I live in iowa city, IA and i have mediacom cable, just standard coax cable.

I'm getting a 37 inch LCD next friday and i was wondering, will most channels just be standard def. but then bigger ones like ABC and Fox just come in as HD through my regular cable?

I know it will not be "true HD" since i don't have an HD box and don't pay for HD per month, but will certain channels look closer to HD?

Thanks for any information.

Your new TV may have a QAM tuner. If so, connect your regular cable line to it, dig through the menus for something like "digital channel scan" and go through that. You will likely pick up a number of "in the clear" digital channels, with some of them being your digital local channels.

Also check the local topic for you area, found in the HDTV Locals Forum. Others with your service can tell you what they are getting.

This topic has the list of all local topics:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=453241