My dad now had this same problem. I bought him this years' 42 Hitachi Plasma for xmas - I have last years model. I was greatly disappointed to find Hitachi eliminated the second RF connection on the set, dispite the fact the set has ATSC/NTSC and QAM tuners. This is fine if you want to mix satellite in, but you are screwed if you want to use Cable and Antenna without a switch (which is extremely inconvenient IMO) or a VCR (also very inconvenient). Other than that the set has a few more features and menu adjustments that are nice additions though.

I am sure the answer is no but is there an RF to HDMI or RF to component/optical adapter - I highly doubt there is such a thing. (Would this even work? I am thinking not since it still needs to go through a tuner right?).

It's a darn shame that they had to cheap out on something that costs peanuts in the big picture. There is three HDMI inputs on this TV, but none are needed at this point - the one extra over last year is probably the reason behind deleting the second RF input...