Comcast is going (almost) completely digital

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berky

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I just got a letter in the mail about Comcast changing all channels above 22 (except 95) to a purely digital broadcast, which means I have to get a digital box for every TV in the house, regardless if I have "digital cable" or not.

So I was planning on building an HTPC backend to capture everything, but now I'm wondering what kind of tuner card I would need to be able to get all these channels? Previously I didn't care about digital channels because most of what I watch is standard cable anyway. Am I going to be forced to use a cablecard? I want the PC to be able to change the channels, without some weird setup.

here's one article about it: http://www.bocsco.com/comcast_goes_digital.php
and another: http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2010/04/13/4725458.htm


i'm sure there are plenty others out there
 
The comcast in my area went to digital back in the middle of march, so now I'm using a set top box with mine (the tiny free one) with an IR repeater. It's not horrible, but I really don't like it. And I can only record one channel at a time now.
 
I don't know about your area but around me comcast makes you buy a special box to be able to use a pc with a tuner card also. They run about $5 a month.
 
There's a few forces in play here, and it really will depend on what you want to be able to watch, so I'll run through the basic content types and what sort of tuner you'll need:

1. Over the air broadcast networks (ABC/NBC/Fox/CBS/PBS/etc): Option one would be to use an ATSC tuner and rabbit ears to pull it down over the air. Cable companies are required to provide this in an unencrypted format, thus a QAM tuner should work to pick up the OTA channels via cable. The one wrinkle that can be added to this is if they move those channels to switch digital video channels, which would require a tuning adapter and a tuner/application capable of utilizing it. Usually the expanded basic/digital channels will goto SDV first...

2. Expanded basic/digital cable (Espn/CNN/etc): Depending on the locality and cable co, this may or may not be encrypted/protected. If its not encrypted/protected, a QAM tuner will work well with this. The same caveat with SDV applies here as well. If the content is protected/encrypted, then you'll need a cable card tuner (which will also require Windoze 7 MCE). It will then be able to decrypt the channels for recording/playback on the HTPC. These can also be SDV channels, but the two tuners (ATi and Ceton) I know of can handle the tuning adapters successfully.

Basically, you may or may not have to get a cablecard tuner - if you can get ahold of the local tech support and see if they are going to use "Clear QAM" (one of the terms for unencrypted digital cable), then then QAM tuners would work well. My experience with Comcrap in Atlanta a few years back is that everything aside from OTA channels were encrypted and I couldn't see them with my QAM tuner.

As you may know, if you do go the cable card route, each tv will need an extender in order to view live and copy protected content that has been recorded by the back end (tranlated: you'll need an xbox at each tv set). The other way around this is to pipe the content back out through the house over cable, but you'll need RF remotes and be limited to one program playing back from the htpc at a time.

The other option is using a Happauage HD-PVR, but you'll need to trunk several of those together and have a separate cable box for each, which defeats the purpose of avoiding cable boxes...
 
It hasn't seemed to hit my market yet, but when it does I'll probably jump over to ATT U-Verse. My SageTV setup will become pretty much useless for anything other than downloads and ripped DVDs//Music at that point :( I just can't justify the cost of the HD-PVR units and SageTV still hasn't come up with a solution for CableCard (their only negative in my eyes).

I wish someone would step in and force them to make anything normally included in their "basic" setup (everything you can currently see with a standard analog tuner) QAM channels. Apparently that isn't going to happen though. So glad all those TV's are still being sold with QAM tuners that are going to be worthless....
 
farscapesg1 said:
It hasn't seemed to hit my market yet, but when it does I'll probably jump over to ATT U-Verse. My SageTV setup will become pretty much useless for anything other than downloads and ripped DVDs//Music at that point :( I just can't justify the cost of the HD-PVR units and SageTV still hasn't come up with a solution for CableCard (their only negative in my eyes).

I wish someone would step in and force them to make anything normally included in their "basic" setup (everything you can currently see with a standard analog tuner) QAM channels. Apparently that isn't going to happen though. So glad all those TV's are still being sold with QAM tuners that are going to be worthless....
Click to expand...

I like the name and I miss the show (first part, didn't watch the second, although it appeared to be the same actors).

About the only plus Comcast has over uverse is QAM and SD over NTSC if you want to go the make-your-own PVR route. Without it, unless you have no other option, I would avoid comcast like the plague.

