TridentTrinity, some parts of Sunnyvale are already upgraded, others are not. I'm over near Inverness and Eagle in south Sunnyvale, and our upgrade was activated about 3 weeks ago. Others on this forum might be able to advise more info on the rate of progress.

I am southeast of Fremont/Mary, upgraded on Feb 7.

TridentTrinity, some parts of Sunnyvale are already upgraded, others are not. I'm over near Inverness and Eagle in south Sunnyvale, and our upgrade was activated about 3 weeks ago. Others on this forum might be able to advise more info on the rate of progress.

I am southeast of Fremont/Mary, upgraded on Feb 7.

Thats even closer. Wonder whats so special about my area being so late. BTW what date did they mention in the brochure to you if any?

Thats even closer. Wonder whats so special about my area being so late. BTW what date did they mention in the brochure to you if any?
I'm near Remington and Hollenbeck and still not upgraded. Got "the letter" back in October and I believe it said my area would be upgraded within the next 2-3 months. It's now been 4 months and counting. I have not seen any Comcast trucks in my neighborhood at all (hopefully they're there when I'm at work). I have not had any cable outages, as some have reported experiencing just before being upgraded. I guess I'll be upgraded when I'm upgraded. Simple as that. Frustrated, but nothing I can do other than jumping over to sat, which I'm reluctant to do.

Yea right, at least not on Comcast. I think I'm finally going to switch over to Directv because I know they will have it. That being said, the wife and I like watching HD on demand and I also have phone and Internet through Comcast. Does anyone know the best/cheapest way for me to get HD on demand (and not just my neighbors feed :D), phone and Internet from Comcast. I have a TV with a cable card, but I don't think that helps.

FSN HD Bay Area and maybe KICU HD would be nice as well, but other than that I don't really need anything.

DirecTV is pretty tough to beat when it comes to HD sports. FSNBA-HD is also available via D* for games only currently, no KICU-HD, but they do have KBCW-HD and KRON-HD.

I think all you need for OnDemand is a Limited Basic sub with a Comcast STB. Don't know about prices for the phone and internet, we still don't have phone or OnDemand in most of Santa Rosa.

Triple play (phone/tv/internet) is $99/mo is it not? Pretty sure that's the cheapest way, though HDTV (and/or DVR) may be extra.

Is it official that Comcast is once again not going HD for the EI package? Just curious.

I am southeast of Fremont/Mary, upgraded on Feb 7.

Thats even closer. Wonder whats so special about my area being so late. BTW what date did they mention in the brochure to you if any?

First notification I got last year said upgrade would be done by Jan 4, then a week or so after that deadline passed got a revised update saying it would be delayed to middle of Feb. Never really noticed any higher frequency of Comcast trucks than normal, nor outages (they were quite infrequent and never lasted long).

Good luck

So I called Comcast and ordered "Blast," which the CSR lady confirmed was available in my recently upgraded (1GHz) area of Sunnyvale (94086 Lawrence/Reed). However, after running some tests I learned that my “Blast” is 8000/768 (8Mb) and not the advertised Blast of 16/2 that the lady promised. After speaking with technical support I was informed that all Blast WILL become 16/2 regardless of one's region (550/750/860MHz or 1GHz), however this may not occur for some time despite what the CSR may tell others. My area won't have the "real" Blast until the 29th of this month, according to the technical representative; however, I have reason to doubt everything I hear from Comcast since I have heard so many conflicting stories. So I lost my $19.99/month promotion rate for 6/384 to move to what I thought was 16/2 (the price increase to ~$52 is justified for this tier of speed for me), but I only received a minor upgrade to 8/768, which is not worth an almost triple-increase in cost. That is frustrating, especially when I cannot return (downgrade, as they referred to it) to my old $19.99 rate if I wanted to go back to the 6/384 tier and wait for the true Blast to reach my borders. Awesome. :mad:

Is it official that Comcast is once again not going HD for the EI package? Just curious.

