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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!mark
From: mark@cbosgd.UUCP (Mark Horton)
Newsgroups: net.consumers
Subject: Re: Buying a 19 inch color television--naming brands and prices
Message-ID: <609@cbosgd.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 27-Dec-84 01:03:30 EST
Article-I.D.: cbosgd.609
Posted: Thu Dec 27 01:03:30 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 28-Dec-84 03:38:20 EST
References: <293@mhuxm.UUCP>
Organization: Bell Labs, Columbus
Lines: 91

In article <293@mhuxm.UUCP> abeles@mhuxm.UUCP (abeles) writes:
>But, WHAT DOES CABLE READY really mean?  If I were to subscribe to
>cable TV, would I pay less each month if my TV were "cable-ready?"
>Or does the cable company just charge the same amount for installing
>and renting their unit whether or not it has to convert to channel
>3?  And what is all this talk about the number of cable channels?

I have only a partial understanding of this, if someone really has a
complete list of the cable channels, please correct me.

There are 3 primary bands of TV channels: VHF (e.g. channels 2-13),
UHF (14-72), and cable.  (This is an over simplification, I think
there are really 4 or 5 different cable bands, and any given cable
company uses some random combination of them.)  The convention I've
seen numbers the cable channels 14 and up, but these are different
from UHF.

"cable ready" means that your TV can directly receive the cable channels
without a converter box.  (When you subscribe to cable TV, they install
a converter box on your TV which is basically a switch on which you
select a channel from the cable input, and it outputs that channel on
channel 2 or 3 to your TV.)  Some TV sets and VCR's have a coax connector
on the back that you can plug your TV directly into - this is called a
75 ohm connector (as opposed to the traditional 300 ohm two-screw
connector.)  A TV set with a 75 ohm input IS NOT NECESSARILY CABLE
READY, although some salesmen will claim it is!  All this jack does for
you is avoid the need to buy a 29 cent 75-to-300 adapter, and make a
small improvement in your picture quality from not having to go through
a 300 ohm bottleneck.

Most people do not have cable ready TV's, and use the switch box.  If
your TV has a remote control but is not cable ready, you may have to
forego the use of your remote control and use the switch box instead.
(Some hybrid boxes put the first 12 channels on VHF, so you can use your
remote for channels 2-13 but must use the switch box for the more
obscure channels.)  If your TV is cable ready, you can use your own
remote without messing with their box.  (Unless the channel you are
watching is scrambled, in which case you can't avoid using yet another
descrambler box.)

If you have a cable-ready TV, will your cable company charge you less?
Probably not.  In fact, they may charge you MORE!  The reason is that,
if you use their box, you can be restricted by what the box can get.
If your company offers some channels for extra charge, but does not
scramble these channels, and your cable company knows you have a cable
ready TV, they may charge you for the extra channels because they know
you can get them if you want them.  (Our company will, if you insist,
charge you the lower rate, and send someone out to install a filter on
your line to take out the channels you claim you don't watch.)

The prices of TV's and VCR's really jumps if you want remote control
and/or cable ready, doesn't it?  The cheapos can be found for $200-$300
(for example, in Columbus, today's paper's SUN-TV ad quotes $159 for a
13" Spectricon, $224 for a 19" RCA, $218 for a 19" Spectricon, $349
for a 25" GE Console, and $224 for a Sanyo VCR) but if you want these
features, you could easily pay $500 and up.  It isn't widely known, but
there are two devices you can buy, on the open market, that will turn
your TV into a cable-ready TV, possibly with remote control.

The first is a "block converter".  It takes the cable channels, as a block,
and converts them into the UHF frequencies.  Chances are your TV and VCR
can pick up UHF with no help.  A typical block convert costs $30-$40.

The second is a remote control cable switch.  It acts just like the one
the cable company rents you, but has a remote control built in.  I bought
one in Canada (a Jerrold 770) for about $140 (that's a little over $100
in US money) and it works fine on my Ohio cable TV (the channels are
numbered the same.)  I recently saw a similar box at the local Mr. How
Warehouse (that's a hardware store owned by Service Merchandise) for $77.

Some cautions are in order.  If you buy one of these boxes, make sure you
can take it back if it doesn't work.  Cable companies aren't really very
standardized yet, and lots of things can go wrong.  You may get a box that
numbers channels differently than your cable, or that gets a different
subset of the universe of channels.  You may not be able to use your
descrambler boxes with it.  (We made the mistake of getting the Jerrold
box that outputs on channel 3 [we had the choice of 2 or 3] and our
descramblers take input from channel 2 and output to 2, so the descrambler
didn't work.  We didn't really want the Movie Channel anyway.)  If your
cable company uses over-the-air, two-way, or addressable technology, there
is even less standardization in this area, plus you have to have registered
address with your cable company, so these may not work.  If your TV already
has a remote control, and you get one of these remote control boxes, the
two remotes may confuse each other and overlap in function, resulting in
an unusable combination.  Finally, your cable company may not appreciate
you hooking up such a box (and they may not understand what it means)
and may decide you aren't allowed to do so.  (I suppose local laws may
apply, too.)  I treat my switch+TV as a cable ready TV, for purposes of
telling them what I have, and they seem happy.

	Mark