You should be able to plug your cable directly into the tv and receive some unscrambled digital channels. However, to receive most channels and all but a few HDTV channels, you need an HD cable box and you need to suscribe to HDTV service from your cable company. Do you plan to use cable or satellite? For now, just hook your coaxial cable tv into the coax input labled cable/antenna in. You will need to run the setup program so the tv will search for available channels.