Seems like it's been ages since the baseball season, but did Comcast ever get a contract for the HD games? I know DirecTV did, and I believe Dish finally did as well, but I don't remember who among the cable companies did.

Besides, it's still BB season, check out Dwight Howard's dunks...:D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rp__vGs3fa8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bX80awk8rag

You do realize that Blast only provides additional speed for your first 10MB of a stream anyways, right? It's not like it ever guarantees you a fatter pipe for large transfers. So I don't see how it's worth a big premium.
Yes, it could make web pages faster, but only for web pages whose bandwidth isn't already limited (by their overloaded server or the overloaded WAN).

See the "How long does the powerboost burst last" faq entry on comcast's web page, and:

http://ask.slashdot.org/askslashdot/08/02/19/0434234.shtml

You do realize that Blast only provides additional speed for your first 10MB of a stream anyways, right? It's not like it ever guarantees you a fatter pipe for large transfers. So I don't see how it's worth a big premium.
Yes, it could make web pages faster, but only for web pages whose bandwidth isn't already limited (by their overloaded server or the overloaded WAN).

See the "How long does the powerboost burst last" faq entry on comcast's web page, and:

http://ask.slashdot.org/askslashdot/08/02/19/0434234.shtml

You are confusing powerboost (the additional speed burst that only lasts for 10mb)

with

Blast (16 mbps / 2 mbps cable internet service).

Funny that you confuse it considering you use both terms in your post, but you must think powerboost = blast, which it does NOT.

There is a difference. Big difference.

Funny that you confuse it considering you use both terms in your post, but you must think powerboost = blast, which it does NOT.Yes, I think they're the same thing because when I go to comcast's web page, it describes "Performance plus with powerboost" as 16Mbps which is Blast performance level, and entering blast into their search engine doesn't point me to some other product.

If blast is a separate product, rather than just an additional marketing name for "performance plus with powerboost", as it seems per comcast's web page, then where is the service level agreement for blast? Ie the fine print that describes the bandwidth guarantee?

If blast is a separate product, rather than just an additional marketing name for "performance plus with powerboost", as it seems per comcast's web page, then where is the service level agreement for blast? Ie the fine print that describes the bandwidth guarantee?

See the below thread, it describes the difference. Comcast may not have updated their websites yet to reflect the Blast service, I'm assuming you're looking at the site for your area.

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r18769343-Is-Blast-available-in-your-area-Not-PowerBoost-Pt-2

haven't you watched all the commercials about Blast?
I think I see one every five minutes. And I don't watch live tv! :eek:

See the below thread, it describes the difference. Comcast may not have updated their websites yet to reflect the Blast service, I'm assuming you're looking at the site for your area.

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r18769343-Is-Blast-available-in-your-area-Not-PowerBoost-Pt-2

Ah thanks, looks like they are marketing 2 different things as 16mbps. Their marketing is really confusing. For example http://www.comcast.com/ces/content/CESPressKit%20FINAL.pdf mentions both powerboost and blast at 16mbps, and mentions the burst speed limitation, with no mention as to whether that limit applies to blast or not.
In any case, I'd be really wary about buying a service whose service levels are only glossed over in commercials and not listed on their web page. I wonder if I can buy it in my area and whether it would actually get me better internet service.... :)

Ah thanks, looks like they are marketing 2 different things as 16mbps. Their marketing is really confusing. For example http://www.comcast.com/ces/content/CESPressKit%20FINAL.pdf mentions both powerboost and blast at 16mbps, and mentions the burst speed limitation, with no mention as to whether that limit applies to blast or not.
In any case, I'd be really wary about buying a service whose service levels are only glossed over in commercials and not listed on their web page. I wonder if I can buy it in my area and whether it would actually get me better internet service.... :)

I looked at your link, and I can see how you got confused. But just because their marketing sucks doesn't mean the product does.

With Blast I find myself getting 3Mbps upload, and that's even after the powerboost "bursts." That is so far and ahead above the uploads I was getting on the 6Mbps tier, it's not even funny.

