Feb 1 2009 the FCC will cease ALL analog broadcasts. Your Analog TV will only be useful for cable or sat. In order to view any OTA broadcasts you will need to buy an extra Digital box to convert the digital broadcast to Analog for Analog TV's I am assuming that you already have the digital Tv's You do NOT need any digital equipment to record digital TV all digital TV's that I know of have analog outputs. That being said jimisham is correct, Digital is either good or bad unlike analog which will snow up you can still see a signal. If you have drop outs you need a better antenna or point your antenna better. Maybe you have a VHF only antenna or the VHF is a bigger part of what you have. You will still get signals even with rabbit ears but you have to be close to the source. The best bang for the buck is a CM4228 cost about $50 is UHF only which is what all digital channels are and will be, but will get ch 8-12 pretty good also untill the cease to broadcast on those channels. http://www.hdtvprimer.com/ANTENNAS/cm4228.html , if the stations are in different directions you will need a rotor. One good thing is digital travels further with less signal strength and at this time many stations are NOT broadcasting digital at full power yet. I use a CM4228 and get all the network stations at about 50 miles from here is High Definition without drop outs.

Well, the cable box only outputs one channel so if you hook up the vcr in between the cable box and the tv you will only be able to record the channel you are watching. If you connect a splitter to your incoming cable, then run one cable from the splitter to the cable box, and the other to the vcr, you could record one basic cable channel while watching a digital cable channel at the same time.

We have Dish. Have had them for 14 years. We upgraded to the Hopper w/2 joey's. So satellite on 3 TV's. The bill was going to be $100 a month. We called and said we are on a fixed income and CANNOT afford that. They lowered our bill by $30 for a year. Our bill is $66.77 a month. We have 250 channels. We can dvr any show, anytime, and watch it only any of the 3 tv's we have. I have to say, I do love having a dvr. When the year is up, I'll call them again. Our problem is all the channels we like are on the satellite. The only show I really do not ever want to miss on regular channels is Survivor. And if push comes to shove, I can watch it online the next day. Oh, and we dropped our landline years ago. Were very unsure about doing it, but absolutely no regrets at all. We both have a cell phone so our house phone rarely even rang.

I did not see that show so I cannot comment on it but, I think that what they are trying to say is that most of the television monitors sold nowdays do not have antenna in them. Manufacturers stopped putting antenna in television monitors because most people use them with cable or dish. If you have a television monitor without an antenna, of course your converter box is useless because the unit can't pick up OTA reception. You would need an external antenna. Not everyones does though. It all depends on what kind of unit you have. Back in the mid nineties when I was shopping in the electronics department, I noticed that many of what looked like televisions had big sticker signs on them touting *ANTENNA INCLUDED*. I thought this was redundant since all "televisions" had internal antennas. A clerk explained that most of what where on the shelves were just monitors. They had no antenna. They had ports to connect cable or dish hook-up. So if you just have a monitor, then yes, you would need to get an antenna to use it with the converter box to receive OTA signals. This situation would be rare though. Anyone with an existing television who is getting OTA signals already has an antenna in their television set. If by some chance it broke and they went out and bought a television monitor they would have to get an antenna for it. Azzalea, your post is very important information. Many people like my parents, who never had (and never will) get cable/dish, have older television sets with antenna and probably do not realize that this. If their set would break and they would need to replace it, they will have to (#1): buy a television monitor and get and antenna for it and a converter box, OR (#2): buy a television set with an internal antenna (if they are still going to continue to manufacturer them) and use it with the external converter box. The other option would be (#3): to purchase a television set with an antenna and a converter built in internally which would mean they wasted their money buying an external converter box. Another thing is, that you need an analogue converter box for your VCR if you are going to record programs or else you have to disconnect the box from the TV and connect it to the VCR in order to receive signals to the VCR anttenna. Or get two converter boxes if you like to watch one show while recording another. If you get a brand new television that receives the new signal on its own with an internal converter, you will still need a converter box for your VCR antena. I find all this stuff really hard to try to comprehend and I have to try to explain this all to may elderly parents who have a difficult time trying to learn all of this. I'm glad I went TV-less again. My life is more peaceful with out a TV.