Reviews:
 ·Comcast
 ·Verizon FiOS
| reply to eangel88
Re: Digital Transport Adapter Unboxing Photos said by eangel88 :
The Comcast rep told me to tune to Channel 1 on my TV. If I can see something on Channel 1, then I don't need the DTA, but if I can't, I do need it. I can't see anything on Channel 1 on any of my TV's, so I guess none of them have the QAM tuner?
It's so unfair when the folks you ASS-U-ME you can trust don't know WTH they're talking about. 
Only STBs (i.e. DCT-700) know about things like CH. 1 ('OnDemand'). DTAs (i.e. DC-50X) and Clear QAM tuners (i.e. TVs, DVDRs, etc...) won't be 'mapped' for these 'Special Features'.
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The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. --George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950) LM |
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bicker
join:2007-05-10
Burlington, MA | reply to eangel88
Again, in many areas expanded basic channels will be encrypted when broadcast as digital. Chances are, that is the reality that you will encounter: Expect that to be the case. A QAM tuner cannot tune in an encrypted channel unless it supports and carries a CableCARD. |
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| reply to ClearToLand
So if the Channel 1 test isn't valid, how do I know if my TV's have the QAM tuner or not? Do most TV's not have this yet? Thanks. |
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| reply to bicker
said by bicker:Again, in many areas expanded basic channels will be encrypted when broadcast as digital. Chances are, that is the reality that you will encounter: Expect that to be the case. A QAM tuner cannot tune in an encrypted channel unless it supports and carries a CableCARD. Okay, so the QAM tuner won't make a difference when Comcast starts encrypting these channels. The only thing that will work is either a STB or DTA? Thanks. |
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| reply to ClearToLand
Re: Complain Vehemently / Get Help / Ignore... So sorry for the delay. Good thing I am not one of those original upset folks....and in fact, posted our problem for suggestions from others more "knowledgeable".
A couple of things happened after the post. First I left a message for someone on another message board, and a Comcast rep must have scanned the message board for complaints, and then emailed me offering assistance. (well appreciated). We even got a phone call from the "executive office". By then, the Comcast technician arrived on the Sunday, and within an hour , had us all hooked up and two tv's working properly. Seems he had to install a digital booster box in our basement. The old booster box was analog and so it no longer worked. Something to that effect. Whatever he did, he took care of the problem perfectly, quickly, and resolved our problem. The boxes work fine now.
My frustration was with the customer service reps in India (the dedicated phone number was provided with the DTA box), that only can tell you how to hook up the box, and then send you a signal to activate it. After doing that four times, and wasting hours of our time, they did not suggest we call for Comcast service. That was their mistake, and they should be retrained to help customers like us who spent 3 days trying to get our system to work. It does no one any good to spend hours trying to activate a box that will not receive a signal due to another problem. All that kind of run around does, is to create unhappy customers. We are inundated with marketing flyers to change cable companies. Dealing with people over the phone that cannot help you and do not know enough to forward your concern to other departments that can help you, makes the entire company look bad. This is simply a training issue and could be addressed for the future. But of course it is cheaper to send everyone to a phone bank in India, where the person, cheerful that they are, basically reads from a script, and after a half hour, just tells the customer to wait until the box gets the signal or it downloads the channels. Neither suggestion worked, nor did the "supervisor" 's suggestions. The delay only mad us angrier and willing to consider changing providers. So if you have any influence with Comcast, tell them to tell their customer reps in India, to pass the caller on to the US Comcast office for service. Dialing the phone number listed with the DTA box will likely lead one to nothing but frustration and delay. |
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bicker
join:2007-05-10
Burlington, MA | reply to eangel88
Re: Digital Transport Adapter Unboxing Photos said by eangel88 :
Okay, so the QAM tuner won't make a difference when Comcast starts encrypting these channels. The only thing that will work is either a STB or DTA? Thanks.