That said, I will be doing cartwheels when Comcast rolls out Docsis 3.0 here (probably in 2009, maybe 2010) and gives us fiber-like down/up speeds.

As far as whether you should get BLAST if available in your area, it just depends if you need the extra speed.

I don't really need the extra down speed (but it is nice and my wife uses it), but the up helps a lot because it allows my wife to do uploading while I play XBOX live without lag.

With the old 6Mbps tier, I couldn't play XBOX live properly unless my wife wasn't doing uploading (or playing a PC online game of her own). Now she can have the upload bandwidth she needs and not affect my gameplay. :D

So... today I received a letter from the San Rafael office stating the same as the flyer I received some time ago. This time I have a definite date as to when I should see new channels (key word is should). Approximately 15 days from receipt of the letter which will make it March 5. Woo hoo?? :rolleyes: Along with "more channels, all new digital cable packages, better entertainment value, greater service reliability and exciting new products" comes... wait for it... the following price changes :mad:. Expanded basic goes up another $8.50? :mad: Any others in SR receive the letter?

I live in 94087 on the Lawrence border of Sunnyvale and Santa Clara. I have noticed the cable going in and out about a month ago and still no upgrade to the cable here. Three blocks away however they do have the upgrade...

I noticed my line has switched from 549 to 700Mhz for the past 2 weeks but nothing else has changed. I was hoping all areas were going to get 1Ghz?

With Blast I find myself getting 3Mbps upload, and that's even after the powerboost "bursts." That is so far and ahead above the uploads I was getting on the 6Mbps tier, it's not even funny.



That is rather amazing, if you are in fact getting consistent 3Mbps upload, I'm struggling along at a crappy less-than-400kbps after the "powerboost" is over, that was one thing nice about DSL, the upload was usually as good as the download speed. Hoping Blast comes to Santa Rosa soon.

I pay for 8mb but I have been getting 25mb-30mb downloads and 3mb upload.....

What is that about? DOCISS 3.0 test area?

Nobody has DOCSIS 3.0 yet. You would need a new modem (a DOCSIS 3.0 modem..) to get that.

Since they said people already paying for 8mb would automatically be upgraded to "Blast" (16mb) that's probably what you have. Thing is, with Power Boost you get a temporary speed boost on large files, and with the current crop of speed tests they aren't long enough to outlast Power Boost, so the results you are getting are only showing your "Power Boost" speeds. You'll need to perform a much longer test (300mb+ ideally, or more - both upload and download) to see what your "real", ie. sustained speed actually is.


Let me see if I can break this down.

"regular" HSI (6mb)
sustained = 6mb / 384kb.
Power Boost = 30mb (the max of DOCSIS 1.1) / 1600kb.

old "premuim" (8mb)
sustained = 8mb / 3mb?
Power Boost = 30mb / 3mb?

new "Blast" (16mb)
sustained = 16mb / 2 or 3mb?
Power Boost = 30mb / 2 or 3mb? (no power boost on uploads with Blast?)

Can anyone recommend a good web site (or FTP) that has the bandwidth to test a large file transfer? Back in the day I remember using ftp.microsoft.com...not sure if that's any good anymore.

Can anyone recommend a good web site (or FTP) that has the bandwidth to test a large file transfer? Back in the day I remember using ftp.microsoft.com...not sure if that's any good anymore.

You can try ftp.kernel.org (linux kernels and other software distro).

First notification I got last year said upgrade would be done by Jan 4, then a week or so after that deadline passed got a revised update saying it would be delayed to middle of Feb. Never really noticed any higher frequency of Comcast trucks than normal, nor outages (they were quite infrequent and never lasted long).

Good luck
I saw what looked like a work crew pulling cable in my neighborhood a few weeks ago. I'm not 100% certain that is what they were doing, but it was not a Comcast truck doing it-- I suspect they are using a lot of subcontractors to do some of the work.

