Coaxial cable to Component

[jongyoo]

I know this is more of a computer forum but I think you guys are knowledgable enough to answer this. I just bought a 42 inch Panasonic Plasma Screen. It accepts the three component cables but not coaxial. If I want to watch cable TV from a coaxial but if my plasma only accepts component cables what kind of converters should I get? I'm just looking for suggestions and some lists of places where I could get these at a good price. THanks alot

-jong

 

[jiffylube1024]

It sounds like you're trying to hook up basic cable tv (via coaxial) to your plasma display. Usually people who buy such expensive displays subscribe to one type of digital/satellite TV service or another since along with these services you often are renting one type of set-top cable box or another. Newer set top boxes support higher quality terminals: component, HDMI, etc. You can also buy these cable boxes instead of renting them.

Look into a set-top cable box from your local cable provider. You can usually buy the low end ones for under $200 and the HDTV ones for more, or you can rent them.

One thing you're going to notice (especially if your plasma is an HDTV) is that basic cable will look like crap (both because it's not in widescreen and because of the limited resolution of basic TV) and you may be enticed to upgrade to HDTV.

 

[kylebisme]

For basic cable, you can just use an old vcr with composite or s-video out.

 

[jiffylube1024]

Originally posted by: TheSnowman
For basic cable, you can just use an old vcr with composite or s-video out.

I don't know of many VCR's with S-Video out (in fact I can think of no VHS VCR's, only more expensive S-VHS ones), and composite video would look like crap on that plasma TV; you'd want at least Svideo.

But yeah, an old VCR would get the job done - it would just be far from optimal.

 

[quikah]

You will probably want something like this. This will give you cable TV input and component outputs.

 

[L00PY]

I suspect you'll be pretty disappointed when you see the image quality of coax on your new screen. If you've got money to burn and an urge to tinker, you could set up a HTPC, TV card to capture the coax signal, use DScaler or something to upconvert it to your screen's resolution, then run a DVI out through ATI's DVI-component dongle.

The easier route is what's already been suggested -- call your cable company and get a better box.

 

[Machine350]

I agree with the guys here. I bought a 46" sony high def set and could not believe how crappy regular cable looked. If you've got the money, I'd upgrade to digital cable/satellite.

 

[Rogue 2]

Yep. The plasma's a monitor only. Get an external CATV tuner w/ the outputs you need. Preferably one w/ DVI and HDCP to future-proof yourself.