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swintec
Premium Member
join:2003-12-19
Alfred, ME

swintec to JoshMatthews

Premium Member

to JoshMatthews

Re: Could Comcast Be up to SDV?

said by JoshMatthews :

Another problem is the timeout, causing a prompt to appear on screen telling customers to press a button on the remote to continue watching the programming. This is unsatisfactory and there is no way in hell we're going to stand for it.

That time out issue can be annoying. TW has it set to 4 hours I think. i know some people who fall asleep with their TV on in the bedroom and they wake up to a blank screen.

SDV opens up new options and allows new features for the cable system. Id be very disappointed if they put off these positives for the couple of people who insist on dicking around with cable cards especially when there is DTA's out now that allow these to work.
GTFan
join:2004-12-03
Austell, GA

GTFan

Member

Our 'dicking around with cable cards' means that we can use DVRs that put your craptacular Comcast junk to shame.

They're not going anywhere, so deal with it.

swintec
Premium Member
join:2003-12-19
Alfred, ME

swintec

Premium Member

said by GTFan:

Our 'dicking around with cable cards' means that we can use DVRs that put your craptacular Comcast junk to shame.

They're not going anywhere, so deal with it.

I dont have comcast anyways, so I do not care either way in this regard. I am just a converted SDV believer that has seen its benefits.
Os
join:2011-01-26
US

Os to GTFan

Member

to GTFan
They could, depending on decisions made at the FCC. Comcast would be fine with it, I'm sure.

For the record, I think HTPC's are great, but to say they're anything but an extreme minority of customers would be dishonest. I will do it someday. And a tuning adapter is not that much of an inconvenience to increase capacity and offerings.

JoshMatthews
@comcast.net

JoshMatthews to swintec

Anon

to swintec
said by swintec:

said by JoshMatthews :

Another problem is the timeout, causing a prompt to appear on screen telling customers to press a button on the remote to continue watching the programming. This is unsatisfactory and there is no way in hell we're going to stand for it.

That time out issue can be annoying. TW has it set to 4 hours I think. i know some people who fall asleep with their TV on in the bedroom and they wake up to a blank screen.

SDV opens up new options and allows new features for the cable system. Id be very disappointed if they put off these positives for the couple of people who insist on dicking around with cable cards especially when there is DTA's out now that allow these to work.

"Dicking around" ?! What the hell are you talking about. Why the hell would anyone want to use a DTA when they could use a TiVo or home theater PC or something that they own rather then having to be forced to rent equipment from their cable provider every month If your suggesting attaching a DTA to a TiVo or home theater PC then that's just plain stupid because how do you expect a TiVo or home theater PC to change the channel on the DTA by itself when more then one program on different channels are scheduled to record, and to take it one step further how the hell do you expect to record multiple programs at one time when DTA's only have one tuner and a TiVo could have up to 4 and home theater PC's could have even more? Why does your suggestion make me think of VCR's and stepping back 15 years or so in technical achievement. One of the reasons why VCR's died out was because of the single tuner problem of having to play "Sophie's Choice" when selecting what to record and being slaves to not being able to record multiple programs at one time on one device or being forced to purchase a large amount of VCR's and run more cables to accomplish the goal. It's stupid.

Mike Wolf
join:2009-05-24
Tuckerton, NJ

1 recommendation

Mike Wolf to Os

Member

to Os
A great way to increase capacity and offerings is to "clean house" and do a good job at knowing what the hell their doing. Other providers simply use SDV as a crutch or quick fix to get the extra capacity and offerings without actually being efficient. Sometimes taking shortcuts isn't a good idea in the long run.

motorola870
join:2008-12-07
Arlington, TX

2 edits

motorola870

Member

said by Mike Wolf:

A great way to increase capacity and offerings is to "clean house" and do a good job at knowing what the hell their doing. Other providers simply use SDV as a crutch or quick fix to get the extra capacity and offerings without actually being efficient. Sometimes taking shortcuts isn't a good idea in the long run.

actually SDV is not a crutch or quick fix to get the extra capacity. The only reason why people are complaining with SDV is Tivo has an issue on their end with SDV tuning to recommendations and the fact that the Cisco tuning adapters have had issues. Most of the time Motorola headends actually perform better with SDV than Cisco headends not only due to the smaller size of the tuning adapter but they also don't give the fits that the Cisco tuning adapter does.

TWC is actually getting to the point where they are going to start to come off of SDV for some channels when they get HD DTAs up and running they are already starting to bring the standard tier of channels digital simulcast off of SDV to allow for DTA usage in areas that have SDV. TWC is getting ready for a huge analog removal in the Northeast on October 10th and October 17. TWC is also getting ready do the same in Kansas City KS/MO.

SDV is not that bad of a service. I had my doubts about it in 2010 when TWC was getting ready to launch it and it only takes about 1 1/2 hours to configure a hub for SDV at least that is how long it took from taking down the broadcast QAMs and turning up the Narrowcast QAMs and launching SDV in my Hub. It took a whole month to launch SDV in the DFW area as they had to turn it on hub by hub.

TWC has freed up some bandwidth by using SDV in my area:

Extra VOD QAM expansion went from 4 to 8 VOD QAMs per node.

2 extra DOCSIS channels now have 6 downstream internet channels instead of 4.

Total number of SDV QAMs:

24

Total number of HD channels sent via SDV:

121 as of tommorow including the recent adds of NFL Network and NFL Redzone in SD and HD.

Have 139 HD channels soon to be 141 HD channels with 119 HD channels sent via SDV soon to be 121 when TWC Sportnet HD (National version) and TWC Deportes HD (National Version) are added tommorow.