So... today I received a letter from the San Rafael office stating the same as the flyer I received some time ago. This time I have a definite date as to when I should see new channels (key word is should). Approximately 15 days from receipt of the letter which will make it March 5. Woo hoo?? :rolleyes: Along with "more channels, all new digital cable packages, better entertainment value, greater service reliability and exciting new products" comes... wait for it... the following price changes :mad:. Expanded basic goes up another $8.50? :mad: Any others in SR receive the letter?

That's the same letter I received and 23 days later, I had the new services. I'm never thrilled to see the prices go up, but having on demand and the extra HD channels does take quite a bit of the sting out.

Can anyone recommend a good web site (or FTP) that has the bandwidth to test a large file transfer? Back in the day I remember using ftp.microsoft.com...not sure if that's any good anymore.

apple.com/trailers

1080p movie trailers, super fast site :cool:

For uploading you can try YouTube.

That's the same letter I received and 23 days later, I had the new services. I'm never thrilled to see the prices go up, but having on demand and the extra HD channels does take quite a bit of the sting out.

Think about those of us who are paying these higher charges without getting the upgrades yet. Comcast really has the gall to increase prices for those of us without giving us better services. If I don't get the upgrade soon I'm going to jump ship. In any case DirecTV has more HD channels now. I can live without OnDemand for that.

I saw what looked like a work crew pulling cable in my neighborhood a few weeks ago. I'm not 100% certain that is what they were doing, but it was not a Comcast truck doing it-- I suspect they are using a lot of subcontractors to do some of the work.

They are. When cable was being pulled in my neighborhood there was CableCom which did the actual line installation and then Turn Around Communications which I guess did fine tuning/secure attachment of each line to the pole and distribution box (if there are any). Today there was yet another truck with a cherry picker working on something at the end of my block. I didn't see the company's name, only that they were a contractor for Comcast.

I could have sworn that Comcast said the wouldn't raise rates while offering the same services before and after the upgrade. It is Comcast of course. Inquiries might be made into D* or E*...

I haven't received a flyer. Is San Francisco scheduled to have additional HD channels added soon? If so, which channels?

Is there anybody out there who has easy access to the actual frequency Comcast is transmitting KPIXDT on? My lineup matches either "Digital" or "Digital Rebuild" on Schedules Direct, if that does anything to help narrow down what version of the Santa Rosa system I am on. TIA.

KPIX-HD (705) in Santa Rosa is at 459MHz.

Anyone notice signal loss on Idol over the last two nights on QAM? I've missed between 5 and 10 mins. each night due to a loss of TV signal. I have a feeling its on my end, not system wide, but just want to make sure. I'm in NE Santa Rosa and using an HD Homerun.

Thanks,

Monty

Anyone notice signal loss on Idol over the last two nights on QAM? I've missed between 5 and 10 mins. each night due to a loss of TV signal. I have a feeling its on my end, not system wide, but just want to make sure. I'm in NE Santa Rosa and using an HD Homerun.

Thanks,

Monty

Happened to me in Sunnyvale (non-upgraded area) as well. My recording cut out the ninth singer completely. I also lost TV signal (and Internet access) during Leno a couple of nights ago. Hopefully this is a sign that the upgrades are coming soon.

Happened to me in Sunnyvale (non-upgraded area) as well. My recording cut out the ninth singer completely. I also lost TV signal (and Internet access) during Leno a couple of nights ago. Hopefully this is a sign that the upgrades are coming soon.

Same outage in Sunnyvale, 94087, not yet upgraded.

Same outage in Sunnyvale, 94087, not yet upgraded.

Thanks, that was exactly what I lost. I have DVRMS Toolbox skip the commercials and it wasn't until the end that we found out we missed one singer completely.....I was hoping it wasn't something flakey in my setup because I am trying to get the wife to accept Vista Media Center as our primary DVR.

Monty

Think about those of us who are paying these higher charges without getting the upgrades yet. Comcast really has the gall to increase prices for those of us without giving us better services. If I don't get the upgrade soon I'm going to jump ship. In any case DirecTV has more HD channels now. I can live without OnDemand for that.

