HDTV help

rcaligan

rcaligan

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rcaligan
My wife and I bought a new HDTV for Christmas, one with a built-in ATSC tuner. Previous to this, we've been using SuddenLink (Cox) digital cable through a standard digital cable box on a regular CRT TV.

Now we'd like to receive HDTV programming, and SL is telling me that I need their DVR box to receive HDTV signals. Which, of course, comes at extra cost per month. They also require professional installation for the HD receiver (another $49.99).

Why do I need the new box when my TV already has a built-in tuner? (I could really do without the DVR). What on earth are they going to install that I can't do myself?
 
The built-in tuner is for off-air.

Cable will get you for a digital box, using their standards (which are not off-air standards). If the TV has a slot for a cable card, you should be able to ask for a card from the cable company to avoid the set-top box.

The installation charge is to send a tech to your house and hook up the new box. Really. It's just a way for them to stick their hands in your pockets for more money.
 
If you live close enough to the station to receive Over-The-Air signals, all you need is an antenna.

There are some really good indoor antennas for less than $50 that work well. The Zenith Silver Sensor is a good one. I have two of those - one on each TV.

If you want CABLE HD channels, you have to pony up for their converter.
 
MSmith said:
If you live close enough to the station to receive Over-The-Air signals, all you need is an antenna.

There are some really good indoor antennas for less than $50 that work well. The Zenith Silver Sensor is a good one. I have two of those - one on each TV.

If you want CABLE HD channels, you have to pony up for their converter.
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That antenna will work if a) your house is close to the transmitter and b) there are no VHF digital stations in town. Digital channel 2, CBS in Chicago, is VHF.

Put in your zip code on http://www.antennaweb.org ,which is the industry site, choose digital channels only and see what channels you can get and how far and in what direction the transmitters are. That will tell what kind and size of antenna you need. There's a classification i.e. LD for Large Directional it explains there.

Channel Master and Winegard are good brands of antennas.
http://www.solidsignal.com gets good reviews as a store.
 
Roy,
If you do get a second box, check out the reception on the off-air tuner for the TV compared to the other box. I found that out of the 3 tuners I have, each is a little better than the previous one.
 
I have Charter Digital service. When I switched up for HDTV, they swapped out the box. Rental was 5.99 as opposed to 3.99 for a regular digital box. Then, they hit me for an added 5.99 for the "digital tier."

At least there was no installation fee. The pain was just having to stay home from work one morning while they showed up... very late. I love the HDTV view, particularly with many of the shows and movies. Watching One Six Right had incredible resolution. But, I'm convinced there are some female newscasters who should not let their image be in high definition. :eek:

Here's where it gets more odd. I've had two increases in rates the last year. For the last two years, I've called about one thing or another and would end up getting a temporary discount when I mention switching to satellite. The last few months of 2006, I was getting a $10 discount per month for internet access. At the same time, my internet service went up from 42.95 per month to 45.95. So, I called back. She said if I upgraded from 3GB service to 5GB service, which was normally 49.95, I could get a six-month discount to 39.95 per month. At the same time, she dropped my movie tier package (essentially expanded basic but sounds better) from 55.99 down to 39.99 per month.

So, the theory is proved. The squeaky wheel gets the grease! :D
 
rcaligan said:
Now we'd like to receive HDTV programming, and SL is telling me that I need their DVR box to receive HDTV signals. Which, of course, comes at extra cost per month. They also require professional installation for the HD receiver (another $49.99).
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Check and see if SL offers just an HDTV box (without DVR). This box should rent for a few dollars more than the SDTV box like you already have. I personally prefer a DVR so I can record programs in HD. Once recorded you can fast forwarding thru commercials and watch a 1hr program in about 40 minutes. Also ask if you can just stop by their office and swap cable boxes to eliminate the install fee.

rcaligan said:
Why do I need the new box when my TV already has a built-in tuner? (I could really do without the DVR). What on earth are they going to install that I can't do myself?
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The ATSC tuner allows you to receive digital over-the-air channels. You absolutely can install the new HD box yourself. Keep in mind in order to take advantage of the HDTV you must use a component video signal(Y Pb Pr) or better video signal (DVI, HDMI) from your HD cable box to your HDTV.
 
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You should be able to pull the local channels in HD over your basic cable. The cable companies are required by law to pass those channels to you in HD. They are the same channels that you should be able to pick up with an antenna. I have the most basic Time Warner package (channels 2-22) and I'm able to pick up the big networks in HD over that cable line. Like others have said, you can get just as good of a signal over the air with the proper antenna.

Note: even though they are required, by federal law, to do this...not all of them do. If you call them on it, it may fix things.
 
FlyNE said:
You should be able to pull the local channels in HD over your basic cable. The cable companies are required by law to pass those channels to you in HD. They are the same channels that you should be able to pick up with an antenna. I have the most basic Time Warner package (channels 2-22) and I'm able to pick up the big networks in HD over that cable line. Like others have said, you can get just as good of a signal over the air with the proper antenna.

Note: even though they are required, by federal law, to do this...not all of them do. If you call them on it, it may fix things.
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Really? I think I tried that and it didn't work on Comcast. Nick?
 
FlyNE said:
The cable companies are required by law to pass those channels to you in HD. They are the same channels that you should be able to pick up with an antenna. I have the most basic Time Warner package (channels 2-22) and I'm able to pick up the big networks in HD over that cable line. Like others have said, you can get just as good of a signal over the air with the proper antenna.

