WOW digital cable conversion

[valnar]

I just received a letter from WOW cable about a three phase transition to digital. Chunks of channels will be converted from analog to digital over the course of a few months. It said nothing about the format of these channels.

I called WOW and couldn't get an intelligent person to answer my questions. I was concerned that these adapters would be full-blown Digital PVR boxes that had their own remote control and everything would be encrypted. He seemed to think so. I am hopeful that is not the case since I use Sage to record and most of it is analog or clear-QAM (HDHomeRun for that).

They will make available two digital adapters per household for free. After asking, they said the two devices are the Cisco DTA50 or the Evolution something-or-other.

Questions:

1) Does anyone know if these devices *require* a remote to change channels? If they don't, I can continue to record with my Hauppauge PVR-250 cards, albeit at a slightly lower quality due to a D/A conversion in the box. As long as a regular analog tuner can change channels, I'm good.

or

2) Does anyone know.....just by reading the specs or being familiar with the device....if they *input* clear QAM? Or is it encrypted? If its clear, I can use my HDHomeRun to record the TV shows.

[GKusnick]

I'm not familiar with those particular devices, but any digital-to-analog set-top box will require some means of changing channels. There's no such thing as a box that simultaneously decodes hundreds of digital channels and remodulates them all as analog. They all work one channel at a time, so you'll need to tell the box which channel to convert.

Regarding the clear QAM question, your best bet is to do a channel scan with your HDHR and see what you get.

[Spectrum]

Just because you have to go through the box doesn't mean that you can't still record using the PVR-250. You would just have to add in an IR blaster to facilitate changing the channels on the box. You might actually find that you get a better picture using the digital box than direct analog capture. The last time I checked I could still get analog on my cable line and it looked worse than decoding the same channel using the cable box. Of course if the DTA is a POS, which they sometimes are, then this might not be the case

[mistergq]

Cisco clearly needs a remote. The fact you have to set it to channel 3 or channel 4 means its rebroadcasting on one signal, just like a VCR.

You will need to use a IR device to change the channel. That is not as big deal as it could be. You could also look at HD PVR/Colossus. If you are going through the hassle of changing channels, then I would go all in.

[panteragstk]

Those look like they do the same thing as the converter boxes that came out during the analog shut off. Seems like a tiny cable box. Sort of. Maybe. Probably.