Dear Big Picture Big Sound,
Thank you for a great review on the Olevia 542i. I recently bought this TV (ok, my wife bought it for me…) for my birthday. I have it hooked up to a component home theater system (not one of those HiB systems) and so I have a number of digital audio inputs that I can use and I am loving my new hdtv. However, I have a few questions for you below.
Thanks.
-Brian S.
Dear Brian,
Glad you liked our review and welcome to the land of high definition TV! BTW, a wife who buys her hubby an HDTV for his birthday is OK in our book! Does she have a seester?
In response to your questions:
Question 1.) I am currently subscribing to the lowest level of basic cable and the TV found about 13 HD channels that come in great. Is that normal?
Answer: Plugging in an HDTV with a QAM HD tuner to a "standard" cable line and finding a bunch of digital channels (including HDTV channels) is normal. Most cable providers are broadcasting both digital and analog signals over the same cable line. So when you hook up a tuner that supports QAM (digital cable) you will most likely be able to tune in any of the non-encrypted content from your provider, including basic HD channels.
Question 2.) I have just signed up for digital cable and am upgrading to the HD Box but not subscribing to the "HD Tier" as most of my viewing is on the normal networks. Will I continue to get all of the HD channels through the digital box that I am currently getting through the coax into the Olevia's tuner?
Answer: Really only your provider can answer that question for sure. My guess is that, if it's coming over unencrypted in the QAM feed, then your new HD cable box will also be able to tune in the same channels. I assume you're getting the HD box so you can use advanced features like a program guide and/or PVR, right? If not, then you could save yourself some money by using the QAM tuner built into the Olevia set.
But this begs the question: if you only watch broadcast TV (major networks), do you really need cable? If you're near a major city or can put up a roof antenna, you might try connecting an antenna to the input on the Olevia set and seeing what it can find. In the New York tri-state area, it's very easy to receive the digital transmissions from the Empire State Building, which gives us New Yorkers all of the network feeds in HD for free - ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, Fox, plus other cool digital channels like QUBO, PBS-Kids, The Tube (Music Videos) and more. You might look into what's available over the air locally, then decide whether you really need to keep paying for cable.
Question 3.) Can I continue to have cable run directly into my tuner on the TV and also run the HDMI cable with an optical cable to my receiver?
Answer: Yes, your cable signal should be strong enough to use a standard (high bandwidth) coax splitter feeding one output directly to the TV's tuner, and one to the cable box, and the optical or coax digital audio output on your new cable box should still be active even when you are using the HDMI a/v output from the new box into your TV.
If you have more than one HDMI source (e.g., cable box plus HD-DVD or Blu-Ray Disc), then you might consider getting an HDMI-switching receiver such as the Onkyo TX-SR604 or TX-SR674. The benefit of this type of receiver is that you can connect multiple HDMI sources to the receiver, each via a single cable that carries both the video and surround sound digital audio. Then you need only connect a single HDMI cable between the receiver and your TV.
The upgraded model (TX-SR674) even does upconversion of all other video sources (composite, S-video or component) to HDMI which will further simplify your connections. Of course, you can use your HDTV as the video switcher as well, but this entails running multiple wires to the TV and to the receiver, and switching both the TV set and the receiver separately for each source. This can get a little hairy if you have a lot of different components.
Anyway... best of luck with your new HDTV and enjoy the Big Picture and Big Sound!
Regards,
-Chris