Call and ask for some premium channels (for free) until your area is upgraded...

No Signal in LG for at least the last 2 hours. I called, and was told there is an outage, probably due to the upgrade process. Anyone else seeing this in LG or other areas?

No Signal in LG for at least the last 2 hours. I called, and was told there is an outage, probably due to the upgrade process. Anyone else seeing this in LG or other areas?

Yep, internet and cable are out. Hopefully this is the darkness before the upgrade...

The recorded message is now saying it should be back by 8pm. Eck!

The only outages I've had are on Friday nights during the House reruns, especially near the end of the show, and only the HD channel will go out, and then only KTVU. ???

Ok, I'm ready for my DOCSIS 3.0 modem. :D

http://connectedhome2go.com/2008/02/21/motorola-launches-docsis-30-cpe/

http://www.motorola.com/mediacenter/news/detail.jsp?globalObjectId=9320_9249_23&pageLocaleId=2026

The only outages I've had are on Friday nights during the House reruns, especially near the end of the show, and only the HD channel will go out, and then only KTVU. ???

This sounds like what I've seen. I don't watch Idol, but I've had outages in House several times, and I've seen a couple other dropouts. Only KTVU HD seem to be effected.

702/2-1 is out right now, for whatever reason in 94087.

KPIX-HD (705) in Santa Rosa is at 459MHz.

Thanks! I'll try it out as soon as I am back at my Myth box.

94087 is upgraded today for me. (i'm on Inverness between Wolfe and De Anza)
Channels running are 702, 703, 704, 705, 706, 707, 709, 712, 720, 722, 724, 725, 730, 734, 735, 737, 738, 739, 740, 743, 746, 750, 754, 757, 758, 770, 780, 785, 792

Thanks! I'll try it out as soon as I am back at my Myth box.

I think you've already tried that, 457Mhz is cable/QAM channel 63, specifically 63.7 for KPIX in 550Mhz areas of Santa Rosa.

anyone with business level comcast internet notice the blast today?
supposedly it was to go active today...

It has been great to read about all the upgrades happening in the 550 systems. Here in San Lorenzo, I’m still waiting to be upgraded. We received a flyer in September but I haven’t heard anything since. It would be nice if Comcast at least told us they were running behind. BTW, I’ve been seeing AT&T lay-out new wiring throughout this area over the past month. They’ve been doing a lot of work even on weekends and late into the evening. I haven’t received any marketing materials on new services from AT&T, but I’m sure it’s coming.

For those of you living in Fremont and using a QAM tuner here are the digital numbers that I got last week

I left out a few channels that only show commercials it seems plus some foreign channels as well as local Fremont government (does anyone watch these?) plus some educational college channels. A bunch of channels just seem to selling stuff all the time, so I left them out to...

High Definition
CBS : 111-1
FOX : 111-2
NBC : 116-1
ABC : 117-1
KQED-HD : 117-2
CW (44) : 95-2
A36 : 85-1

Non-HD Digital (I won't relist what is above that also broadcasts in non-HD)
KCSM : 108-4
KQED-Encore : 117-3
KQED-World : 108-8
KQED-Kids : 108-10
Discovery : 84-3
CSPAN3 : 79-8
WGN : 79-4
KTVN : 85-3
KRON-4 : 110-8
FIT-TV : 80-2
TV50 : 96-1
LATV (Spanish/English?) : 111-3
ABC-7 (local) : 117-7
ABC Accuweather : 117-8
Movieplex : 89-13
Arts (plus Chinese) : 108-2

The allocations seem to change quite frequently and some come and go on digital, like Discovery.

enjoy

Peter

Think about those of us who are paying these higher charges without getting the upgrades yet. Comcast really has the gall to increase prices for those of us without giving us better services. If I don't get the upgrade soon I'm going to jump ship. In any case DirecTV has more HD channels now. I can live without OnDemand for that.