A DTA won't even work for encrypted channels. |
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| reply to bicker
well thats fine, cause I dont want the ones that are already encrypyed. What I am saying is that a QAM Tuner TV will be able to pick up anything that the new box will!! If the channels are encrypted, the box will not pick them up anyways!! Plus if you use a QAM tuner, you will pick up the HD Local channels which the Box will not! |
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approval from:
The Q 
| so again. long story short, if you have expanded basic right now and you have a QAM tuner TV, then you dont need the stupid box!!! ONLY WHEN THE DTA BOX DOES SOME TYPE OF DECODING WILL YOU QUIT WORKING. |
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bicker
join:2007-05-10
Burlington, MA | Or when they require expanded basic subscribers to upgrade from DTAs to STBs. |
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| Don't think that will happen anytime soon, otherwise, they would have rolled out STB to everyone instead of wasting time making millions of DTAs. |
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bicker
join:2007-05-10
Burlington, MA | I think that's a good assumption. |
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Reviews:
·Comcast
| reply to eangel88
Typically, any TV that has ClearQAM support will have one of the following in its documentation:
1. The term "digital-cable ready" or iDCR.
2. CableCARD-ready.
Horribly, most LCD HDTVs don't support ClearQAM (at best, they support ATSC in addition to NTSC) for price reasons. (Typically, ClearQAM/iDCR/CableCARD support was confined to the higher end of the price scale - plasma TVs, larger LCD HDTVs, and projection TVs. That was a decision by the CEA, not the cable companies.) I bought my Philips 42PF7320A/37A plasma in 2005 because it was, at the time, the lowest-price in-stock TV that supported CableCARD. (I almost didn't have enough continuous wall to mount it - it is a bedroom TV.) |
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ak3883
join:2005-08-20
Portsmouth, RI | It's 2009. The vast majority of LCD TVs have ClearQAM tuners. I would venture to say every model from major brands(Sharp,Panasonic,Toshiba,Samsung,LG,Sony) has a QAM tuner in it. Only in some of the cheapest of cheap sets will you find only ATSC tuners, as req'd by law.
In 2005 there were many more TV's with cablecard slots, and QAM tuners were not as common. |
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| reply to bicker
I have never seen a VCR that can use a cable card and DVRs like TIVO require a monthly fee. The cable companies have such a strangle hold on the industry, that it is becoming difficult to even find a VCR with a tuner of any kind. If the cable companies wanted to do so, it would have been easy for them to keep VCRs compatible with the switch to digital, by including timers in every set top box.
Another solution to the problem of programing a VCR would have been to make it easy for older cable ready VCRs to communicate with set top boxes. I have a cable ready JVC S-VHS VCR that has an infrared output that can change the channel on more than 30 brands of set top boxes. - My problem is that neither Motorola nor Pace is on the list, and I have been unable to program my VCR to communicate with either of the units supplied by Comcast.
I resent having to pay a monthly fee to time shift programs - I am hoping to be able to find a VCR with a QAM digital tuner which will be usable to tune in unencrypted channels directly - at least until Comcast gets a waiver, which I hope it never does. |
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bicker
join:2007-05-10
Burlington, MA | Remember: You are the consumer. If you don't like what is offered, do without. You have all the power. |
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| reply to Franklin4
There are MANY DVD-Recorders coming on the market with clear QAM Tuners..I did a search and found several brands that had it. So, that might be the solution to people that bought HDTVs prior to 2008. |
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bicker
join:2007-05-10
Burlington, MA | Yup; Folks just need to keep in mind that there is no obligation on the part of service providers to provide anything via unencrypted QAM (as long as they offer local broadcast channels via unencrypted analog.) |
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| Right, but right now in order for their new DTAs to work, they must receive Clear QAM..(Until they change that, I am going to not use the box and just my QAM Tuners.) |
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bicker
join:2007-05-10
Burlington, MA | Yes, sorry... missed that thread connection. |
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Reviews:
·Comcast
| reply to ak3883
If a TV supported CableCARD, they supported QAM/ClearQAM (as that was actually part of the requirements for CableCARD). Also, even of the major brands, ClearQAM is still only common *above* a particular size (usually 40"); look at the major brands in terms of 32" and smaller LCD TVs (even Sony, Toshiba, and LG).
As far as the remote communicating with the STB, consider the STB's remote communicating with the VCR. (Comcast's STB remote *is* a universal model; in fact, Universal used to manufacture them.) |
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