Comcast going pure digital

[CptKirk]

I've got Comcast in Houston. Just came home to an email from them today. They've been doing a migration and it looks like they have come to the end. No more wall to tv/tuner. You have to have a box.

It's coming – soon you'll be able to enjoy XFINITY service, only from Comcast. XFINITY is TV, Internet and Voice service made possible by our network upgrade to an all-digital platform. You'll have access to the fastest Internet speeds, triple the HD channels and over 60,000 On Demand TV shows and movies on TV and online.

With this enhancement, all of your channels will be broadcast exclusively in digital format. Without the right digital equipment, you will only receive channels 2-19 and 53-55. To continue receiving all your channels, you will need to order digital equipment for each TV in your home that isn't connected to a digital set-top box or doesn't use a CableCARD.

Once your equipment is connected, you'll be ready for XFINITY — only from Comcast. Giving you more choice and control than you ever imagined.

Remember, without the right equipment, you will only receive channels 2-19 and 53-55.

Contact us before 11/30/11 to get your digital equipment, and enjoy your current channels without interruption.

So for anything you want from Comcast you have to have a STB, DTA or CableCard. One of their faqs even mentioned the QAM channels will be limited as well.

Each STB or DTA, of course, needs a remote to tune it.

Link from the email: http://info.xfinity.com/Portal/view....6&l=1712&w=479

[Fonceur]

That's not pure digital, they still mention like 20 analog channels...

[jrh995]

This of course is step 1.
Eventually all analog disappears and QAM is down to Local channels only.
At least that's the way it worked in Philly Comcast area over the last year or so.
Haven't checked QAM lately but last I saw was Local channels, TBS and a couple shopping channels.

John

[mistergq]

I have been used to this because that is the way FIOS has been for a long time. It really is not that bad...but then again, the quality of fios is significantly better.

[will]

Originally Posted by CptKirk

Giving you more choice and control than you ever imagined.

I love that line. If Cable companies really wanted to give us more choice and control than we could ever imagine then they would drop all the DRM junk and let us tune in directly to the compressed digital signals with our equipment (no Cable card needed).

I guess Comcast can't give me "more choice and control than" I could imagine.

[KeithAbbott]

Originally Posted by will

I love that line. If Cable companies really wanted to give us more choice and control than we could ever imagine then they would drop all the DRM junk and let us tune in directly to the compressed digital signals with our equipment (no Cable card needed).

I guess Comcast can't give me "more choice and control than" I could imagine.

Technically, they never specify who is doing the choosing and controlling, only that you are the recipient of said choosing and controlling. Don't read too much into their statement.

[wayner]

I concur that this is not such a big deal. I have been using PVRs with STBs for over 9 years as I have always wanted to be able to record the full gamut of channels. Yes an STB does add a bit of complexity but it is not such a big deal. And you can take this opportunity to upgrade everything to HD with HD-PVRs. You already have USB-UIRTs so you are somewhat familiar with the process today.

[dlj9999]

Originally Posted by jrh995

This of course is step 1.
Eventually all analog disappears and QAM is down to Local channels only.
At least that's the way it worked in Philly Comcast area over the last year or so.
Haven't checked QAM lately but last I saw was Local channels, TBS and a couple shopping channels.

John

Same thing here in the Washington, DC Metro area.
My QAM channels are Local, PBS, ESPN News, and TVONE.

[troycheek]

That's about what happened here in Tennessee. I get locals, PBS, some shopping channels, and a couple of basic cable channels in clear QAM that I can tune just fine with my HDHR. And most of it is in HD. For the rest, I found that a single STB with a IR blaster works just fine feeding my old analog PVR-500.

During the switchover, we actually had pretty much every channel in clear QAM and most of them in HD for a year or two. HD was nice, but I'm not willing to pay extra for it now.

[jptheripper]

yeah i have comcast its no big deal

QAM for locals (frees up other tuners)
CableCard for all copy freely(almost all channels)
Colossus for the rest.

Never a conflict, never a missed recording (unless server crashes, thats a different story).

[darcilicious]

QAM for locals (frees up other tuners)
CableCard for all clearQAM (almost all channels)

Er, by definition, clear QAM is unencrypted and doesn't require a CableCard...

[jptheripper]

Originally Posted by darcilicious

Er, by definition, clear QAM is unencrypted and doesn't require a CableCard...

DOH!
of course.. edited

[darcilicious]

[tvmaster2]

anyone know the latest status for Comcast/xfinity for the northern California area (Calevaras County to be exact) with regards to being able to go from wall to TV tuner and receive local qam HD channels?
I can do this still with Cox Orange County (no other box needed).
All I want is the local broadcast channels in HD - and I'm hoping to only be able to use my Vizio's remote...or have Xfinity gone the way of cable-Satan and now require yet another box, with yet another remote....

[waynedunham]

Well it happened in my service area sometime overnight. Shows during primetime recorded fine, but this morning..... no QAM.

After rescanning on one of my TV's all the same channels were "found" and have guide info, but when I try to display all but one of them a big old "Scrambled!" popup onscreen.

