Picking up cable HD locals with vip722 dvr

[chaldz]

Using my vip722 DVR I can pickup the OTA locals using an antenna. However if I connect a cable coming from the local cable company and perform a scan I get 0 channels found. If i take the same cable and connect it to my Samsung HDTV, it picks up the DTV signal for ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC. No cable box was used. I'm using the STD setting on my TV to pickup the stations and have tried both Offair and Cable on the vip722. Any ideas?

 

[Jim S.]

The cable system is using QAM rather than 8VSB. Since the 722 doesn't have a QAM tuner, you can't do anything about it. I think the cable companies should've been required to carry local channels in 8VSB. (There's no requirement for TVs to even have QAM tuners.) Some people will try to argue that it takes too much space vs. recompressing them and putting several channels on a QAM channel, but I reject that argument because analog channels also take up a single channel per channel, and most companies aren't getting rid of the analog local channels yet.

 

[dlsnyder]

Beyond that, Dish could include a QAM tuner but I suspect they chose not to for business reasons. If their DVRs were capable of recording clear QAM channels off of cable, that would satisfy the needs of a good many of Dish's potential customers. The business strategy seems to have changed now with the new model 922 Sling-enabled receiver. Supposedly they will be coming out with a cable-compatible model this spring that will tune the QAM channels.

 

[chaldz]

Thanks for the quick answers. Where I live (Fort Smith, AR) all OTA channels but NBC come in HD; NBC is in SD. Since my cable provider has all 4 in HD I wanted to use it. For now I'll just switch over to the TV for NBC, too bad I can't DVR it...
Figures Dish will provide a cable compatible HD tuner after I have signed my 24 month commitment. No chance they let me upgrade for a reasonable fee. And for me reasonable is $50 or less if I'm signing a 2yr contract. But if Dish is saying the will have a new unit this year, then maybe they'll actually have it out by next year and my contact will be up!

 

[BuddyBoy]

Beyond that, Dish could include a QAM tuner but I suspect they chose not to for business reasons.

My guess is that the hardware actually includes support for QAM, but Dish purposely does not use it/enable it.

 

[mrlaugh]

My guess is that the hardware actually includes support for QAM, but Dish purposely does not use it/enable it.

that sounds more likely about what will happen.

I'd love for the 722 to have a QAM tuner in it, I get free basic cable at my apartment complex, but charter's HD options are so poor (8 national + 5 broadcast) that their upgrade price was more of a ripoff, and Absolute HD seemed like an obvious choice.

Realistically, I should just 'move' to Sacramento and get their locals off the sat, I don't need Reno, NV news anyway.