Wow what a bitch. This HDTV thing has been one hell of a bitch. We set to work on it this morning and called up our cable company. I explained to the person on the other end that I could get only basic channels on the HDTV converter, and I could only see the guide banners on the digital cable box. She suggested maybe I had them connected wrong, umm hello I wouldn’t get a picture if they were hooked up wrong. She suggested they send a technician out on Monday but warned me that there’d be a $35 charge if it that turned out to be the problem.

I got a little annoyed and yelled at the woman a bit and asked to speak to the person who helped me yesterday. I was finally connected and she was some help. She did some stuff back at the office and suddenly the HDTV converter was working but not the digital box. After some more talking, the woman offered to send a hard reset to the box and call me back in an hour, I took it.

So now with the HDTV converter working, it was time to set about the task of figuring out the High Def connection issues. I chose to use the DVI-D cable as it’s supposed to be the highest quality hook up but when I set it up, the LCD TV would get a picture and display a message that said something about HDCP (High Definition Content Protection), an encryption scheme to ensure that the signal from the HD box makes it to the HD Monitor with zero degradation, and then loses it’s picture.

I started reading up and read the TV specs which state that HDCP is supported and is not supported. It very much contradicted it self. The TV is supposed to be able to support 1080i but I could not even get a 480i signal to work. Frustrated, I decided to try the Component cables, I unhooked the cables from the back of the DVD player and hooked it up to the back of the HD box. Hooked up this way, I could get 480i Video from the converter but I could not get anything higher. I am now beginning to get really really confused. After about 20 more minutes of playing with it, I went and grabbed the owner’s manual. And found out that:

1. The DVI-D connection on my TV is for a computer output only, not HDTV.
2. There are two component connections, one for DVD one for HDTV
3. The DVD component input is capable of 480i which is enough for DVDs
4. The HDTV component input is capable of 1080i for HDTV.

Some cables were moved and bang it right out, mine eyes were awash in all the yummy HD goodness of Discovery HD! Hot!

The digital cable box however did not work still and they decided to send out a technician, on Monday, which with Shawn’s new job situation, meant I’d have to work at home to be here. We decided to say f the second digital cable box and just return it. Once we had wrapped it up and got it ready to take back, the cable company called to tell us there was a problem on their end and everything should be working now, I said thanks but no thanks, we’re giving it back! So we kept the HDTV box and we’re returning our digital cable box.

Thank goodness that’s sorted.