The one channel I can get is just running a continuous loop of a Comcast video telling me about the wonders of a DTA. PIECE OF S***!!!! (I've already had two of them before)

Now I suppose I can get a couple CableCards for my 2 HDHR Primes and try to suffer through setup and use of SageDCT vs. Comcast.
But that still leaves my two original HDHR's dead in the water. OTA isn't really an option where I'm located due to terrain and station antenna placement.

As far as I know Cable and OTA are the only options with the HDHR's. I have two HDPVR's but would rather not buy more of those and incur the ridiculous costs of the required STBs. Mostly due to the headaches of keeping the HDPVR's recording reliably. Trying to keep 2 running is hard enough due to lockups and having to reboot them on an almost daily basis.

Sigh, why don't any of the providers (cable, satellite, etc) want us to be able to view their product without severely hampering us, or making us jump through hoops with our wallets open?

Well, one good thing (for some of you) might come of it. I've got an HD200 and several HD100s as well as a server and client license that might come for sale. If I can't watch TV then I don't have any need for my SageTv HTPC.

GO POUND SAND COMCAST!!!

[mechling-burgh]

I have Comcast in Pittsburgh and they still have over the over the air in clear qam. That said I'm sure it's going to end soon also. I have setup the SageDCT and it works very well for me. I get get all my channels but the premium channels. It cost me $7.00 dollars extra a month for three tuners versus $10.00 per month for an HD set top box. If you go with the Ceton tuner instead you have four tuners. There is no guarantee that won't set the copy flag in the future it's a risk we all take with the cable cards and SageTV. But at least they will work in Windows Media Center if they do turn on the copy flag.

[waynedunham]

Originally Posted by mechling-burgh

I have Comcast in Pittsburgh and they still have over the over the air in clear qam. That said I'm sure it's going to end soon also. I have setup the SageDCT and it works very well for me. I get get all my channels but the premium channels. It cost me $7.00 dollars extra a month for three tuners versus $10.00 per month for an HD set top box. If you go with the Ceton tuner instead you have four tuners. There is no guarantee that won't set the copy flag in the future it's a risk we all take with the cable cards and SageTV. But at least they will work in Windows Media Center if they do turn on the copy flag.

SageDCT is probably something I'll have to look into, but I'm definitely not looking forward to that given all the headaches I've seen here with it working with Comcast.
I don't think I really have the horsepower to go with what seems to be the most successful method of filtering it through VLC. I'm already running up to 3 Comskips simultaneously and that pretty much pegs my Quad Core CPU. Running 3 simultaneous Comskips is the price you have to pay for having 7 tuners. (5 HDHR/HDHRPime tuners and 2 HDPVR/STB tuners) I'd run more instances but 3 seems to be the max. Any more and it effects the playback of shows while they are running.

Maybe I should just go back to my childhood when there were only 3 analog OTA stations (CBS, ABC, NBC) of which only 2 would come in during the daytime.

[nyplayer]

I have never had a problem with Comcast and SAGEDCT recordings and I do not use the VLC option. My Server is an I3. And I am able to record 3 recordings on my prime using Sagedct and 4 OTA HD recordings on my HD Homeruns. Plus run live comskip on all 7... Plus 2 Clients Viewing. I do have 3 recording drives using bandwidth option in Sage.

I do have 2 nics in my server. PCI express Intel connected to 5 Port switch and all silicondust equipment connected to it. The onboard NIC is where all the Clients come into the server.

[waynedunham]

Originally Posted by nyplayer

I have never had a problem with Comcast and SAGEDCT recordings and I do not use the VLC option. My Server is an I3. And I am able to record 3 recordings on my prime using Sagedct and 4 OTA HD recordings on my HD Homeruns. Plus run live comskip on all 7... Plus 2 Clients Viewing. I do have 3 recording drives using bandwidth option in Sage.

I do have 2 nics in my server. PCI express Intel connected to 5 Port switch and all silicondust equipment connected to it. The onboard NIC is where all the Clients come into the server.

Interesting. I thought you had to do some fancy DNS work to be able to hook the HDHR/Primes directly to a machine. I have a 2nd NIC onboard but it is presently unused and could host the HDHR/Primes if it were easy.

What speed is your i3. My Core 2 Quad is a 45nm 2.66Ghz with 12mb L2 cache 1333FSB. Pretty speedy in its day, but if I go with more than 3 Comskips at a time playback and response on the HD100 in the living room or Hd200 in the bedroom starts to have issues. I think it may have a lot to do with your HD configuration vs what I have. Mine are all in the pool of my WHS machine running SageTv.
If I can get the Primes working with CC then maybe it is time to look into getting some new drives for the server, leaving them out of the pool and dedicating tuners to certain drives.

[nyplayer]

PC Intel Core i3 540(3.06GHz)..

You can connect it directly to the nic or a switch you just have to setup the ip on the nic to 169.254.5.12 or any in that range. Or in my case I have a second router so that I can view Live TV from the prime on my tablet laptop etc...