If you have a DirecTV DVR (HR20 or HR21), the recent software upgrade has added OnDemand. It completely relies on your existing broadband connection, you need to connect the DVR's Ethernet to your home network.

Anyone know if the faster Blast speeds are available in the San Rafael area yet? I just ordered it and the CSR said it would take effect as "soon as I hung up the phone" yet I am still getting the same speeds as before, according to speed.test.net

Yes, Blast is available in San Rafael. I also got the same speed as before and had to call customer service who had to get sales to redo their work, as they had put the wrong code into my modem. After that, it worked great.

Thanks for the reply. I called back and was told it may take "24-48 hours". I'll call back tuesday if it's not better. I never really know what to believe with comcast.

Just saw a message on my Comcast STB that on Feb 29, Digital Classic will start receiving MTV Jams, MTV Hits, MTV Tres, and the Encore Plex.

Not sure if Encore Plex means all Encore channels 516-530.

But I am still waiting for new HD channels. I would love to turn on my TV and start getting SciFi-HD, TLC-HD, HDNet, Animal Planet-HD, CNN-HD, etc etc. *crosses fingers* :rolleyes:

Here in SF in 94110, I am not yet seeing the speed increases -- I pay the extra $10 for the enhanced tier. I am still at 8 Mb down and 768 Kb up. (Confirmed via FTP, got tricked up by the PowerBoost d/l in my original post...)

I have a Motorola Surfboard SB4200 from before Comcast bought the old AT&T cable plant -- over 5 years old at this point. Am I going to have to upgrade to get the faster speeds? I have yet to see a list of what constitutes a 'newer' modem as the Comcast flyers subtly mention.

If I *am* going to get a new modem, are DOCSIS 3.0 models actually available today? I don't see anything on Amazon for Motorola or other vendors. Otherwise is the 5120 the way to go?

Also, any word if SciFi-HD will be available in the Bay Area? Ahh, to be able to watch Battlestar Galactica in HD in real time...

-john

Just saw a message on my Comcast STB that on Feb 29, Digital Classic will start receiving MTV Jams, MTV Hits, MTV Tres, and the Encore Plex.

Not sure if Encore Plex means all Encore channels 516-530.

But I am still waiting for new HD channels. I would love to turn on my TV and start getting SciFi-HD, TLC-HD, HDNet, Animal Planet-HD, CNN-HD, etc etc. *crosses fingers* :rolleyes:

I have the same message and haven't been upgraded yet. I was wondering if this means that the upgrade is coming on that date? Since none of these channels would be available without an upgrade. Did this message go out to everyone or just the non-upgraded folks?

I have the same message and haven't been upgraded yet. I was wondering if this means that the upgrade is coming on that date? Since none of these channels would be available without an upgrade. Did this message go out to everyone or just the non-upgraded folks?

I am guessing my area is upgraded. So I would think this message was sent to everyone.

Update for the upgrades in the Los Gatos area

This week, if all goes well ( finishing up QC testing ), 4 areas in the Los Gatos area will go live, I don't know which ones only that there will be 4 areas that will be activated to 1 GHz. I'll let you know when the other areas will go active when I am given that information. So the upgrades continue, slowly but surely but they are getting done ;)

Laters,
Mikef5

So did anyone in LG see the upgrades last week?

Here's something for the people that just won't give up their addiction to analog tv, got this from Lightreading site
http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=146733&site=cdn

This is the part that analog people will like....

In those scenarios, it’s expected that Comcast will continue to deliver a small basic analog lineup of roughly 30 channels, but move its expanded basic analog tier to the digital domain. In doing so, it looks to reclaim upwards of 40 channels and reapply them toward expanded high-definition services or for fresh spectrum for Docsis 3.0. (See Comcast Spreads the Love and Comcast Closes In on 100 Mbit/s.)

