32" CRT TV digital tuner questions

[Slickone]

TV at Amazon
TV at Toshiba

My parents have this TV, but the manual doesn't say anything about digital reception. What do we need to do to watch digital channels from over the air? I guess we need an HD antenna even though it's not HD? Like this.

To get digital picture over cable, they'd need to buy digital cable? Or no? From what I've read, it seems maybe not. Confusing.
Also why does the product description keep talking about receiving HD signals and HD reception?


My dad doesn't like the TV because it takes about 1 second between channel changes. And I hate that I'm the one that suggested the TV model. A girl at Toshiba said that's because of the digital tuner (even though it's not using the digital tuner right now). Is that true? Do all digital TVs do that?

 

[Navid]

I checked the manual. http://www.tacp.toshiba.com/tacpassets-images/models/32D46/docs/32d46_om_e.pdf

It looks like the TV has QAM also (page 36).
Why do you want to get channels over the air?
Do they not have basic cable? If they do, you can get digital signals from the cable also. Then, you will not need an antenna.

Edit:
Replaced question mark with full stop!

 

[Slickone]

Originally posted by: Navid
I checked the manual. http://www.tacp.toshiba.com/tacpassets-images/models/32D46/docs/32d46_om_e.pdf

It looks like the TV has QAM also (page 36).
Why do you want to get channels over the air?
Do they not have basic cable? If they do, you can get digital signals from the cable also. Then, you will not need an antenna?

Because I didn't know if they could use a digital signal using analog cable. That was part of my questions. I also was asking the question do they needed an antenna.
So its as simple as just finding the higher digital channel #s?

So, if a digital signal is sent through analog cable, is calling regular cable 'analog' and what they call their more expensive digital cable package a misnomer?

 

[Navid]

Read about QAM tuner, which your TV seems to have according to its manual, here or many other places you can find on line.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QAM_tuner

You need an antenna for over the air reception.
But, if you have QAM, you should be able to get most of what you can get over the air through regular cable.

The advantage of over the air in that case is that you can drop your regular cable and save a monthly fee.
The advantage of using the basic cable for getting basic channels is that you cannot get the basic channels everywhere. It depends on where you are and if you are surrounded by high-rise buildings and how far you are from the stations (transmitter antenna), which you can find out here.
http://www.antennaweb.org/aw/welcome.aspx

Another disadvantage of over the air is that you may need to move the antenna depending on which channel you want to watch if you have a directional antenna.

A digital cable package usually allows you to get some scrambled signals, which you would not be able to get over the air or through basic cable even if you have QAM.