These boxes are not appealing if you don't like clutter. If only I could cram it INTO my microATX media center.

So can I plug the Coax with cable TV running through it into this thing and expect it to receive the channels I get with a cable box? Because I tried to do that with an LCD TV and many of the channels wouldn't tune in with the built in tuner in the TV.

Yes, but it can still only decode those channels that you subscribe for. For instance, if you didn't subscribe movie channels from your cable company, the box wouldn't give you HBO either.

Well sure that's to be expected #3. But my concern is that for instance with my TV it would only tune in channels 2-125. So I wanted to watch 128 but could not tune it in even though the TV could be set to 128. In the end I had to get another cable box to pay rent on every month just to watch that channel. The same channel I would like to watch in my office with something like this. Maybe I should just go get a 13" tv off craigslist for $20 instead. It won't be able to tune in channel 128 either but I'm thinking neither will this.

Channel 1-125 are so called Analog channels. Usually old TVs can only receive these analog channels. But if you got a LCD TV with a QAM tuner, you should be able to get digital and HD channels like a cable box does (my Sony and Sharp LCD TV do this for sure.). And that's exactly what this box can do. So get this only your monitor or tv doesn't have a ATSC(let you get over-the-air digital channels) and QAM(let you grab cable digital channels) tuners.

Depending on the cable provider, your QAM stations can be (and probably are) encoded. In this case, this tuner will not be able to show these stations without a cable box.

oink

#2, generally only the local broadcast channels are sent with unencrypted QAM. So you can usually watch the HD version of ABC, but even if you have a subscription you would not be able to watch ESPNHD.
Often, other people's OnDemand feeds are sent unencrypted QAM (at least for Comcast).

I'm getting this for my Olevia 337H LCD HDTV that didn't come with a tuner, since I'm dropping Comcast to stop getting ripped off by that stupid company. OTA rules!!!