wanabdigi
join:2005-10-08
| Why Do I recieve HDTV?
I have had Comcast basic for years. I just baught a Sony Wega HDTV ready TV and for some odd reason, I can get HDTV channels. When I look on Comcast's web site, it appears that you have to have digital cable ro recieve HDTV so why am I getting them?
I get CBS and PBS in 1080i(16:9) and all of the rest of the local channels in 480i(4:3). One other weird thing is there are other digital channels and one of them recieves what appears to be on-demand becuase I can see soemone fast forwarding and reversing it. Believe me I know it is on-demand becuase it is not suitable for children.
I hope someone can explain why this might be happening? |
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Grumpy
Premium
join:2001-07-28
99999
clubs: | I wonder if your TV has a built in HD tuner? |
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Smokey Joe
join:2005-02-13
Beaverton, OR
| reply to wanabdigi
said by wanabdigi  :I have had Comcast basic for years. I just baught a Sony Wega HDTV ready TV and for some odd reason, I can get HDTV channels. When I look on Comcast's web site, it appears that you have to have digital cable ro recieve HDTV so why am I getting them? I get CBS and PBS in 1080i(16:9) and all of the rest of the local channels in 480i(4:3). One other weird thing is there are other digital channels and one of them recieves what appears to be on-demand becuase I can see soemone fast forwarding and reversing it. Believe me I know it is on-demand becuase it is not suitable for children. I hope someone can explain why this might be happening? I don't know about the OnDemand part, but you probably have a DIgital Cable Ready TV (ie a Cable Card TV). The channels you are seeing are the unencrypted Local HD stations. Typically you only need the Cable Card itself when you subscribe to a digital package because digital packages include encrypted channels and the digital box that is built into your box decryption codes for the channels you subscribe to. |
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DCTGoddess
join:2005-10-07
Eastern MA
|  The On-Demand data stream is carried on a node's randomly generated sub-channel by the time it reaches your DCT. A digital TV has a built-in QUAM demodulator that can lock onto the signal, which Comcast hasn't bothered to encrypt just yet. As digital TVs see more market penetration, the cable cos. will catch on & take steps to encrypt the signal so that only the person who ordered the On-Demand movie gets to see it. In the mean time, if you happen to have a Digital QUAM 256 decoding TV & you're on the same node as a person watching On-Demand, sit back & enjoy the ride! You can't control it, you can only watch, so enjoy it while it lasts.  |
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bcunningh
join:2005-04-01
Seattle, WA | reply to wanabdigi
QAM not QUAM
And the 480i 4:3 channels you see are not HD they are just the standard def digital simulcast. |
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DCTGoddess
join:2005-10-07
Eastern MA
| said by bcunningh :QAM not QUAM :D HAHAHA! I had a feeling I spelled it wrong. It suddenly popped into my head around 1 this morning, that I put a 'U' in QAM. Oops! |
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tomlog
join:2001-02-05
Castaic, CA
| reply to Grumpy
said by Grumpy :I wonder if your TV has a built in HD tuner? DUH!! It would not get digital channels without a QAM turner. As far as the HD locals Comcast cannot by law encode any local channel including HD's. And as far as VOD we do not encode any VOD services except Adult content. Now that said you will only see video on that channel when someone in your service group orders VOD and it comes on that channel if say in the middle of the program they press stop and then a few minutes later restart it it may or may not be on the same channel. The only way to find it again is to rescan all your digital channels and find the one it is playing on. For VOD there is 4 MUX's with 10 channels each for 40 total channels. So if you saw VOD on say channel 110.1 then there would be 10 channels in that MUX or channels 110.1 thru 110.10 except if someone is watching VOD HD then the HD channel takes 3 and 1/3 channels so you would have 5 SD VOD channels and 1 HD VOD channel. |
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DCTGoddess
join:2005-10-07
Eastern MA | Wow! That's really cool. It's nice to find out the specifics, finally. |
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