What’s the dope on the digital TV conversion? Comcast is contradicting themselves. Their website says that if you’re already plugged into cable, you don’t need to do anything. However, they also sent a letter saying that to reach anything above channel 32, you need a cable box.
What I really want to know is this: My computer is an HP Media PC with a TV card. It’s less than a year old, so Im pretty sure it’s digital capable. I want to still use it as a DVR, but as far as I can tell, that means I can’t put a cable box between it and the wall, or it won’t be able to change channels on its own. Cable boxes only put out one channel at a time, right?
I called Comcast, and they had no idea what I was asking. So A) do I have to have cable box in order to view extended cable (no pay stations like HBO, just things like FoodNetwork and Comedy Central) and B) will a cable box interfere with my DVR?
what do people with a TiVo do, as I expect they’re in the same boat as me?
What kind of a TV tuner card do you have? Is it analog or Digital (clear QAM)?
Either way, as long as you are hooked up to your cable wire you’re fine. Although the signal of “standard” cable is analog, it has nothing to do with the digital change going on in the airwaves. There might be a time when cable and others go completely digital as well, but that won’t come for a while yet.
With an analog tuner you should have available the standard basic cable channels that you want to see. No HD though.
If you want HD you either need to get a digital clear QAM tuner which should give you access to some of your basic cable digital channels (better picture) and you local HD channels.
The only way right now to use your PC as a media center AND get all of your cable/FiOs channels digital, HD and extended pay channels like HBO is to get a pre-built system with a cable card tuner. I plan on doing this sometime next year when I switch to FiOs.
Digital TV is NOT digital cable, they are two different things.
Right now your TV gets UHF and VHF on something called an NTSC tuner. Your cable company takes NTSC signals and converts them to QAM and shows them. If your TV is cable ready it can receive QAM without a converter box. (Provided there is no scramble of the channel)
Once digital comes your cable company will take Digital and covert it to QAM, so you will still get it.
HDTV is a type of digital TV. ALL HDTV is digital, NOT all digital is HDTV.
The card is a Hauppage WinTV HVR-1600, which google tells me is a hybrid digital/analog card. So I can plug the cable straight into it without any kind of cable box, and still receive everything but pay stations and HD (neither of which I subscribe to anyway) after Jan 2010, correct?
Actually, as long as the software you are using supports clear QAM and your HVR1600 is one of the models that also support clear QAM (visit their website for details) you should be able to pick up BOTH the analog cable (which should be your local and basic cable channels) AND the clear QAM channels which are your local HD channels and some of the basic cable channels by splitting the line and plugging both inputs to your cable line.
I believe sage TV and Vista media center support clear QAM tuners.
And yes, this is true even after the nationwide switch to digital. Again, remember that that switch is ONLY for over the air reception of your local channels. It has zero to do with cable, satellite or FiOs, etc.
It should also be stressed that, if you’re using an antenna for local channels AND the antenna is connected to your satellite box, you’re already all set. The satellite receiver is already performing the function of one of those “digital/analog converter boxes” that the government is sending out coupons for, so you don’t need one.
I got rid of Comcast a while ago, but ISTR that they’re slowly but surely moving away from delivering any analog content. Analog channels take up more bandwidth than digital, so they’ve been moving channels off analog broadcast to QAM. Usually this is invisible to a cable box user, but someone’s who’s plugging the cable directly into a non-cable ready TV sees channels disappear.
Your Happauge HVR-1600 looks like it handles NTSC, ATSC & QAM, so you should be OK. Unless of course Comcast starts encrypting all their QAM channels to force you to pay for a box.
Our local cable company went digital about six months ago. However, they kept a handful of analog channels. (Actually, what they said they are doing is converting the digital signal back to analog.) So the folks without a cable box can still get the local channels, a few shopping channels, cable news channels, maybe ESPN. I’m guessing that’s what Comcast is doing as well – you don’t need a cable box, but you’re severely limited in what you can watch without one.
As you mentioned in your OP though, the basic cable adapters will only output one channel at a time, making them useless for DVR. And I don’t think Comcast cares about screwing over Tivo owners, especially since they offer a DVR of their own in a lot of markets.
I have a cable box between my DVR PC and the wall. The PC came with a remote extender that sends the channel change signals to the cable box. It’s also an HP Media Center PC.
Now if it were only smart enough to know when the cable box has turned itself off and could turn it back on.
I forgot about those repeaters, that is a possible option, yes, but your software has to be compatible with it and support your particular cable box, I believe. And of course there are some issues as Knead To Know points out.
My TiVo is connected to the cable box. The TiVo changes the channel on the cable box when it’s time to record something. Or are you talking about TiVo owners without cable?
You can use a TiVo without a cable box in a couple of ways: As many other posters have pointed out, the non-digital cable channels can be received directly on a TiVo (it’s “cable ready” in that respect).
The HD TiVos have a slot for a cableCard, which is essentially a cable box on a card allowing the TiVo to get all the channels that the cable box can get (everything except On Demand).
Comcast actually does have an interest in not screwing over TiVo owners; partly just because it’s always better to have at least a token competition, but more importantly because Comcast and TiVo are partners in bringing the TiVo software to the Comcast DVRs, and it’s usually not a good idea to significantly annoy a business partner.
