Comcast XFINITY TV → [DVR] AnyRoom HD & downconvert

I'm about to get the AnyRoom HD package with 3 HD satellite boxes. I thought I read in the past if you recorded a show in HD, you had to have an HD set for the satellite box in order to watch it. Is this still the case?

I have an HD STB, and that box has no problems down-converting an HD channel to display even on the RF output to an SD TV. If the (3200M?) box doesn't downconvert, what's available on it's composite output when an HD channel is tuned in? It looks like on the satellite boxes they got rid of the RF output, so composite (or S-video) is the only output that can feed an SD set.

Thanks.

Jeff

AFAIK all HD capable boxes will downscale any HD content to SD for the legacy connections.
It would be a customer service nightmare if they didn't. Many people misconfigure their new HD cable boxes by reusing old cabling but don't know any better since they still get an image.

If you have a Motorola made box you can set the TV Type from the extra setup menus and tell it that you have a 4:3 TV, choose "4:3 Letterbox" that will ensure the box correctly downscales the image by adding black bars to the top and bottom.
»en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Ho ··· #TV_Type

Also, if the TV is not capable of HD at all, configure the box to ONLY output 480i. If you don't, it may not display the box's own graphics if you tune to an HD channel or play an HD recording. (I'm not certain if newer boxes can display graphics on downconverted HD.)

And you dont think it would be more of a nightmare customer service wise to get to them menus? Isnt all stations that send a hd station out also have a sd station. I would think the easiest for everyone concerned would to be a firmware that detects whats being used and let the box decide on that basis which to tune to. Not sure how it works now tho.

NO, there are several HD only channels that CC currently carries on some systems:
Paladia
Velocity
AXS TV (formerly HD Net)
MGM
MAV TV
Universal HD
HDNet Movies; although CC eventually dumped it from most, if not ALL their systems
Smithsonian USED to be an HD only channel, but later started offering an SD feed; (unfortunately) CC offers ONLY the SD feed on many of their systems, including ours

Interestingly, DISH Network later started (also) offering an SD (downconverted) feed of AXS TV & HDNet Movies...

Those menus aren't actually necessary when using the legacy outputs, I just mentioned them to be thorough. On the set top boxes I've seen it downconverts with letterboxing by default.