No stereo audio on Cable TV

[old_tv_nut]

At one time cable systems were duplicating channels in analog NTSC and digital. The old cable boxes were analog of course. Now that they have gone completely to digital signals, I see no reason that the HDMI output of any box should be mono. So, yes, it needs more investigation, but the cable company is incompetent if they can't even tell you whether it's mono or stereo coming out of their box on the HDMI cable.

On the digital adapter/AKAi combo, I assume the "coax jack" is the RF tuner input, or did I misunderstand?

[YamahaFreak]

Originally Posted by old_tv_nut

At one time cable systems were duplicating channels in analog NTSC and digital. The old cable boxes were analog of course. Now that they have gone completely to digital signals, I see no reason that the HDMI output of any box should be mono. So, yes, it needs more investigation, but the cable company is incompetent if they can't even tell you whether it's mono or stereo coming out of their box on the HDMI cable.

On the digital adapter/AKAi combo, I assume the "coax jack" is the RF tuner input, or did I misunderstand?

Correct, the digital adapter's coax out is connected directly to the Akai CRT's RF tuner coax in. The digital adapter outputs its signal onto NTSC channel 3 on the TV's tuner.

[vortalexfan]

Originally Posted by YamahaFreak

Correct, the digital adapter's coax out is connected directly to the Akai CRT's RF tuner coax in. The digital adapter outputs its signal onto NTSC channel 3 on the TV's tuner.

Well, technically speaking, any signal coming out of an RF Modulator (the Coax Output of a cable box or video game) shouldn't be stereo, it should be mono (at least that's the way they used to work in the days of VHS and video games from the N64 era and before.)
So unless they've changed RF Modulators since then so that they output stereo audio now, then there shouldn't be stereo audio coming out of the coaxial output of your mini-cable box...

[old_tv_nut]

Originally Posted by vortalexfan

Well, technically speaking, any signal coming out of an RF Modulator (the Coax Output of a cable box or video game) shouldn't be stereo, it should be mono (at least that's the way they used to work in the days of VHS and video games from the N64 era and before.)
So unless they've changed RF Modulators since then so that they output stereo audio now, then there shouldn't be stereo audio coming out of the coaxial output of your mini-cable box...

No stereo on RF modulators was the very common case, but not a hard rule.
VCR modulators were simple discrete transistor devices, but ICs have made stereo cheap enough by now.

[YamahaFreak]

Originally Posted by vortalexfan

Well, technically speaking, any signal coming out of an RF Modulator (the Coax Output of a cable box or video game) shouldn't be stereo, it should be mono (at least that's the way they used to work in the days of VHS and video games from the N64 era and before.)
So unless they've changed RF Modulators since then so that they output stereo audio now, then there shouldn't be stereo audio coming out of the coaxial output of your mini-cable box...

Having owned half a dozen RF-only TVs from the 80s and 90s that don't have any other input connections, and that have onboard stereo speakers that produced stereo sound connected directly to the coax jack in the wall or an antenna at the time, I know this to be incorrect, or at least incorrect at that time. I now have no way of testing this theory (lack of either direct cable service from the wall or NTSC OTA signals) so I'm not sure if it's still the case.

Relatedly, one of my laments is not being able to find an RF modulator that will take a stereo audio signal from a game console (e.g. Nintendo 64) and output said stereo audio to an RF-only TV with stereo speakers onboard!

[ChrisW6ATV]

Originally Posted by YamahaFreak

Having owned half a dozen RF-only TVs... that produced stereo sound connected directly to the coax jack in the wall or an antenna

You are describing a different case that is exactly at the center of this discussion. Stereo sound was widely available from over-the-air analog stations since the mid-1980s, and also from analog cable-TV providers (initially only on a few channels such as the premium movies, and maybe MTV) starting some time later. But, stereo sound from consumer devices with RF modulators (VCRs, video game boxes, Laser Disc players, and cable boxes) has always been super-rare, almost nonexistent (on their RF outputs).

The very few exceptions I know of, that essentially were actual BTSC-type stereo RF outputs on channel-3/4 TV RF modulators, were some high-end big-dish satellite TV tuners in the early 1990s (Chaparral Monterey was one brand), and Radio Shack did sell one model of RF modulator that had a stereo output.

(Of course, do not confuse stereo RF output with any modulators that just have stereo audio INPUT jacks; most of the ones made since the 1990s probably had those jacks.)