Digital or analogue cable TV?

[HappyPuppy]

I have analogue cable TV right now with probably 70 channels, most of which are garbage and we never watch. Got a call from the cable company last night and they're trying to get me to switch to digital cable. It will provide about 120 channels and cost about $5/monthe more.

My question is if the picture quality on my two run of the mill TVs, one is about 8 years old and the other 2, will be any better. The only additional channel that I might be interested in that I don't have now is the SciFi channel. I'm not really a tightwad, but 5 bucks is 5 bucks.

So, digital or analogue. BTW, I don't watch a lot of TV. It's mostly for the wife and daughter.

 

[RagingToad]

Stick with analogue. It will be years till digital is standard. If you get free movie channels with analogue then those will be taken away if you switch to digital. If you want true digital then switch to satellite. I would just sit and wait to see what happens with HDTV and all the others mess that will come with it. The picture and sound is hardly better on old tvs.

 

[ROTC1983]

We have digital, but no use for it yet.

 

[fastz28]

You will need to rent a digital box for additional $ as well.

 

[HappyPuppy]

I don't get any free movie channels. We have the worst cable in the US.

It sounds like there isn't really any upside to it. Most or all the additional channels are bound to be crap.

Anyone else?

BTW, thanks and welcome to "The Black Hole of the Universe".

 

[HappyPuppy]

Originally posted by: fastz28
You will need to rent a digital box for additional $ as well.

Yeh, the two boxes would be a little extra, too.

 

[MysticLlama]

Another thing, is that a lot of times, at least around here in Seattle, the picture quality is WORSE!

It's not so bad on local channels, and anything below, say, channel 50, but sometimes my wife will be watching Lifetime or some other channel and it looks like she's watching an mpeg or something. It's especially noticeable on black.

I have a 32" Sony Vega, so that could be why it's so noticeable, but sometimes I would rather rent a DVD for $3 then watch something on HBO because it's really distracting at times because of the compression artifacts.

 

[Ryan]

With digital cable, the first 100 channels are broadcast in Analog still, so you have no real quality benifit from switching to digital. You will, however, see a HUGE quality difference in between your digital channels and analog ones HBO looks AWESOME!

 

[spidey07]

Originally posted by: rbloedow
With digital cable, the first 100 channels are broadcast in Analog still, so you have no realy quality benifit from switching to digital. You will, however, see a HUGE quality difference in between your digital channels and analog ones HBO looks AWESOME!

Very true, but the quality of the digital channels is totally dependant on the cable provider and is not always better.

 

[MysticLlama]

Grrr, Comcast *grumble*

They have there compression set to some crazy amount around here, because I get some bad quality at times, though it does seem to be related to the programming, really big movies on the main HBO channels typically look better than B movies, or movies from a few years ago being played at off hours, or on the HBO channels opposite a big movie.

 

[Kevin]

Digital Cable + HBO on Demand = HEAVEN...

 

[psy44]

Originally posted by: MysticLlama
Another thing, is that a lot of times, at least around here in Seattle, the picture quality is WORSE!

It's not so bad on local channels, and anything below, say, channel 50, but sometimes my wife will be watching Lifetime or some other channel and it looks like she's watching an mpeg or something. It's especially noticeable on black.

I have a 32" Sony Vega, so that could be why it's so noticeable, but sometimes I would rather rent a DVD for $3 then watch something on HBO because it's really distracting at times because of the compression artifacts.

OMG I had the same problem. I got a 27" Wega tv too w/Directv=crappy picture...I returned mine, anyone know why the picture looks so bad? Would it be better to buy a different receiver?

 

[Nohr]

During xmas I was at my inlaws place and they have digital cable. The main thing I didn't like was how long it took to switch channels. Something like 3 seconds, way too slow.

 

[FrustratedUser]

Stay analog. The picture quality is better, at least with COX.

 

[WinkOsmosis]

Digital is just extra hassle, with the box and all that.

 

[Kevin]

Originally posted by: WinkOsmosis
Digital is just extra hassle, with the box and all that.

Where I am, you need a convertor for Analog too. If you plug in the wire, all you get is the network channels, CSPAN, Spanish TV and TNN...

 

[Looney]

I would stay with analogue... although digital pictures do look better (if they're digital). With digital, you'll need to get a digital box for every television. The thing i do like about digital is the menu system.

 

[GoSharks]

Originally posted by: FrustratedUser
Stay analog. The picture quality is better, at least with COX.

yup, our old analog was much nicer than the dish network we have now. (but no hdtv with cable )

 

[Shawn]

Go with digital. It's worth it... and yeah, the menus/guides alone make it worth it.

 

[astroview]

I hate the lag time in changing on digital. My analog has limited capabilities to tell me which channel I'm watching (like it says MTV instead of the number) and what show is on, which is good enough.

I say stick to analog, we had the same artifact/compression issues at my parent's house.

 

[Pepsi90919]

Originally posted by: MysticLlama
Another thing, is that a lot of times, at least around here in Seattle, the picture quality is WORSE!

It's not so bad on local channels, and anything below, say, channel 50, but sometimes my wife will be watching Lifetime or some other channel and it looks like she's watching an mpeg or something. It's especially noticeable on black.

I have a 32" Sony Vega, so that could be why it's so noticeable, but sometimes I would rather rent a DVD for $3 then watch something on HBO because it's really distracting at times because of the compression artifacts.

you are watching mpeg.

 

[calpha]

stay with analog. if you still want digital.....go with DTV. Most companies offering digital cable only have the Movie channels showing at truly digital qualities. The other ones are just analog signals fed over a digital pipe.

DTV---theyre' all digital, and beautiful pictures.

 

[thedarkwolf]

I hate our digital cable. If your watching something on one of the movie channels like HBO and there is a lot of action it acts like the bos runs out of processing power or something. The screen will kind of freeze/stutter and refresh. Most of the time its not that bad but sometimes its almost unwatchable. It will do that crap on any of the channels but the movie channels are the worst. Plus it takes way to long to change channels and makes channel surfing almost impossible.