| Blue Ridge Cable According to this thread »Blue Ridge keeping up with HD
It was reported that they were using SDV to carry all of the premiums in HD. I'm in a BRC area now, and while they have a great selection of Hd channels, they do not have all of the multiple screens of premiums in HD. They only have the 1 main premium in HD: HBO, Max, Show, Starz.
Which BRC area has all the premiums in HD? |
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| I thought you were in an SECV area...
»Service Electric Cablevision thread |
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| reply to cypherstream
Mansfield does, Ephrata does, Northern York County does, Stroudsburg does. |
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| reply to dishrich
I live in SECV area but for the weekend I'm at the in laws in North East PA which is BRC territory.
No multiple premium channels here. There's some stuff on SDV like WFN HD for example... But only 1 HD of each premium exist.
Zip code is 18428. In the guide diagnostics it says cfg region: Milford/Hawley/Hemlock |
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| reply to cypherstream
Here's the specs on the arris dg860a
DCID Freq Power SNR Modulation Octets Correcteds Uncorrectables
Downstream 1 122 117.00 MHz 2.38 dBmV 39.40 dB 256QAM 333473494 1104 0
Upstream
UCID Freq Power Channel Type Symbol Rate Modulation
Upstream 1 3 30.10 MHz 43.75 dBmV DOCSIS1.x (TDMA) 2560 kSym/s 16QAM
Speed tests on my iPad are about 13-14 Mbps down by 2 Mbps up
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| reply to cypherstream
It looks as though Wayne and Pike counties customers will be last to get HBO, Sho, Starz multiplexes in HD. Carbon, west Northampton and Lehigh counties just recently got the HD premiums and DOCSIS 3.0.
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-Cruising along contently on a $35 a month dumb pipe.
-I will sure be loving life when I am working and not have time to be concerned about home entertainment. |
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| Ok when I put the Stb into diag mode, I can direct tune them but it says temporarily off air. If I go to the diag ch 911, under tuning it does pick up a source ID but it tries to tune 903 MHz.
It does show the logos and they are named HDHBO2 for example. Source ID 07001, display channel 0550, frequency 903.000, QAM256, program number 00001, Status: Authorized, Subscription
This is a Cisco 8652HDC
Hub ID: 18
Region: Milford (nr12)
Cfg Region: MIL/HAW/HEM/BLK (cr3) |
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 JeepMattC'mon the UPremium
join:2001-12-28
Wilmington, DE
kudos:2 | 903MHz? Damn - is that a 1G system? |
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1 edit | Not sure but I know it's relatively newer line gear put up in the mid 2000's.
Could also be that the HD premiums are just given a placeholder frequency that could change. They all say 903. Just the source ID's are unique.
Found a channel on 861 MHz that comes in good. (Disney HD). |
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| said by cypherstream:Not sure but I know it's relatively newer line gear put up in the mid 2000's.
Could also be that the HD premiums are just given a placeholder frequency that could change. They all say 903. Just the source ID's are unique.
Found a channel on 861 MHz that comes in good. (Disney HD).
I know that when an SDV channel goes off air here it says that it is on 897MHz and I know the system is only 860MHz as the highest carrier is 861MHz and also about 1/3 to 1/2 of the nodes in my area are 870MHz Motorola SG2000 or MBN87 nodes. |
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| Maybe thats what it is, like an SDV placeholder..
What I like about the diagnostics, you can arrow over and type in anything. I was able to find programming by randomly typing different source ID's.
Also found that AMC HD, We HD, IFC HD, and Fuse HD are all on the same QAM. 4:1 compression! |
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| said by cypherstream:Also found that AMC HD, We HD, IFC HD, and Fuse HD are all on the same QAM. 4:1 compression! And I assume you know that is exactly how EVERY provider gets it from Rainbow prog - hence why everyone bitches about the (HD) pic quality on these channels. (but mostly on AMC...)
But by Rainbow doing it this way, it "encourages" their cable affiliates to simply put the entire bouquet from the bird "as is", onto a single 6mhz QAM - w/out any further grooming of the stream.
»www.lyngsat.com/Galaxy-14.html
(the Rainbow bouquet is on TP 2) |
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| said by dishrich:said by cypherstream:Also found that AMC HD, We HD, IFC HD, and Fuse HD are all on the same QAM. 4:1 compression! And I assume you know that is exactly how EVERY provider gets it from Rainbow prog - hence why everyone bitches about the (HD) pic quality on these channels. (but mostly on AMC...) But by Rainbow doing it this way, it "encourages" their cable affiliates to simply put the entire bouquet from the bird "as is", onto a single 6mhz QAM - w/out any further grooming of the stream. » www.lyngsat.com/Galaxy-14.html(the Rainbow bouquet is on TP 2) you do realize Rainbow networks has not existed under that name for a year now right? They are called AMC Networks now and Fuse was spun off to Madison Square Garden so they are now on a different contract set than AMC, IFC, We TV. |
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| reply to dishrich
Hmm, then why is only the AMC channel in HD on directv? |
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4 edits | reply to motorola870
said by motorola870:you do realize Rainbow networks has not existed under that name for a year now right? They are called AMC Networks now OK, that's true...then call it the AMC/MSG Networks bouquet... 