We'll see if this comes to be or not but IMHO this is only prolonging the inevitable and wastes bandwidth and if you read the article through it could give Comcast a reason to use SDV ......:rolleyes:

Laters,
Mikef5

I bought a new Vizio two weeks ago and am having a problem. I have Comcast service and live in San Jose.

Using the QAM tuner (I have the coax from the wall directly into my TV's coax port), I get 75 analog and over 120 digital channels. I am having trouble with ONE of the digital HD channels, KPIX-DT, 5-1. The channel "freezes" now and then, and then if I switch to other digital channels (i.e. any with a dash), all of them show "no signal". All analog channels are still fine. If I power the tv off and on and I already am tuned to something other than 5-1, all channels are fine. If I tune to 5-1, sometimes the freeze happens again right away, most of the time, it does not.

I called Vizio (I sent email but they did not answer), and they said it is correct that when ONE digital channel loses reception, ALL of them are gone. I cannot see anyone saying that on this forum. Is that what others see? I have seen people discussing problems on a specific channel, but they don't talk about other channels being bad, or having to power off/on to get them all back.

Also, I called Comcast and described the channel 5-1 KPIX-DT behavior. They do not see any reason why this single channel would give me trouble. (Of course, other channels may fail, but I've only had the TV two weeks, and so far, this is the only one that has shown this behavior). Comcast said they could come look, but I said that I can't recreate the problem at will. They said I could wait until it happened and call them. But this doesn't seem to persist, so I don't know if that makes any sense. It does seem to be particularly bad between about 7:30 pm and 9:30 pm, but there are certainly other times I've seen it (like a few minutes ago at 11:15 am).

I will certainly try to find out more about the reception problem soon. But my primary concern is with the Vizio itself. Does anyone agree with them that this ONE channel's failure should cause ALL digital channels to be gone, and that I must power the TV off and on to get them back? I am wondering if the QAM tuner is defective.

By the way, I tried to scan for channels when this channel failed, and it took 25 minutes and found NO digital channels. I powered off and on, scanned again, it took only 5 minutes and found all of the channels.

Thanks. I'm new to the forum and would appreciate any help.

I bought a new Vizio two weeks ago and am having a problem. I have Comcast service and live in San Jose.

Using the QAM tuner (I have the coax from the wall directly into my TV's coax port), I get 75 analog and over 120 digital channels. I am having trouble with ONE of the digital HD channels, KPIX-DT, 5-1. The channel "freezes" now and then, and then if I switch to other digital channels (i.e. any with a dash), all of them show "no signal". All analog channels are still fine. If I power the tv off and on and I already am tuned to something other than 5-1, all channels are fine. If I tune to 5-1, sometimes the freeze happens again right away, most of the time, it does not.

I called Vizio (I sent email but they did not answer), and they said it is correct that when ONE digital channel loses reception, ALL of them are gone. I cannot see anyone saying that on this forum. Is that what others see? I have seen people discussing problems on a specific channel, but they don't talk about other channels being bad, or having to power off/on to get them all back.

Also, I called Comcast and described the channel 5-1 KPIX-DT behavior. They do not see any reason why this single channel would give me trouble. (Of course, other channels may fail, but I've only had the TV two weeks, and so far, this is the only one that has shown this behavior). Comcast said they could come look, but I said that I can't recreate the problem at will. They said I could wait until it happened and call them. But this doesn't seem to persist, so I don't know if that makes any sense. It does seem to be particularly bad between about 7:30 pm and 9:30 pm, but there are certainly other times I've seen it (like a few minutes ago at 11:15 am).

I will certainly try to find out more about the reception problem soon. But my primary concern is with the Vizio itself. Does anyone agree with them that this ONE channel's failure should cause ALL digital channels to be gone, and that I must power the TV off and on to get them back? I am wondering if the QAM tuner is defective.

By the way, I tried to scan for channels when this channel failed, and it took 25 minutes and found NO digital channels. I powered off and on, scanned again, it took only 5 minutes and found all of the channels.

Thanks. I'm new to the forum and would appreciate any help.

