Cable & Satellite TV → Comcast is making me go to all Digital Cable TV!??

So I get a call saying that they are coming on Saturday to switch my basic analog cable to digital. This is a MANDATORY change as the analog cable will no longer work according to them. I was walking out of the house when they called, so did not ask whether I would have to pay more for it or not, but I'm probably going to get screwed on this deal!

The only positive is I can order PPV and maybe that means HN will be available in my area soon.

Has anyone else experienced or heard of this yet?

Change happens. Look on the bright side, this summer you will be able to get the cable boxes with "tivo" in them!

I have had a analog hookup for over three years and it works fine.

I've had analog as well and it works great, but they said this is a mandatory change and has to be done. I'm just worried I'm going to have to pay another $20 a month or something.

I've never heard of Comcast doing this. Sounds like someone is scamming you. I know Comcast wants to switch areas to all digital but they are going to use a digital->analog converter.

Mods, might want to move this to the cable TV forum.

said by Morac:

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I know Comcast wants to switch areas to all digital but they are going to use a digital->analog converter.

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They have to use that device if they don't want too. Some areas are scrambling all analog channels, and if they run out of analog boxes, then the digital boxes are being used.

They did a similar thing for me - not forcing it, but they offered an exchange of the analog box for a digital box at no extra cost for the 1st year (then it went up by a buck and half or so) - didn't really need to do it, but I like the TVguide and music channels that you can't get otherwise. Here is Sacramento they don't scramble stuff - so our other TVs pick up the analog cable portion just fine.

had to turn in my analog box also was told they doing away with analog they gave us the digtal box at no extra cost

I thought the TV nowadays don't need analog box.

I don't have any box a all the analog comes from the wall right to the T.V. and computer.

As I recall you need the box to access certain channels

With certain packages channels are being switched to digital away from analog. If the customer currently has analog and subscribes to these packages they will be informed they need a digital box and will be given it at a cheaper cost when they trade in their analog box.

for example in this area Starz will soon be moving completely off analog and onto digital. So analog customers will be told they need the digital box.

This benefits these customers though because now they get all the starz channels and starz on demand at no extra cost.

How is this going to affect people that have extended basic cable without a cable box(my TVs are cable ready so no box(s) are needed)?

about 5 months ago I called comcast about a problem. as a side note they said that they wanted everyone to go digital and that they would upgrade me to digital for something like $1 a month extra - which they did.

Maybe this is what they're doing? I ended up getting more channels although most of them are BS like another home shopping network or 20 additional spanish channels (live in LA)

or it could be a scam...

I know that here in Philadelphia Comcast doesn't give out analog boxes to new customers anymore. They give out the digital boxes even if you only sign up for analog service. (You always need a box here because many of our analog channels are scrambled.)

even extended basic is bs. Most of the stuffs are re-run or old network shows anyway. If you take the sport and news channels out, there aren't much left.

Just for more info, I DO NOT have any analog boxes at this time so I will not be swapping them out at all.
They asked how many TV's I had and said I will get a box for each one. This maybe gives me hope that I will not be charged much, if anything for them as they did not ask me how many I wanted, but just said how many I would get.
I would not mind paying a few bucks more if I'm going to get extra Starz channels, etc.....

I'm still going to be worried about it till it's settled.

said by jgb0607:

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Comcast is making me go to all Digital Cable TV!??

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Good, it's about time they go all digital and get rid of the crappy picture analog channels. Wish they would do that here. I'm tired of the snow and blurry, crappy picture you see on analog here. The digital channels all come in perfect. Freeing up the analog channels will allow them to carry more channels that will be switching to HD in the future.

If you're lost in the past and want to keep your analog - no problem, they will put a converter on your line that will convert the digital back to analog so you can still use all your old tvs. It'll look good next to your reel-to-reel tape player, turntable and your 8-track player.

I still fail to understand why so many people here think that the cable companies going all digital is a bad thing. Get over it. Go buy a HDTV. You'll love it. Wait until you see a football game in HD. It's incredible. Get a surround sound system. It sounds so much better.

Adapt to the new technology. Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated....

Are you offering to pay for all this? HDTVs are expensive, digital cable costs more than analog cable ('cuz the cable companies charge more), etc... my old TV works fine. why upgrade yet? (I did put in a nice surround system though)...

Just offering up reasons way people don't upgrade.

I say that is about time all cable goes digital. I have had all digital tv with directv for over 2 years now. I love it. Cable going digital will make the picture better due to less compression of the signal and it will lead to more hdtv. Digital is the future, get over it. Also with cable going all digital, cable piracy will almost completely disappear. This will lead to something we have never seen in the cable industry, price decreases since the revenue that was lost to piracy of analog cable will be gone. That is a good thing in my mind.

How does cable piracy go away? And do you think the cable companies would ever actually lower their prices - even if their costs went down? They would just take the extra profit.

Have you ever thought about those of us that are on a fixed income? Digital costs more, more channels cost more, Digital boxes have to be rented(more cost), let's not forget the damned remote to control the digital box(that costs too), and doesn't the digital box need a phone line conected too(I know they used to)?

Two words....Screw That!

said by ccallana:

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How does cable piracy go away?

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Digital cable boxes haven't been hacked. Yet...

said by dadkins:

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doesn't the digital box need a phone line conected too

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Only if your cable system is in dire need of an upgrade. Most likely, the answer is no. Cable systems are two-way these days, so the box can just communicate over the coax back to the headend.

Exactly - Yet. It'll slow it down for a few days, then all the boxes will be cracked wide open and you'll be able to buy them on Ebay. Doesn't solve a thing.

A few days? The two primary encryption schemes used in digital cable (PowerKey and DigiCipher) have been around since about 1996 or so? They haven't been cracked yet. The keys are so sophisticated and change so rapidly (several times a second I think?) that there currently isn't enough computer power on the planet to crack them.

Still not going to take that long. Every encryption scheme that has come about has eventually been broken - just depends on the resources assigned to it.

My point was that just moving everyone to digital is not going to get rid of piracy, nor lower everyones cable rates. Even if it reduces piracy, the cable guys are not going to pass those savings on to us - they will keep the money for "R&D" or new roll outs, whatever - but they will not hand it back to us - just not how they operate.

You are 100% correct. The encryption system changes every few seconds, and even the time frame of the key can be made to jump around. It is a 128 bit encryption system. It is not going to be hacked, I have no idea why ccallana is so hung up on that it is going to be hacked really fast, its not going to happen, period.

So yes, going all digital will stop all illegal theft of cable tv. As for the boxes showing up on ebay, thats an easy solution that the cable companies have already taken care of, they do turn them on. All Motorola and Scientific Atlanta boxes(except for the SA 3270HD) are stolen boxes. They have never been made for public sale and the cable companies know about this. So they just don't have to activate a customer owned one, unless the customer has a receipt from Comcast showing the purchase from them directly.

i have seen people with "anadigi" cable as i call digital cable since it isnt digital. Some still have static. That is why I install directv and dish part time and no longer install CATV.

Let me clear the air before we all get confused. I work for Comcast and I live in Garland. We are changing out analog boxes for Digital Boxes because we are eliminating the pay channels from the analog line-up. You will only be able to get pay channels with digital cable. This is going to happen because we want to free up bandwidth and eliminate traps which can either take away a channel or add a channel thus making our system "addressable."

kcharg