Note: even though they are required, by federal law, to do this...not all of them do. If you call them on it, it may fix things.
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I wasn't aware that federal law required carriage of HD local broadcasts in the basic analog package and I know my cable provider doesn't do so. Fortunately for me, I can pick them up with the antenna I had up before switching to cable and my TV has a separate antenna input for digital.
 
lancefisher said:
I wasn't aware that federal law required carriage of HD local broadcasts in the basic analog package and I know my cable provider doesn't do so. Fortunately for me, I can pick them up with the antenna I had up before switching to cable and my TV has a separate antenna input for digital.
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I don't believe that it does. The cable companies fought that tooth and nail.

It *may* be possible that the digital componants are passed along in an older system that merely runs the signals through proc amps into the cable, as opposed to re-encoding them like most systems do. But I'd expect the systems that do that are few and far between.
 
Ok, I went back to check my facts and I was mixing up a couple of things in my head. Most of my information on this is through the MythTV users mailing list. The federal law that I was thinking of is actually that they must activate the firewire port on a set top box if you rent one from them.

I think that almost all companies put the local channels on the wire. It is just that some encrypt the QAM signal and some send it out in the clear. It is also a crap shoot as to whether or not they'll decide to use encryption on the firewire port mentioned above.

I can pick them up locally.
 
Ok, it turns out that I was right afterall. This is from a great post over at AVSforum.com.

You're correct--Comcast is in direct violation of FCC regulations by encrypting any rebroadcast of local over-the-air television. Code of Federal Regulations Title 47, §76.901(a) reads:
Basic service. The basic service tier shall, at a minimum, include all signals of domestic television broadcast stations provided to any subscriber (except a signal secondarily transmitted by satellite carrier beyond the local service area of such station, regardless of how such signal is ultimately received by the cable system) any public, educational, and governmental programming required by the franchise to be carried on the basic tier, and any additional video programming signals a service added to the basic tier by the cable operator.
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CFR Title 47, §76.630(a) states:

(a) Cable system operators shall not scramble or otherwise encrypt signals carried on the basic service tier.
The first regulation requires any rebroadcast of a local over-the-air station to be included with subscription to the core basic services tier. This is the lowest level of service to which you can subscribe and to which you are required to subscribe to get anything else, so if you have cable service you have all of the local channels on the system, including the ones broadcast in digital form. The second regulation states that nothing in the core basic services tier can be encrypted. So if you subscribe to cable at all, you should have access to rebroadcast DTV channels and that they must be transmitted in the clear.
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Participants in these forums have used these regulations in the past to get their cable providers to stop encrypting local DTV rebroadcasts. First, make requests over the phone that they do this, carefully documenting the results and the names of the people you talked to. If they can't or won't help you, get a name and address of who you should send your complaint to. If you didn't get results over the phone (and you probably won't), pen a letter to your cable provider's management, describing your complaint and your efforts to correct the problem to that point, naming their employees that you talked to. Make it clear that you sent a copy to the proper office of the FCC (don't ask me what that is--go to www.fcc.gov and dig it out
smile.gif
). I haven't done this myself, but this is what people in other forums have described doing. Locally, TWC was compliant with this from the start, but a complaint had to be made to Cox, which they eventually responded to; I can tune their local DTV rebroadcast with the 46231 sans CableCARD.
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mikea said:
WHO ARE these FCC guys?

They better watch it!

They're going to get into TROUBLE WITH THE CABLE COMPANY! :p
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And, if they're not careful, the FAA might just end up on the wrong side of Da Mayer....

Is it possible that Big Cable and Da Mayer could get together and topple the Gub'mint? Only time will tell.
 
The problem is that many cable companies have argued that this only applies to the basic TV signal, not the HD componant nor the multicast channels.
 
wsuffa said:
The problem is that many cable companies have argued that this only applies to the basic TV signal, not the HD componant nor the multicast channels.
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The thing is that the networks are being forced to broadcast the HD signals, so that argument doesn't hold any water.
 
FlyNE said:
Ok, it turns out that I was right afterall. This is from a great post over at AVSforum.com.
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I read through the referenced CFR and don't see any requirement for the carriage of local broadcast channels in digital let alone HD format. That statement appears to be an opinion of a poster.
 
lancefisher said:
I read through the referenced CFR and don't see any requirement for the carriage of local broadcast channels in digital let alone HD format. That statement appears to be an opinion of a poster.
Click to expand...

So "include all signals of domestic television broadcast stations provided to any subscriber" doesn't include digital?
 
FlyNE said:
So "include all signals of domestic television broadcast stations provided to any subscriber" doesn't include digital?
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It better. Since everything will be digital by February 2009, if the cable companies get a pass on carrying digital, they would get out of "must carry" entirely.

I wonder if they can meet "must carry" by continuing to send an ANALOG downsample for the digital broadcast signal. You'd have to believe at some point a few years after 2009 new TVs sold in the US would no longer have analog RF inputs so that wouldn't work.
 
wsuffa said:
The problem is that many cable companies have argued that this only applies to the basic TV signal, not the HD componant nor the multicast channels.
Click to expand...

The basic signal will be digital only in 2009.
 
mikea said:
The basic signal will be digital only in 2009.
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Correct.

But there is no mandate to pass along the -2, -3, and -4 signals. Some broadcast groups are working on methods to run an over-the-air cable system by pooling digital capacity.

And "must-carry" is not so "must" in these days of retransmission consent....
 
FlyNE said:
So "include all signals of domestic television broadcast stations provided to any subscriber" doesn't include digital?
Click to expand...

I could be way off base, but it wouldn't surprise me that a common interpretation of that means you have to carry the channel in some usable form with the basic tier. If "Channel 4" is broadcast in analog and digital, I bet that carrying the analog version meets the rules, or at least that the cable operators would argue it does. In this case I suspect that "all signals" means every channel rather than every aspect of any modulation.
 
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