Future of TV — And Retention of Millions of Customers — At Stake In HD Claims

[KKlare]

No HD on my Comcast

If you think Comcast aint gonna be there with E* and D* in hd programming, your kidding yourself. Ive said it before, the MAIN reason Im with sat and not cable is the crappy dvr. Comcast in my area is damn good.

Our Comcast did alright for SD but they have no HD, not even locals. There may be a digital tier. The best reason might have been Internet but after 3 years of I only they stopped the good intro rate and I went to DSL. Of course, they picked up from Adelphi and certainly were an improvement.
-Ken

 

[gadgtfreek]

Yeah, Ive heard of complaints in the ex-Adelphia markets.

 

[JohnL]

When they stop broadcastng the analog channels February 2009, cable will have plenty of bandwidth for digital hd.

JimK,

I think you have a very different idea about what the Change over means. On February 2009 only OTA ANALOG broadcast will be turned off. Cable is NOT required to switch off any Analog Cable feeds.

Cable Companies can still deliver Analog channels, in fact I doubt the Cable Market would swallow a ONLY Digital service as this would require a Cable box or Cable Card for each and every TV in a subscribers home requiring higher subscriber rates (per tuner charges). One of the biggest reasons Cable Companies do NOT move to DBS is that with DBS it requires a seperate tuner for multiple TV's.


John

 

[gadgtfreek]

True. BUT, cable is realizing moving analogs to digital is a way to creat espace for HD and other programming. I think in the next couple of years you are going to have a very limited cable experience if you dont have some kind of box.

 

[Peter Parker]

When they stop broadcastng the analog channels February 2009, cable will have plenty of bandwidth for digital hd.

OTA analog stops in 2009. Cable will likely continue analog broadcasts of the locakl channels for some time. In fact I suspect that some locals on satellite and cable now are really digital OTA broadcasts.

 

[dishcomm]

http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6446741.html

Very interested article with lots of lots information about Cable, DirecTv, Echostart and the future of their HDTV offering.

Higlights of the article include:

Pending Law suits against DirecTv
Pending Law suits against Cable Operators
Switch Video will provide unlimited HDTV capacity for Cable Operators
Echostar not as agressive in the HDTV area as DirecTv.
Echostar and DirecTv could share satellite space if agreement is reached.

All very interested ideas. Read the article...

I hope they sue each other right into the ground..For being stupid....And failing to do business(advertsing) in the correct manner.

 

[KAB]

OTA analog stops in 2009. Cable will likely continue analog broadcasts of the locakl channels for some time.

How can that be when there will be no local analog?

 

[kb7oeb]

Easy, they convert it to analog at the head end. Most of the analog channels on cable come from digital satellite feeds.

I think cable will remove many analog channels by 2009 because they need to reclaim bandwidth for HD and internet service. The shut down of analog ota is great cover for cable since most people don't understand what the shutdown covers.

 

[mike123abc]

I hope they sue each other right into the ground..For being stupid....And failing to do business(advertsing) in the correct manner.

Echostar seems to be the only company not being sued. I guess having most available HD channels today is keeping them from making promises in advertising.

Easy, they convert it to analog at the head end. Most of the analog channels on cable come from digital satellite feeds.

Actually most modern cable systems use fiber optics. The channels stay digital until the reach the neighborhood where the analog stations are converted from the digital on the fiber to analog to travel on the coax.

 

[wmj5]

I have h20-100 receiver with 40" sony hdtv,In native which would I get a better picture,in the on or off? Jerry Johnson

 

[aegrotatio]

Actually most modern cable systems use fiber optics. The channels stay digital until the reach the neighborhood where the analog stations are converted from the digital on the fiber to analog to travel on the coax.

Not quite true. In the hybrid-coaxial-fiber plants, which is most of them these days, the fiber optics are downconverted into coaxial and then sent to the home. Whether it's digital or analog doesn't really matter. The fiber-optic signal is at the same frequency as the one in the coaxial cable--it's just converted from one format to the other.

The fiber is used to "backhaul" the signal over long distances to the local area. Then it's sent via thick RG-11 coaxial to the pads (the junction boxes) and split into RG-6 for the home drop.

As for the signal, it is ALL THE SAME RF data. The analog channels are analog on the fiber and analog on the coaxial cable. The "digital" channels are the very same RF data, too, they're just modulated differently. To the hybrid coax/fiber plants it's all just RF signals, whether digital or analog doesn't really matter.

I happen to live in a 100% digital area. We used to be a dual-coax plant. We are now on a single coaxial cable. There are no analog signals here. Everything is on the "digital" tier and is just on one coaxial cable to my house.

RG-11 is buried everywhere. The fiber is at the end of the street. The pad contains these switchboxes that take the RG-11 feed and split it into RG-6 drops to each home.

Forgive me. This is a satellite TV forum.