Newbie w/ HD, TW & Questions

[yaderhey]

Hi everyone.

My Toshiba 51H83 and Time Warner HD cable arrived yesterday, and I'm ready to be blown away.

Couple of newbie questions for ya.  Any answers would be much appreciated:

1. Channels 2-100 appear to be analog and look terrible.  Will they eventually be migrated to digital and finally to HD? How serious of an issue is "burn in" if I watch those channels in 4:3 aspect ratio?  (I suppose that's two questions.)

2. Some of the network programming in the 500's appeared to be full-screen HD, and some didn't.  What's the technical term for the non HD stuff? Is that enhanced? Are Packers games in HD?  (Two questions again; sorry.)

3. I used to have DirecTV, but they couldn't touch the price of a free converter from TimeWarner.  But I liked the fact that I could edit out station I didn't get or didn't watch (and the all digital feature was nice).  Can you do that with Time Warner? I made some "favorites," but it only lets me scroll through them sequentially (a useless feature if you have 50 favorites).

4. Has anyone heard about a timetable for additional HD stations? The cable guy told me ESPN would be coming out in a month, but judging from other posts, no one seems to believe that.

5. Finally, will I notice a difference with a DVI connector versus the RGB component cables the set-up guy gave me?

I know that's a lot of questions, but I'm pretty excited and raring to go.  Thanks!

-- Andy

[Mrtanner]

1. I doubt TVLand, etc will ever go to HD.  "I Love Lucy" reruns wouldn't gain much.  You might be able to improve the PQ of the below-100 channels by going into settings and setting your cable box to output at 480p but not 480i (I don't know for certain with your TV)

2. The lower-500s all can show HD, but not all programing is in HD.  NBC has very little HD programming.  All Monday Night Football games will be in HD.  One CBS (channel 505) game per week will be in HD (Let's hope it's usually the one shown in Milwaukee).  No Fox games will be in HD, but I'm hoping they're all in "Enhanced Widescreen" which would mean a signifcantly better picture watching on 506 than on 06.

3. Don't know.

4. Yesterday someone at TWC told me she had seen a date for ESPN-HD but couldn't remember what it was.  Today (9/3), I received this in writing:

       "At this time ESPN HD is not currently carried by Time Warner Cable.  ESPN and Time Warner Cable have not come to an agreement to carry the station.  We are continuing to try to carry this station.

       We however have added Discovery HD and plan to add several channels as they become available.

Thank you for your interest!


Jason Kuechenmeister
Retail Sales Department
Time Warner Cable - Wisconsin"


5. DVI is better than cheap component cables, but you will be blown away by either and the difference may not be visible to your eyes.

[mhz40]

1) If you are using an SA set top, don't use the component output for 2-99---use video or s-video output.

3) No.  50 favorites IMO are no longer 'favorites'!  

4)  "The cable guy" is wrong.  No date set for ESPN HD launch.