I used to run a BeyondTV 7 tuner system (2 ATSC, 2 QAM, 3 NTSC) with Comcast. We moved and I went to Uverse. I considered moving the system to uverse (purchased a USB-UIRT, HDPVR, etc.), but to be honest, uverse provided most of the things I cared about in a PVR. I can watch the same recordings on any TV, and while the inability to stop/start remote systems is a pain in the ass, the access to LOTS of on-demand content for free more than makes up for it.

I sold the last of my BeyondTV server + clients about 6 months ago on craigslist.
 
thanks for the info. I may just end up lowering the requirements on my NAS build and forget the tuner stuff for now. comcast is really starting to piss me off, so I may end up switching to Dish or something in the future. I have to do some more research.
 
berky said:
thanks for the info. I may just end up lowering the requirements on my NAS build and forget the tuner stuff for now. comcast is really starting to piss me off, so I may end up switching to Dish or something in the future. I have to do some more research.
Click to expand...

Honestly, I think it'll be easier for you to deal with Comcrap than the satcos to do what you want it to do....
 
PurduEE said:
About the only plus Comcast has over uverse is QAM and SD over NTSC if you want to go the make-your-own PVR route. Without it, unless you have no other option, I would avoid comcast like the plague.

I used to run a BeyondTV 7 tuner system (2 ATSC, 2 QAM, 3 NTSC) with Comcast. We moved and I went to Uverse. I considered moving the system to uverse (purchased a USB-UIRT, HDPVR, etc.), but to be honest, uverse provided most of the things I cared about in a PVR. I can watch the same recordings on any TV, and while the inability to stop/start remote systems is a pain in the ass, the access to LOTS of on-demand content for free more than makes up for it.

I sold the last of my BeyondTV server + clients about 6 months ago on craigslist.
Click to expand...

I had thought about getting UVerse before, but at the time they only supported 1 HD channel at a time. Has this been fixed? For example, I regularly record 2 HD shows at the same time, plus 1-2 SD shows. Their DVR also needs to provide enough storage. Right now I'm sitting on about 500 GB of recorded material waiting to be watched... and that is after converting close to around 100 GB of kids shows for archiving (Dora and such at much better quality than I can find anywhere else). That is something I would really hate to give up... being able to convert recordings and take them with me anywhere to entertain my 4 year old. She gets bored with the same shows, so one or two DVDs on a trip doesn't cut it :p

Of course, OTA doesn't look like that will work out for me either. I look up my address on antennaweb.org and get this wonderful message...

There are no stations predicted to serve this location.
Depending on the specifics of your installation, though, you may be able to receive some signals.
Click to expand...
:mad: And I don't even live out in the sticks... just a suburb of Houston!!!
 
farscapesg1 said:
I had thought about getting UVerse before, but at the time they only supported 1 HD channel at a time. Has this been fixed? For example, I regularly record 2 HD shows at the same time, plus 1-2 SD shows. Their DVR also needs to provide enough storage. Right now I'm sitting on about 500 GB of recorded material waiting to be watched... and that is after converting close to around 100 GB of kids shows for archiving (Dora and such at much better quality than I can find anywhere else). That is something I would really hate to give up... being able to convert recordings and take them with me anywhere to entertain my 4 year old. She gets bored with the same shows, so one or two DVDs on a trip doesn't cut it :p

Of course, OTA doesn't look like that will work out for me either. I look up my address on antennaweb.org and get this wonderful message...

:mad: And I don't even live out in the sticks... just a suburb of Houston!!!
Click to expand...

I can record/watch 2 HDs at the same time. Not sure how many additional SD streams I can capture in addition. I've never tried maxing it out. I've heard different residential locations, depending on their proximity to the DSLAM can record more than 2 HD streams, but I don't know for sure.

I'm in Bellaire, and I used to be able to get a number of OTA stations (ABC, CBS, NBC, CW, PBS, FOX + religious stuff) with a DB4 + HDHomeRun. Check silicondusts' website and you'll get a list of OTA stations by zip. Most of the OTA transmitters are in a shared location south of town, so you can pretty much point your antenna south and you should pick up some channels.
 
Don't think so. My buddy that lives about 10 minutes away from me just signed up for comcast and had the 50mbps as an option, but they wanted like 105 a month for it so he went with the 20 instead. I only have the 15 where I live
 
Yep lost most of my channels except the locals and a few other crappy ones. Box works but can't record anything worth while on my htpc any more. Was thinking about getting a cable card but may just drop the cable and use the internet with hulu, netflix and OTA.
 
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