guess the only reason I got a flat-screen TV last August was to avoid losing channels (and to avoid having to pay for a cable box) if and when the cable goes completely digital some time this year; however, Time Warner in my area claims to be 100 percent digital already, which is confusing. There are obviously still 64 analog NTSC channels on the cable now. I don't know if I will lose them at the end of this month (leaving me with only the DTV broadcast channels), even though my TV has (as do all flat sets made since 2007) an ATSC/NTSC/8VSB/clear-QAM tuner. With this type of tuner in my set, however, I wouldn't expect to lose anything except scrambled movie channels and pay-per-view (PPV) channels; I do not want or need movie channels anyway, since I have a DVD player.