I let the Friday madness pass and went to Target to get a cheap 19" Element that I needed for a dubbing setup I have. For fun I connected it to my basic cable to scan for the local off-the-air digital. Nothing other than the few analog channels Comcast uses to set tilt levels with showed up. No digi to be found. I took it back and got another one. Same thing. My current sets still get the signal even though their days are numbered and they are a few years old.

The question is do some newer sets have a block installed to shut down these few clear QAM signals even before the cables abandon them as they now can do? Philly did it two weeks ago. The suburbs are still getting them.

And for $99 this thing looks great as a monitor.

Why would a maker include QAM demodulation and turn it off completely? More likely doesn't have it or you haven't found the mode. I presume it has HDMI.

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I let the Friday madness pass and went to Target to get a cheap 19" Element that I needed for a dubbing setup I have. For fun I connected it to my basic cable to scan for the local off-the-air digital. Nothing other than the few analog channels Comcast uses to set tilt levels with showed up. No digi to be found. I took it back and got another one. Same thing. My current sets still get the signal even though their days are numbered and they are a few years old.

The question is do some newer sets have a block installed to shut down these few clear QAM signals even before the cables abandon them as they now can do? Philly did it two weeks ago. The suburbs are still getting them.

And for $99 this thing looks great as a monitor.

I doubt if you'll see any local OTA digital stations if your TV is connected to cable, especially considering how the cable system in your area is blocking channels left and right--more than likely to force subscribers to lease a cable box to receive anything. Time Warner in my area, near Cleveland, has started to do this, having moved several channels which used to be on expanded basic to digital; they have not and don't seem to have any plans (yet), however, to move the local network stations to QAM.

I'd try using a standard antenna, either rabbit ears (the all-channel type with the UHF loops between the VHF dipoles) or a simple outdoor antenna. I don't know how far you are from the nearest TV stations, but if you are within, say, 20 miles of the transmitters, your LED flat screen should get them just fine. I live about 40 miles from the Cleveland TV stations' transmitters which are southwest of me, and can receive all but two of them with excellent pictures using an indoor antenna. The two stations I don't get, CBS 19 and FOX 8 in Cleveland, wouldn't you know it, carry the subchannels (MeTV and Antenna TV, respectively) that I watch the most.

Why would a modern set even have QAM? I suspect that most cable subscribers use cable boxes to receive the higher tier channels and those that don't now will soon have to get a box to receive even the basic channels. I have noticed that some DTVs have already dropped NTSC decoding, perhaps QAM is being dropped as well?

jr

Most Comcast Digital Cable nee XFinity requires a Cable Box to function.

Most Comcast Digital Cable nee XFinity requires a Cable Box to function.

Exactly. I had to get a special box (extra cost) from Comcast when I got my HDTV. Big difference.

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