Quote:
Originally Posted by nodrogd
The cable was never fed direct to the TV. The analogue cable converters had a PSB bypass adaptor on the back that took the standard UHF channels 1 - 4 to the TV along with any alternate BBC/ITV region. Judging by the amount of times this bypass "blew" during thunderstorms I was rather glad it wasn't connected directly to the TV.
Cable tuners on TV's are designed for open type systems used in Europe, where there is some free content & the CAM slot on the TV is used for subs channels. Virgin is a closed system & requires an STB so they have more control over possible piracy. It also means you have to rent the box.
|
In the analogue days if you weren't a subscriber, but your cable was still connected at the cab, you could plug the cable directly in to your TV and receive, at the very least, the 5 PSB channels. A number of others were often also there. We used to get BBC3 and, bizarrely, Live! TV. Analogue cable used a wider frequency range than terrestrial but, in Hemel Hempstead at least, the PSBs were within the range a TV's analogue tuner could receive.
IIRC In some of the new towns the local cableco was obliged to provide a basic free service.
However to answer the original question, you can't do this with digital and a Freeview TV or box must be connected to an aerial, not Virgin Media cable.