Lesson learned for being cheap

[TPD]

Two days before Christmas, I decided to buy the wife a gift - a new TV! No pots and pans, vacuum cleaner, or kitchen gadgets - learned that lesson about year 10 of our marriage.

I normally buy quality stuff, but televisions/surround sound/entertainment systems are not something we feel we need to have the biggest and best in - not into smart curved TV, movies, or blu-ray - give us Andy Griffith, Golden Girls, Fox News, and our Apple TV box and life is good. So I set a price limit of $400 for a 45-50" TV. Found one at Target that fit the bill - 48" Element for $380. Wife is pleased Christmas morning - 11" more than she already had.

Plug the damn thing in, do the auto program stuff and IT FINDS ZERO CHANNELS on the Metrocast system. After an hour of repeated auto programming with no success, I get on the google box to figure this technology crap out. No QAM tuner in my cheap television - a reason for the cheapness apparently. Luckily I had one of those digital adaptors from Metrocast for our reliable 13" tube TV. Hooked that up and found 80+ channels.

The downfall with the adaptor is that we no longer get the HD channels - Megyn Kelly not as hot in standard def. Plus we need more than one remote. Not what we were used too with the old Sony 37". UGH - technology - hate it!

 

[dan0623_2000]

I thought all TV's manufactured after a certain date(which was long ago) would automaticly have the abiliity to tune in the HD channels. I am afraid I would have done the same as you. I use to know all that crap when it came to TV's, stereos, and surround sound. Now I check with the daugher before I buy most eloectronics. That is so humiliateing LOL

 

[TPD]

I thought all TV's manufactured after a certain date(which was long ago) would automaticly have the abiliity to tune in the HD channels. I am afraid I would have done the same as you. I use to know all that crap when it came to TV's, stereos, and surround sound. Now I check with the daugher before I buy most eloectronics. That is so humiliateing LOL

I thought I knew a bit about tech stuff - I assumed all TVs worked on all cable systems. ASSume - yeah!

From Wikipedia -

Most US TVs sold after 2006 include a QAM tuner, though some low end and less expensive models still do not include the functionality to tune QAM channels as of 2009.[citation needed] Even though the hardware used to tune ATSC (over the air digital) and QAM (digital cable) channels is similar, there are still plenty of devices on the market as of 2009 which can tune ATSC signals but not QAM signals. Some do have the QAM feature but do not describe it in the operator's manual or on-screen menu options, choosing instead to place it under the category of a channel scan and forcing viewers to delete many scrambled channels after a scan. The FCC mandates that all new TVs sold in the US must include an ATSC tuner, but there are no requirements for QAM tuning functionality.[5]