The point is, when they WERE all Rainbow, Rainbow put all 4 on the same bouquet - which has NOT changed, in spite of all the changes afterwords...
and Fuse was spun off to Madison Square Garden so they are now on a different contract set than AMC, IFC, We TV.
said by cypherstream:Hmm, then why is only the AMC channel in HD on directv? Well first of all...the provider(s) STILL have to have a contract to carry each network. I did NOT say that EVERY provider did/does carry all 4 services; I was simply explaining to you why you were seeing 4:1 compression on those (same) 4 services. Again, (at least at the time) Rainbow did this to "make things easier" for both themselves & their cable system "partners"- by "cramming" & originating 4 HD channels, into ONE QAM space. (instead of taking part of a 2nd QAM, &/or the cable op being responsible for "re-grooming" those signals) 
Also, (both) DirecTV & DISH do NOT take these network feeds directly from the birds & put up on their birds "as is"...
First of all, this bouquet is sent up in MPEG2 HD. Since pretty much every cable system still uses MPEG2 HD, the entire bouquet can be simply put on a cable QAM "as is". (ie: it does NOT have to be transcoded to MPEG4)
Both DBS providers, since they use ALL MPEG4 compression, can't do this - so they have to transcode & groom these streams to MPEG4. They also are packing more MPEG4 streams to their own x-ponders, hence why they need to transcode/groom individual MPEG2-originated streams. |
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| said by dishrich:said by motorola870:you do realize Rainbow networks has not existed under that name for a year now right? They are called AMC Networks now OK, that's true...then call it the AMC/MSG Networks bouquet... The point is, when they WERE all Rainbow, Rainbow put all 4 on the same bouquet - which has NOT changed, in spite of all the changes afterwords... and Fuse was spun off to Madison Square Garden so they are now on a different contract set than AMC, IFC, We TV.
Again, they are STILL on 1 bouquet irregardless of who owns what networks - which doesn't change the fact of the 4:1 compression. I don't even get fuse HD which I wish I could have gotten before MSG trashed the channel I am betting it will die soon if they don't change from a Pop/Hip Hop channels that shows the same dang thing over and over and they pretty much killed the roots of the channel they are pretty much as watered down version of MTV now UH!
I only get:
IFC HD
AMC HD
We HD
and it took an act of congress to get IFC HD! Just kidding TWC saved it for a 20 HD channel last year. |
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| reply to dishrich
Just a side note that those channels are changing over to new satellite feeds in November so picture quality from Rainbow/Fuse/Whoever they are this month should increase as the 4:1 mux won't be such a good idea after that point. |
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TheWiseGuyDog And ButterflyPremium,MVM
join:2002-07-04
East Stroudsburg, PA
kudos:2 Reviews:
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1 edit | reply to dishrich
said by dishrich
:First of all, this bouquet is sent up in MPEG2 HD. Since pretty much every cable system still uses MPEG2 HD, the entire bouquet can be simply put on a cable QAM "as is". (ie: it does NOT have to be transcoded to MPEG4)
I had to download the XBox optional media update to use my XBox as an extender with Blue Ridge to receive the premium channels. When I had used the same setup with Cablevision I did not need the update to receive any channel. I suspect that Blue Ridge is using Mpeg4 for the premium channels.
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Warning, If you post nonsense and use misinformation and are here to argue based on those methods, you will be put on ignore. |
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| said by TheWiseGuy:I had to download the XBox optional media update to use my XBox as an extender with Blue Ridge to receive the premium channels. When I had used the same setup with Cablevision I did not need the update to receive any channel. I suspect that Blue Ridge is using Mpeg4 for the premium channels. But if those (new) HD premiums can be received with all those old legacy SA HD boxes, then this can't be the case - since those same boxes do NOT do MPEG4.
Cypher could maybe answer this question for you...  |
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| There are other diagnostics pages that I didn't take a picture of, but all signs point to things being MPEG2. Though the Cisco 8652HDC should be capable of decoding MPEG4 and tuning up to 1 GHz. Though their SD (SA3200 / 2200) are only 870 MHz tuners with MPEG2 compatibility.
But again the premium HD's that rival DirecTV's selection of Premium multi-screens in HD are not yet active in the area where I was at this weekend.
I'm back home so I can't gather any other information. Sounds like we will be up there next year sometime and by then we'll see.
Really nicely run cable system though. The guide is FAST and there's lots of nice interactive features here and there. For being a little company not even close in terms of Comcast, TWC, Charter, Cox, etc... they do have a very nice selection of channels. I just could not figure out if it was possible to do a 30 sec skip on the DVR. Didn't think it was possible, at least I couldn't figure it out.
Too bad AMC couldn't improve their quality BEFORE the new season of Walking Dead. Oh well, it still is far better than the SD version.
Hopefully with DirecTV shuffling channels to different transponders trying to squeeze in that 6th HD per frequency... maybe they will find room to upgrade the other AMC Networks to HD... We, Fuse, IFC would be a very welcome addition. Thought these operators only sold in packs... hence the whole a-la carte battle that claims if they sold things in a-la carte, many channels would go out of business. |
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