OptimumOnline → [iO] HD With Just Coaxial??

I've gotten mixed answers on this. Looking to clear it up once and for all. Can you get High Definition (720p or 1080i) using an HDTV and just a coaxial cable from CV going directly into the TV (no box)?

if the tv supports QAM tuning.
but you wont get that many more channels than the standard ones you can recieve over the air.

Look into getting a cablecard if you TV supports it.

I can get most of the Family Cable package with no box. So, with a HDTV/QAM tuner wouldn't I get any HD offerings that are in that package using just a coaxial to the HDTV?

No -- all of the digital channels in the Family package are encrypted. With a HD QAM tuner you will only receive Broadcast Basic Analogs & Digitals (SD & HD) and Family Cable analogs. To get digital family and above you need a CableCARD or a box.

I would still love to get IO Gold or any channel I pay for with my QAM tuner on my HDTV and get rid of the clunky boxes, but we all know they want the box revenue and get rid of traps altogether. Would save a bit of money and time with the 80s/early 90s IPG. Nothing new though.

You would only get a few HD channels: 2,4,5,7,9,11,13.

I can verify that if you buy a new TV(with the typical ATSC/QAM tuner), you will get HD channels in the 2--13 range. Just tried it using my Panasonic flatscreen that's a year and a half old. Disconnected the box, ran the coax directly into the TV, went into setup and scanned for channels. You will get those channels (plus their subchannels for some but not all). For example: CH 4(WNBC) and Ch 4.1(WNBC HD), CH 7(WABC) and CH 7.1(WABC HD) are among those I can get. Exactly what you get may depend on where you live and what company provides your cable service.

Get a CableCARD equipped TV and that problem is solved.

Not all of us have money lying around to track down the few HDTVs that exist with CableCards nowadays...especially in this Great Depression of the 21st century. If they were more available I would've already gone that route by now and saved myself the hassle from the slow boxes and rental/remote fees.

Cablevision is my provider. How are the HD channels numbered? Are they 4.1, 7.1 or 704, 707 like the box or something else?

they will appear as 4.1, 7.1, etc unless you use a box. The box just maps them to different numbers.

The "Great Depression" that you speak of can't be hurting too much if you manage to pay for iO Gold every month.

Is there a monthly fee for using CableCARDs?

$2.00 per month, although I think it's going up something like .20 cents come January. (And my channel numbers are "normal" on the TV I use with Cablecard.)

Would a CableCARD equipped HDTV need a tuning adapter to tune SDV channels?

And do tuning adapters even work with HDTV's, or just with Tivo's?

The Tuning adapter currently only works with TiVos. I think the Moxi DVR is also working on drivers to use it.

Oh yeah -- forgot about that little SDV issue on the premium channels.. Sorry.

The Moxi DVR already supports the Tuning adapter with the latest firmware.

OK...This link at the CV website says you need an HD box and not just a QAM tuner for the HD channels on Broadcast Basic. Is it incorrect?
»www.optimum.com/package_ ··· kgType=0
See notes at bottom.

That may be correct. My cablecard on my TIVO went bad about a week ago and I could only tune SD channels without it even the locals did not come in on HD. They replaced cablecard and all HD channels came back. So at least in 07002 this seems to be the case.

It's partly incorrect. Despite what it says, as mentioned in my earlier post I can get some channels in the 2-13 range in HD, but not all. This apparently depends on where you live. I have Cablevsion-Woodbury (Suffolk County on Long Island). Your Cablvision may or may not make these channels available. And each Cablevision location (NYC, N.J., Conn. etc) probably has different HD channels available without a box, or maybe none at all. You have to actually try it to see what your location can get. And of course Cablevision can change this in the future.

All HD channels in Broadcast Basic are available through the coax with a QAM tuner on all systems per FCC rules. That would be all the OTA networks. Cablevision has applied to the FCC for a waiver so that they can encrypt those channels in NYC so that could change if the waiver is granted.

I only get channel 7 in HD when I stick the cable into my QAM tuner.

All the other channels are SD and of poor quality, channel 2 has snow, channel 4 has snow, channel 5 is yellow.

I get all the locals in HD, CNBC-HD, TCM-HD, Big Ten Network HD and QVC-HD over here with my QAM tuner.

You are probably picking up QAM feeds from the Switched Video.

I know that I can see VOD titles from Music Choice at certain times. I guess it all depends on what people are watching in your area. I don't really spend all that much time looking though since there's like 300 channels that get picked up, most of them are just black and I don't have the time to sit there and go through them all.

My Auto program removes the scrambled channels automatically so no I don't need to go through them in my case.

Big Ten Network HD would be the only one out of the HDs I get on my QAM tuner that's SDV since none of the others I listed are.

Switched video, also called switched digital video or SDV, is a telecommunications industry term for a network scheme for distributing digital video via a cable. Switched video sends the digital video in a more efficient manner so that additional uses may be made of the freed up bandwidth. The scheme applies to digital video distribution both on typical cable TV systems using QAM channels, or on IPTV systems. Users of analog video transmitted on the cable are unaffected. See diagram below for an illustration of how Switched Video saves bandwidth on a cable company's cables in the last mile where channels are transmitted via coaxial cable.

In current hybrid fibre-coaxial systems, a fiber optic network extending from the operator's central office carries all video channels out to a fiber optic node which services any number of homes ranging from 1 to 2000 homes. From this point, all channels are sent via coaxial cable to each of the homes. Note that only a percentage of these homes are actively watching channels at a given time. Rarely are all channels being accessed by the homes in the service group.

In a switched video system, the unwatched channels do not need to be sent.

In cable TV systems in the United States, equipment in the home sends a channel request signal back to the distribution hub. If a channel is not currently being transmitted on the coaxial line, the distribution hub allocates a new QAM channel and transmits the new channel to the coaxial cable via the fiber optic node. For this to work, the equipment in the home must have two-way communication ability. Switched video uses the same mechanisms as video on demand and may be viewed as a non-ending video on demand show that any number of users may share.

I wouldn't expect it to see them in QAM much longer. I remember earlier in the year when NHL Network HD popped up in QAM. Might've lasted 2 months, tops.

So, if my neighbor is watching a digital channel with a box I might get it via QAM with just coax because of SDV? Is that the idea?