Getting cable on a monitor?

[DougMacArthur]

I'm hoping this is the right sub-forum for this question. I usually use TH forums for computer related questions, but I find myself having trouble with something I previously though was very simple.

I'm essentially trying to get cable on a TV for the first time. So far in my life, I've either not watched cable television or just watched on a TV that was already hooked up. My understanding was that a coax cable ran from the wall to a cable box, then the box ran a AV out line to a TV and that was that.

My first issue is: what exactly is the "cable box"? I know I could rent the exact right thing from my ISP (Comcast Xfinity) but I'd rather just buy a cheap thing that I pay for once because I wont be watching much. It seems the box is a digital video converter, but most of these discuss converting digital antenna signal to analog. Is this the right thing?

I bought one of these (RCA Digital TV Converter + Recorder) and hooked it up to the cable outlet in my room, then had the video output go to a computer monitor. I can see the menu from the box, but when I search for channels it yields nothing.

I'm just not really sure what's going on here. Is the box I got the wrong thing? Is it just that the outlet is broken? Or maybe I don't have the right cable? I'm assuming I'm doing something very obviously wrong but I've never set up cable before so I have no idea.

 

[americanaudiophile]

The cable converter you bought is probably for over the air TV only not cable. It has an ATSC tuner and would require an antenna.
You would need a QAM tuner for cable. Even then you would only get non-encrypted channels IF there are any on the cable.
You can't buy a cable box with the cable card that it requires it. You can only rent them from your cable provider. If you could the cable company wouldn't activate it.
There were some TVs in the past that you could plug the cable card directly into but not anymore.