[LINK] ?? re digital tv and cable

[andrew clarke]

On Wed, Jul 11, 2007 at 08:13:05PM +1000, Jan Whitaker wrote:

> [not internet related, but I'm sure someone will have thought about this]
> 
> When/if the analogue tv free to air is shut off, and digital tv 
> replaces it, what will cable tv signals be?

Foxtel went digital in March 2004 with their analogue cable TV service
switched off in April this year:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxtel#Foxtel_Digital

I don't know about other cable TV services.

> If cable is going to be analogue, are the plasma and lcd tvs analogue 
> as well as digital and can be used on cable? Or will cable convert to 
> digital as well, requiring new stb receivers?

Most STBs will provide an output socket for an analogue video signal. 
Some will also provide a HDMI (digital) output for TVs that support that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Definition_Multimedia_Interface

I think most LCD & plasma TVs provide an analogue input as standard
(probably using a S-Video socket) as well as VGA input (to connect to a
PC), and most of the high-end models also support HDMI.  I think the
industry's intention is to obsolete analogue cabling eventually.