Also TWC actually has systems that have dropped the expanded basic tier of analogs in Los Angeles including Hollywood. These are the former comcast areas. But they have an issue they are running low on bandwidth as they have not launched:

ESPN Deportes HD
MLB Strike Zone HD

So those system are being stingy on bandwidth right now as they have had to add 6 HD channels in the last month and a half and they are 750MHz with no SDV. They have a 7th HD on the way too.

Another thing is there is no way you could fit 200 HD chanels on a 750MHz system without using SDV it is not possible as you have to carry SD Channels and have bandwidth set aside for DOCSIS and VOD. it would take 75 QAMs to carry 225 HD channels at 3 to a QAM without SDV and I don't know of any 750MHz cable system that would have 75 QAMs available after using 16 for VOD/DOCSIS and all of the SD content. Bright House in Orlando Florida is carrying 206 HD channels right now with SDV and running at 750MHz and have 3 more HD channels announced so they are getting close to 225 HD channels slowly they have most HD channels on a single cable system in probably the entire planet.

swintec
Premium Member
join:2003-12-19
Alfred, ME

swintec to JoshMatthews

Premium Member

to JoshMatthews
said by JoshMatthews :

It's stupid.

I think it would be stupid to tie up major amounts of bandwidth on the cable system and deny quite a few additions of HD channels (and binded channels for data) so a few cable card users can run their HTPC. Maybe in the future there will be better options for you guys to interface with the cable system but until then I do not feel the technology (SDV) should be ignored to cater to a few people at the expense of sooo many others.

Can you imagine if we only had 20 HD channels and I called in to ask why and they told me 2 people across town have cable card devices so they are unable to add any more channels now? Please.

DocDrew
How can I help?
Premium Member
join:2009-01-28
SoCal
Ubee E31U2V1
Technicolor TC4400
Linksys EA6900

1 recommendation

DocDrew to JoshMatthews

Premium Member

to JoshMatthews
said by JoshMatthews :

If your suggesting attaching a DTA to a TiVo or home theater PC then that's just plain stupid because how do you expect a TiVo or home theater PC to change the channel on the DTA by itself when more then one program on different channels are scheduled to record, and to take it one step further how the hell do you expect to record multiple programs at one time when DTA's only have one tuner and a TiVo could have up to 4 and home theater PC's could have even more?

You're getting DTA mixed up with a SDV Tuning Adapter.

A DTA (digital transport adapter) is a digital to analog tuner used on older TVs to receive basic digital channels. These can't be used to tune SDV channels as they don't have an upstream transmitter.

A Tuning Adapter just give the Tivo the ability to communicate with the cable headend and change the SDV channel. It has no video tuners in it, it does have an upstream transmitter, and it connects to the USB port on the Tivo. The Tivo has to still use it's tuners. »support.tivo.com/app/ans ··· d/100041

Sometimes the term DTA is used to describe either, since the makers have named them similarly.

Mike Wolf
join:2009-05-24
Tuckerton, NJ

Mike Wolf

Member

No he isn't getting DTA's mixed up with Tuning Adapters. If you look at the message he responded to, swintec said "DTA's"

DocDrew
How can I help?
Premium Member
join:2009-01-28
SoCal
Ubee E31U2V1
Technicolor TC4400
Linksys EA6900

1 edit

DocDrew

Premium Member

said by swintec:

SDV opens up new options and allows new features for the cable system. Id be very disappointed if they put off these positives for the couple of people who insist on dicking around with cable cards especially when there is DTA's out now that allow these to work.

said by JoshMatthews :

If your suggesting attaching a DTA to a TiVo or home theater PC then that's just plain stupid because how do you expect a TiVo or home theater PC to change the channel on the DTA by itself when more then one program on different channels are scheduled to record...

said by Mike Wolf:

No he isn't getting DTA's mixed up with Tuning Adapters. If you look at the message he responded to, swintec said "DTA's"

Swintec said "DTA's" meaning Tuning Adapters I believe, when he referred to DTAs making CableCARDs work with SDV. JoshMatthews took DTAs to mean Digital Terminal Adapters which is the true definition but not what Swintec was referring to. Like I said earlier, some call either device by the term DTA.

Hooking a Digital Terminal Adapter to a modern Tivo with a CableCARD is stupid and nobody would suggest that. The Tivo is already much more capable than a Digital Terminal Adapter.

Hooking a Tuning Adapter to a modern Tivo with a CableCARD is how you make it work with SDV.

Mike Wolf
join:2009-05-24
Tuckerton, NJ

Mike Wolf

Member

Regardless you can still connect a DTA to any device, TV, VCR, TiVo, and so forth as an intermediary device at the coax input of the electronic product by setting it to Channel 3 or 4 and using the DTA's single tuner which is what Josh was referring to.
GTFan
join:2004-12-03
Austell, GA

GTFan to swintec

Member

to swintec
said by swintec:

said by JoshMatthews :

It's stupid.

I think it would be stupid to tie up major amounts of bandwidth on the cable system and deny quite a few additions of HD channels (and binded channels for data) so a few cable card users can run their HTPC. Maybe in the future there will be better options for you guys to interface with the cable system but until then I do not feel the technology (SDV) should be ignored to cater to a few people at the expense of sooo many others.

Can you imagine if we only had 20 HD channels and I called in to ask why and they told me 2 people across town have cable card devices so they are unable to add any more channels now? Please.

You really have no idea what you're talking about, because a) Cablecard is way more than HTPCs, the bulk of the users have Tivos, and b) SDV is ALREADY in use on other MSOs for Cablecard users with the stupid tuning adapters, so there is no problem with Comcast adopting it (if needed) in future.

Nothing you said has anything to do with whether Comcast can add more HD channels to your local system.