Ignorant question, I know, but it would be me that would try this kind of thing without asking and scramble our new $2000 TV!
Verizon is ground-shipping our HDTV set top box from PA to CA (why, I don’t know) and our TV will be delivered tomorrow, with the box not getting here until the 5th or so. Will we be able to watch (less-than-HD) football on New Year’s Day with the box we have now?
Almost certainly yes. I’ve never seen an HDTV that will not accept composite or S-video output from a standard definition cable box.
What’s the out port on your current set top box? And does your TV have a matching port?
If the answer to the "does my TV have a matching port"question is yes, then, yes.
You probably will have either a composite (a yellow plug for video and a red and white for audio) or S video (a single round port almost like the old PS/2’s on your PC where you mouse might connect) out on your old box. Check in the back, and then check the specs for your TV.
In fact you might be better off just bypassing the old box and plugging a coaxial directly to the TV. If your TV has a digital QAM tuner (and I’m guessing it does) you will likely be able to pick up your digital local and basic cable channels, possibly including your local HD channels. So if the game is on a major network, you’ll be able to see it in HD.
Absolutely! Your old box won’t pick up the HD channels, but all the standard channels will still be available. Your new TV will display them in 480p (standard TV) instead of 720p/1080i/1080p. Keep in mind, that the picture will not utilize the entire screen, so you will have black or gray bars on the edges.
Ugh- and all I’ve read is that these bars at the edges should be avoided as much as possible until the “break-in” period is over (100 hours)! Maybe there will be a setting on the TV that will give me a full screen… I hope! I’m a nervous ninny about this “break-in” period. I have a “break-in” DVD all ready to play (has full screen gradations of grays/blacks/blues/reds/greens etc that are supposed to speed up the break-in period so that I don’t get burn-in from things like bars on the edges!! :eek:)
Most HDTV’s have a Justified mode that stretches the picture to fill the screen. The people may look a little squashed, but after a while you won’t notice.
You’re going to love the HD picture.
on’t worry about burn-in too much, plasma’s handel this much better now, nothing like it was years ago. I’ve had my plasma, Panasonic, for 2 years now and I’ve done nothing special for it.
By the way, first thing to do when you hook it up is to take the picture setting off of Vivid. This is its default setting and typically what you see in the stores, very bright and not good, long term, for the screen.
Yes and NO. Your HDTV will display a picture from a standard definition box, but the picture will NOT be in HD.
Are you sure your HDTV doesn’t have an HDTV tuner, so you can hook up an antenna and watch the broadcast network games in all their HDTV goodness? If you’re not sure if your TV has a tuner, just post your HDTV model.
Even better, try hooking your cable directly to your new TV, by passing the cable box entirely. My cable system is retransmitting the local stations’ HD signals. I can’t get them on my old analog TVs but my HDTV can receive them using its built-in tuner.
Of course, as with all cable systems, YMMV.
It’s worth a shot, but definitely MMV. On my TV, I have to select whether I’m scanning cable or over-the-air. When I scanned the cable, though, I got a couple of channels that worked, and a bunch of blank channel, some of which were occasionally someone else’s pay-per-view selections. There were a few others were I got video only.
Ours is a Panasonic TH-50PZ85U.
We can live without the box for a few days, so if we could plug the cable right into the TV (can we?) that would be cool.
Here’s a link for your TV. Definitely has ATSC tuner, so you can tune over the air broadcasts. I think it’s got a QAM tuner as well, so you may be able to get cable broadcasts without the box. Depends on which channels your provider is sending unencrypted though.
Well, the delivery guys are getting here in an hour. Hopefully I can get a little help from them if I bat my eyelashes just right ; ) I’m very excited!