HD Locals no longer free?

[bsilvertab]

My parents live in the small town of Manistee MI and until 2-3 months ago they were able to tune into the local FOX, CBS, NBC, and ABC in HD using the digital tuner in the TV. All of a suddon these channels went black. I thought they were required to be free? Anyone have any insight to this?

 

[IcEWoLF]

I am with DirecTV now, but when I had charter, when I had all the channels, the HD locals were free.
This was 3 months ago when I had them.
Have your parents call customer service, they should be able to fix this/or give you more information regarding this.

 

[TNGTony]

Sometimes the cable companies move the channels around. Do another channel scan on the TV and they should pop back up. They may have also shown up on bizarre channel numbers!

See ya
Tony

 

[bsilvertab]

I have done a new channel search and found nothing... I will have to call them and see what they say. Thanks.

 

[jself1982]

Do you have to be a subscriber to video services or will just a high speed internet only service get you free hd channels on a qam tuner?

 

[frntchr]

I'm in Whitmore Lk/Pinckney area and a tech told me that in my area they filter the HD but in other areas, it's free. However, a subsequent channel scan detected them all and I have the HD locals, plus 5 or so PBS stations in HD. Go figure.

 

[IcEWoLF]

I have QAM tuner with my new Sony Bravia 40", and I get basically all the basic+ extended basic channels for free + HD locals, I get some other HD channels too that are in their HD tier, but they don't have any audio, I even get Playboy TV lol..
Other than that, I have DirecTV premier package, which I have all the channels...so there is no use for me to use my QAM tuner other than CW network + PBS HD and PlayboyTV for free lol.
99% of the times I watch my stuff on DirecTV.

 

[solid_boots]

to get the hd channels you would require either a cable card or a hd box for them to be authorized. this policy here has not been changed for at least 2 1/2 years. if you were getting them b4 and did not have either one it would have been in error.