I understand that there are timeshifted channels, so a network may come up twice and be listed as NET and NET-W. Or one channel for HD and one for standard. This is not what I am asking about. Some of my channels come in twice, with both instances being the same timezone and same definition. For example, I can watch ESPN on #25 or #300. Both are in HD, East Coast time, and both always show the exact same programs. Several other networks do this too.
Is there any technical reason for this? Or is it just a way for the cable company to bump up the advertised number of channels they offer?
Is it possible that the channels are intended to serve different markets (and your particular cable package just happens to subscribe to both)? Maybe one channel is normally sold as part of a cable package in New England, and other channel in Florida, and the cable network runs the same content but different advertisements on each (targetted to the appropriate geographic audience). Maybe even the programming is different some of the time, but you haven’t noticed yet.
My guess is that Channel 25 is ESPN-SD and 300 is ESPN-HD and I think some cable boxes can be set to automatically switch to the HD channel, if one is available. So it’s possible that you’re really just watching Channel 300 either way.
My cable provider (Comcast) has done the same thing, probably about a year ago. The primary PBS station out of Boston is on 2, 802, and 1002, with 802 and 1002 being HD. Almost every channel below 999 is repeated in the 1000+ range. If it’s available in standard and HD, the above-1000 version is in HD.
If I had to guess, it seemed at the time as if the cable company wanted us viewers to just use the 1000+ channel numbers.
Dewey Finn and KCB615 both report what I have here. The auto-switch to the HD version on certain boxes plus the new Comcast 1000+ channel range ~duplication (whose purpose I do not get).
Still a [del]hundred[/del] thousand channels and nothin’ on.
I think it’s a leftover from the days when cable companies offered both analog and digital packages. I can remember when Charter/Spectrum put analog signals on 1-99, digital signals on 100+ and HD signals on 500+.
That was when digital and HD were first starting to enter the market, so they had customers with analog sets, others with SD newer digital receivers, and a few with the newest HD types. Depending on which type you had, you could watch the basic cable tier without a box.
A few years later, they made everyone get a box, and the box converted the channel to whatever the TV would accept. These days 1-99 is just the “expanded basic” tier.
That’s my WAG as well. If you’re watching the lower numbered channel with a modern cable box, it will automatically switch to the HD. However, if you have a smaller bedroom tv without a box, the channel 25 would come through in SD.
This happens on Dish as well, with the “duplicated” HD channels in the 5000 range-9000 range. The DVR recognizes them as individual channels, you can record on both at once if you somehow wanted to, and it would count as two separate recordings. Satellite shouldn’t have analog/digital packages like cable does, and it seems like it would take up valuable channel space.
Xfinity/Comcast is duplicating the channels in the 1 - 999 range in the 1000+ range to more logically (according the them) organize them. Unless the channel is only available in SD, they are only putting HD version in the 1000+ range.
1000 - 1099 Basic cable.
1100 - 1199 News
1400 - 1499 and 1600- 1649 Entertainment
1650 - 1749 Family & children
1750 - 1799 Movies
1800 - 1899 Premium
These channels should automatically appear for the appropriate subscribers and there is no extra charge. Some customers with ancient equipment might not be able to receive them.
One reason is to make it easier for basic packages to be sold with specific channels, and for those channels to be grouped together by theme elsewhere outside the basic channel range. Spectrum (formerly Time Warner where I am) does this: 1-99 are local network channels, assorted basic information channels, basic movie channels (TMC, etc.), basic sports channels (ESPN, FS1, NBCSN), etc. In short, a basic package. But then the channels are often repeated in the range of 100 to 999, only they are grouped together with other channels in a theme. Thus, 300 - 450 is sports, which includes the basic sports channels like ESPN, but also ESPN2, ESPNU, etc.
Then, in the 1000+ range, you get a variety of other groupings, including the old HD channels (which often used to mirror the SD channels but with a 1 in front of the number), and the porn channels, the music only channels, etc.
It’s convenient for someone with a basic package of 99 channels not to have to remember that ESPN is 300, NBCSN is 314, and FS1 is 400, with not much of anything in between.
I have AT&T U-verse and they have duplicated channels all over the place, but they are usually the shopping or infomercial channels. Does there really need to be 10 different places where I can watch “Have a turkey neck?”
Why the hell in 2018 are there still any non-HD channels? At a certain point shouldn’t the cable companies say “no HDTV- no cable for you”? Just how many people out there have refused to update their sets to HD? (By HD I mean anything at 720p or better).
It gives the cable company a way of enforcing artificial scarcity, thereby enticing you to pay for “upgrades” to HD. Our local cable provider provides several dozen channels that are offered in duplicate (one in SD and one in HD), but the default cable package includes only the SD versions plus a small handful of HD ones.
Apart from that, you got me. Maybe there are some retro channels out there that play nothing but old shows shot on video instead of film? (That would be the majority of sitcoms, and a good number of dramas, up until at least the 1980s.) For that kind of programming there is no benefit to HD, so maybe they can save bandwidth by broadcasting only in SD.
Some folks don’t pay the extra for the HD service, and get most of their content via Netflix, etc. They may still have an HDTV, but just don’t get HD delivered via cable. It’s a pretty big savings.
If you’re talking about someone who just gets internet service for their Netflix, sure that’s fine. But if someone is actually subscribing to cable TV content, it seems ridiculous that SD is even an option. It wastes bandwidth. We shouldn’t be catering to old technology. Old sets can’t even tune broadcast signals, they need an adapter. I’m just saying the cable feed to those folks should be HD and they should have to live with black bars.
What black bars? Are you perhaps confusing the resolution of an image with its aspect ratio? Plenty of programs shown on HD channels also have black bars; this just means that they weren’t shot with modern-day television sets in mind. Conversely, SD channels are perfectly capable of broadcasting in widescreen.
With digital tuners the channel number is unrelated to the frequency. I wouldn’t be surprised if 802 and 1002 (“duplicate” HD channels in the lineup) are actually tuning the same frequency.
I remember when Springsteen’s “Fifty-seven channels and nothin’ on” was in rotation on MTV.
Because those reruns of All in the Family look sooo much better in HD! 
Which is why a whole bunch of those broadcast TV subchannels (AntennaTV, Cozi, Me TV, Chiller, etc.) only broadcast in SD.
And if you don’t have a big-screen TV, there isn’t a whole lot of difference between the 480 and 720/1080 picture.
Also, while All in the Family was recorded on videotape, other shows, like The Mary Tyler Moore Show, were recorded on film, so they can certainly look better than SD, even if they’re only in 4:3 aspect ratio.