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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Rackhir" data-source="post: 4584984" data-attributes="member: 149">I think what is happening is they are trying to get you to go from analog cable to digital cable. Digital cable basically means you need a cable box, since they have fought tooth and nail any way of letting TVs or devices not need one (It's not quite this simple, but those are the basics of it). With the older analog cable systems you could essentially tune in the channels with the same hardware you used for receiving broadcast TV. So you could get "cable" without needing a box.In short, you are getting hit with something similar to, but not directly related to the broadcast TV digital transition.They want you to move to the digital cable, because then they can sell you things like Movies on demand, which are very profitable for them and probably jack up what they are charging you and charge you for a cable box....Even if you get a new TV it is highly likely that you will still need a converter box (more properly a cable box). If it's important to you not to need one, then you want to look for a set with what's called a "CableCard" slot (good luck on anything affordable). This is a card that plugs into your TV (or HD Tivo) and does the authorization and provides the decoding keys necessary to enable you to get digital cable. The major downside of them, is that currently they don't permit you to access the "on demand" or interactive services.</blockquote>