No cable box alas. I just get basic cable which the HD sets in the house decode just fine. They gave everybody in the neighborhood some really cheapo converter boxes a few years back that don't even downconvert the HD channels. I might have to dig one out of storage and see what the specs are again.

I think it's Music Choice, but their site doesn't acknowledge my cheap ass cable provider. ;)

I've seen these little gizmos that take a toslink signal and convert it to two channel analog output on Ebay. Frys seems to have similar devices in store.

My plan was to route the signal into my DVD recorder. No toslink in on the laptop. Pity I can't just plug the toslink out from the tv into my CD recorder!

Thanks for the suggestions, everyone.