new to hdtv and completely confused

You need to have an HD cable box from your cable company and hook it up to your TV with componet cables or an HDMI cable. Or you can hook an antenna up to the antenna in on the back of your TV and do a channel scan for over the air channels. You can pick up your local channels in HD for free over the air.

If I understand you correctly, you currently only have access to standard definition programming (SD). If so, then as the above poster mentions, you need to get access to HD programming. In the meantime, you can use the "screen" "wide" or "zoom" functions (naming conventions vary by TV mfg) to make the picture fill your widescreen TV. It usually takes playing around with it to figure out what setting works best. Understand that the fuzzy standard definition picture will get even fuzzier when zoomed.

Probably the easiest way for the OP to get HD feeding into his set, since he already has cable and mentions several cable channels in that post.

Threadstarter didn't mention location so how do you know their locals are available in HD over-the-air? Maybe point them to a resource like TV Fool so they can find out for certain.

There should be a button on the TV remote to control the picture width. It's usually labeled WIDE, ASPECT, ZOOM, etc., and varies with brand of TV. Press the button repeatedly until the picture suits you. If you cannot find a setting you like, you will have to rent an HD cable box and subscribe to HD programming.

To summarize (I think), you do need this:

• HDTV (set for 16:9)
• An HD cable or satellite box (also set to tell it you have a 16:9 TV and HD resolutions selected).
• An HD cable/satellite package in order to get HD programming from your provider.
• Watch an HD channel (they are on different channel numbers vs. the SD channels). Make sure you're not watching an SD channel.

Hope that helps.

^^^+1 Pretty much sums it up. I sell HDTVs for a living. Most returns are because people don't believe us when we tell them they won't get an HD picture without an HD source of some kind "Doesn't the tv automatically make everything HD?"

Don't forget to connect your HD-compatible satellite/cable equipment to your HDTV with an HD-capable cable (like HDMI or composite). You can plug coax directly into your TV and still get HD if your TV has a decoder. Yes, it's complicated.

Trust me, when your picture goes full HD, you'll know.

Component, I don't know why they have to be such similar words it's easy to get them mixed up. And I agree, when you see HD you'll know.

Nobody mentioned this, but assuming the cable company broadcasts clear Qam, you should pick up HD channels without a box for the time being.
To do this, plug the cable coax coming from the wall directly to the TV ( without the set top box if you had one). And do a channel search from the TV's menu. There might be an option as to which channels you want to scan like "digital cable" ,"analog cable", or "digital air". Make sure you choose "digital cable". When done with the scan, try entering the channels from the tv remote in digital form like 2.1, 3.1, etc. Note that you will probably pick up only local channels with this method until you get an HD box.

Composite will not deliver an HD picture. Component will.

Are there still markets out there that don't have at least one local channel broadcasting HD?

I am going to assume that you are using a cable box and this is the same box you were using with your non-HD TV. There are at least two outputs from this type of box, composite video (yellow) and stereo audio (red and white) plus coax with the channel set to 3 or 4. Some boxes also provide S-Video in addition to composite. Generally S-video is better than composite and composite is better than the coax. When connected to an HDTV using any of these methods, the NORMAL display will have bars on the sides and if the program is wide format (having bars above and below on a non-HD set) it will have bars above and below on an HDTV. In other words it is displayed in a 9:12 aspect ratio (3:4) instead or 9:16 which would fill the HDTV screen. I stress NORMAL display because all the aspect ratio setting options available on the HDTV start with this dislpay and will provide other the other settings to cause the display to fill the screen from side to side and may allow the screen to be filled top to bottom when wide format material is present. These all cause some degree of distortion since their purpose is to force the 4:3 aspect ratio SD material to fill the 16:9 aspect ratio HDTV screen. In addition the display will not be as sharp as with HD material since the resolution from these SD sources is maximum of 480x640 while HD sources are 720x1280 or 1080x 1920. An HD box provides component (three cable video plus two cable audio) and HDMI (one cable which includes video and audio) which provides all three resolutions, 480x640i/p, 720x1280p and 1080x1920i/p (1080p only over HDMI).

In order to see true full resolution HD use the method mikepier described except I recommend that you add a splitter to the cable and feed the cable box and the TV at the same time. Connect the box using the composite and audio cables to free your sets coax input for the connection from the splitter. It is possible that many of the channels that you receive from the box are digital and are not available in clear QAM. This is a good method to see what HD will look like from an HD cable box for HD channels.

LOL, I don't doubt that one bit. We are surrounded by nuts at times.

I think what the post was referring to is the possibility that the OP might be in a location where OTA reception is not possible.

also don't forget that even if you have an HD source that you will need to select the HD versions of the channels you are watching...the SD channels will still be there and are most likely what you are used to tuning into so make sure to go to the HD group of channels...for me those are channels 600 and above

I remember when I first bought my HD set and got the HD cable box that I was so used to recording and watching the SD channels that it took me a week or so to get used to going to the HD equivalents...I mistakingly recorded some SD programming by mistake

Just like a color TV doesn't make everything color. If your watching The Three Stooges shorts or The Honeymooners its still going to be in black and white.

Titus, what service provider you have on Long Island? I have Cablevision, where they map HD channels automatically to the SD channels.

For example, if I choose Channel 02,04, etc on my STB, it will automatically map to the HD version of the channel like 702,704, etc.
Neat feature. I think they started this last year.

The way to explain this to these people is to ask them why I Love Lucy and Leave it to Beaver are still black and white on their COLOR Tv.