What did Comcast do??

Factual Questions
1

If this is a situation unique to Northern California, my apologies. I’m hoping it’s of wider interest.

A few months ago, Comcast channels 39-60 (ESPN2, CNN, AMC, Discovery Channel…) disappeared from almost everybody’s lineup. Of the 3 TVs in my house (all of them new, state-of-the-art flatscreen), only the 1 with an HD signal still gets those channels. So this wasn’t too big a problem; I never watch CNN in the bedroom anyway.

By the way…the TVs at my gym are still missing these channels.

I think I may have read that Comcast was taken off guard by the delay in the digital conversion; that they did something that should have been seamless, but now it’s out in the open.

So their solution: they sent all their subscribers cable boxes. I put off installing mine until today, hoping that maybe yesterday’s digital conversion might take care of the problem (no reason to believe this…just an irrational hope).

When the dawn awoke and nothing was different today, I opened up the boxes and did the install. I’m amazed at just how lame this is: I’ve got up to date TVs, and 1980’s cable boxes hanging off them: the kind where you turn your TV to Channel 3 and change channels through the box. You get a crude little remote, and another vampire device plugged into a power outlet.

So I said screw it, and put them back in the box, and I’ll live without those channels in the bedroom and kitchen.

But I’m curious just what Comcast did, and is this really their long-term solution?

2

Well with most TVs now days you are supposed to leave it on 3 or 4 and use the cable box. Actually if it is an HDTV you will leave it on Line 1 or 2 or something like that. Are you sure you just didn’t remove the channels from showing up on your guide somehow?

3

Nope, positive. These TVs never had a cable box – cable plugged directly into the TV. Those channels just disappeared from all TVs in the house (and at the gym).

4

I bet Comcast stopped all analog transmissions in your area and sent to digial to analog converters aka DTA’s Does it look like the ones at http://picasaweb.google.com/virgegx/ComcastDTAUnboxing#

5

Oh, it’s definitely a DTA. I just don’t understand why it’s necessary.

6

Digital cable allows the cable company to provide more channels. It also makes Pay Per View more convenient(subscribers can order through the cable box instead of over the phone) and allows on-demand programming to be offered.

7

I think this is what happened…

First of all DIGITAL TV is NOT digital cable. The two are TOTALLY seperate. One of my biggest gripes is that cable hasn’t been clear on that and makes you think they are related. They are not.

DTV (digital TV) is a way of compressing OTA (over the air) signals. Digital Cable is a way of compressing cable signal. They are different animals.

Most cable companies want to get rid of analog all together because they can fit more channels with digital. But the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) has said that cable companies MUST support analog cable till 2012.

So slowly cable is moving all but the most basic channels off of analog and on to the digital tier. They are hoping people will say, “Screw analog I’ll switch”

Now there is a very important exception to this rule. The FCC says IF the cable company is willing to provide at least one converter box to each household they serve they can dump analog cable all together. In the city of Chicago (but not the suburbs) they’ve done this.

The problem is TV sets that could get cable TV without a cable box, were getting analog cable TV, NOT digital cable TV. Again remember we are not talking about OTA TV, so this has nothing to do with digital TV OTA. So even if your set could get analog cable TV without a converter box, it won’t get digital cable TV.

Now there are some new TV sets made in past few years that get digital cable TV without a converter box. Of course those TV won’t get any scrambed channels. For that you still need a converter box.

Some TVs also come with “smart cards,” which you plug in the set and that serves as you “cable box”

I bought a TV last September and made sure it said it could get OTA Digital, OTA Analog, Digital Cable and Analog Cable.

Of course since June 12th you don’t have to worry about analog OTA anymore.

But this seems to be what’s happening. It’s a bit complex but just remember that digital cable has NOTHING to do with the digital OTA transition of June 12th.

8

Markxxx, this sounds plausible. So Comcast converted channels 39 - 60 to digital cable; and I apparently managed to buy a brand new television 3 months ago that doesn’t accept digital cable without a converter box. Bummer.

9

Heh…this is happening to us in Connecticut right now. Comcast is going to kill everything above Channel 20 in analog cable in July. So if you want the same programming you get now with “expanded basic” you have to add a set top box or digital to analog converter.

So I calls 'em up and ask how to get the hardware. They say I can pick it up at the local Comcast store and they’ll put in an order so it’ll be there when I go to pick it up. So I blow off a half day of work to go pick up the hardware and, quelle surprise!, they ain’t got any.

I hate Comcast almost as much as I hate AT&T.

10

I have spent the past two weeks dealing with this issue, along with the over-the-air digital conversion.

In the San Francisco Bay Area, Comcast has moved all channels above 33 to digital cable. I obtained a cable box (actually a DVR box) and now receive all of the channels.

My problem is that for certain circumstances, I still need to be able to record to a VCR or DVD recorder (for portability). With the new setup, I can record the non-digital channels just fine. But when I try to record the channels above 33, I get a message saying that I can’t record because the program is copyright protected, and the recordings come out completely garbled. Comcast has repeatedly told me that the problem would be resolved if I used a splitter. So I trekked on down to the Comcast store and picked up a splitter, and installed it according to the instructions I got from Comcast support. As you might have guessed, the problem wasn’t resolved. I called Comcast back, got a different set of splitter instructions, and tried them, but still no success.

If anyone has any thoughts about how to resolve this problem (are you able to record digital cable channels on a VCR?), I’d appreciate hearing them.

Also note that Comcast originally blamed my problem on the VCR/DVD recorder, so I hooked up a brand new one that makes it clear that it has a digital tuner and can record digital cable. I also tested both VCR and DVD recordings, and had the same problem with each.

11

The issue here is one between “NTSC Analog Cable-ready TV” and ‘Digital Cable-ready TV’ sets.

The former is what we have used for years (can generally tune 2-125 and allowed you to watch cable TV - except HBO etc.) without renting a box. These are now defunct and require a ‘DTA’ (free for now) when the cable system goes to digital (as yours has). These ‘DTA’ boxes simply convert *some *‘Digital Cable’ channels to analog to display on your analog set. If you have a newer digital HDTV, using a DTA is a real pain since they don’t support HDTV

‘Digital Cable-ready TV’ sets do not exist (at least in the eye of the cable company). Newer ‘digital’ sets can tune ATSC broadcast channels and ‘QAM’ cable channels - but most of these ‘QAM’ channels are encrypted unless you rent a box from the cable company.

Their business model pushes you do do this (in spite of FCC efforts to the contrary) so that they can then sell you pay-per-view and additional channel packages (like HBO). A side effect of this is to render your new HDTV pretty much useless for all but the local stations unless you rent a cable box.

The cableco wants to encrypt channels to minimize theft of channels (say from users of Internet only cable connections) but the effect is to punish legitimate customers. Several technologies, like CableCard and now Tru2Way have been created by the cable companies - but these have not been well received by the electronics companies since they increase the cost of TV sets. They also have not been well accepted by all cable companies. IF these ever become universally accepted, the long term solution will be for us all to replay our new HDTV sets with even newer HDTV sets.

Welcome to the future…

12

In Massachusetts, Comcast seems to be dropping random stations from the non-converter box lineup. So far, it’s not a wholesale elimination of channels, just random channels across the board. Most of the channels aren’t ones that I watch anyway, but about a month ago one of our local PBS stations was one of them - I can’t tell you how irritated I am over that. We have one converter box and two non-coverter tv’s, so I can’t watch This Old House or Red Green when the wife’s using the “good” tv in the living room. Not a happy customer…