Do I need digital cable for HD for series 3

You can use it for OTA HD, OTA analog, and analog from the cable.

 

In other words you cannot get HD channels over analog (Standard) cable.

 

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No cable card needed for OTA.

 

ESPN is not OTA - if you want it, you'll have to pay for it.

There is some chance that even though your association is providing analog cable that digital signals may be there too. If you have an HD TV with a built-in digital tuner, try to see what you can get - you may find the local HD stations there. ESPN HD will be encrypted so you'll need some sort of digital package and a cablecard for that.

.../Ed

 

your cheapeast option is to try OTA for HD in addition to your existing standard cable. this doesn't get you ESPNHD, but it also doesn't cost you anything extra other than the cost of an antenna.

if you don't have an account with your cable company, you may have to ask you home owners association how others have added services in the past. if they don't have a clue, you'd have to setup an account with your cable company. you might be able to get your HD channels with just cablecards plus a basic or standard cable package plus a HD Tier charge which would be less than a digital cable package most of the time.

the best way to get the cheapest quote in my experience is to start by asking about just getting a HD set top box along with basic cable to tune the local HD channels only. Then ask about adding other channels like ESPNHD, DiscoveryHD, HBOHD, etc. Then ask about cablecards instead of the STB, then ask about 2 cable cards. If you mention TiVo or DVR first you get the standard sales pitch for upgrading to "digital cable" and renting their DVR.

 

Definitely go the "find out what it takes to get the minimum additional package for HD" route.

I also live in a townhouse (rental) that provides all the analog cable channels (no box) for free - included in the lease. When I went HD a few years ago, I was able to rent a Moto 6200 for $5/month and get the local HD channels - OTA reception was too spotty, and renting a temporary box at $5/month was better than buying an OTA receiver at the time for like $350. Then later I added digital classic, which got me DiscoveryHD and ESPN-HD along with a subset of the digital SD channels for another $5/month. If I didn't live in a bandwidth-limited system (Sunnyvale CA) I would have also gotten more HD channels for the same fee, but that's a separate issue. In my case, the townhouse manager gave me the number for the part of Comcast that deals with bulk accounts such as townhouses (Business Services maybe? I don't remember the name, it wasn't the standard 1800-COMCAST number)

Now I have my S3 w/Lifetime transfer, and all I end up paying Comcast for per month is the digital classic @ ~$5/month and the 2 cablecards at whatever they worked out to. Works great, and less than $10/month to Comcast.