You probably should post this in the appropriate Vizio thread, in the Display/LCD forum. It sounds like it is a Vizio tuner issue to me.

You probably should post this in the appropriate Vizio thread, in the Display/LCD forum. It sounds like it is a Vizio tuner issue to me.
Clau is right about it probably being a Vizio tuner problem. I have a Vizio tv also and I don't have that problem, except that the CBS station does freeze once in a while and the sound will glitch for a while but that is a station problem ,which they are aware of but don't seem to be able to correct :rolleyes:. This problem happens both OTA and on cable so it's not a problem with Comcast. But the loss of all digital stations when one of them goes out is not normal and since it seems to get corrected once you turn it off then back on would indicate to me that it's a tuner problem. If you are in the warranty period of your set, I'd return it and get one that works properly, save yourself the gray hairs.

Laters,
Mikef5

I'm not familiar with the Vizio, but from the two owners' descriptions it sounds to me as though the TV's firmware is buggy and crashing upon seeing something unexpected in the KPIX data stream. In one case, just freezing momentarily and in the other totally crapping out the tuner. Did you ask Vizio if they have any updated firmare for your TV model(s)?

I don't see such freezes in CBS OTA or cable using my various tuners.

I'm not familiar with the Vizio, but from the two owners' descriptions it sounds to me as though the TV's firmware is buggy and crashing upon seeing something unexpected in the KPIX data stream. In one case, just freezing momentarily and in the other totally crapping out the tuner. Did you ask Vizio if they have any updated firmare for your TV model(s)?

I don't see such freezes in CBS OTA or cable using my various tuners.
TPeterson,

I see the glitches on CBS-HD daily both on my Sony, Vizio, and Panasonic, using their tuners, using the Comcast box and using the TivoHD. I've talked with the engineers of the local CBS and they are aware of this problem and said they have a problem with their encoder and were going to replace it but that was a while ago and may have dropped it from their priority list. If people don't complain about it I'm sure they would rather not have to make that kind of purchase and hope that people will just over look it or think that's normal.

Laters,
Mikef5

Thanks for your input, everyone. I just called Vizio again, and unlike the two fellows on Saturday, this one did NOT think that all digital channels should go away when only one was gone (or frozen). The two previous Vizio guys' response was to remove the channel from my channel list! I told them that wasn't acceptable to me. They also said to wait until this occurred on at least two more channels, and then call them again. Once I got a little more ammunition from your responses, I just called them again anyway.

This guy said that this model VS42L is so new that there is no firmware upgrade for it at this point. He said a level 2 or 3 technician will be calling me in 1-2 days to set up an appointment to look at the tuners.

I realize that CBS itself, or Comcast, must be the cause of the original problem, i.e. the KPIX channel freezing, but that is not my main concern. I can work on that by having Comcast come check things here (or accept it that KPIX is slow in fixing their problems). But I really want to know if my TV is somehow flawed, and if so, I want it fixed (or a new one)! The freezing or reception issue may occur on some other channel(s) in the future, and I don't want to go through this again.

I'll put an update here once Vizio checks out my TV. Thanks!

Here's something for the people that just won't give up their addiction to analog tv, got this from Lightreading site
http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=146733&site=cdn

This is the part that analog people will like....



We'll see if this comes to be or not but IMHO this is only prolonging the inevitable and wastes bandwidth and if you read the article through it could give Comcast a reason to use SDV ......:rolleyes:

Laters,
Mikef5

You left out the good part about the "dongle", if they can get approval, then Comcast can go all-digital and those folks who want/need analog can use the DTA.

It’s believed that Comcast is looking to order about 25 million DTAs to help power an all-digital strategy cost-effectively for existing analog customers and to support existing digital customers who still have some TVs not connected to set-tops that receive analog programming. The volumes Comcast is considering are similar to what Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ - message board) is seeking in a set-top RFP the telco issued last summer. (See Verizon Set-Top RFP Could Be Worth Billions .)

TPeterson,

I see the glitches on CBS-HD daily both on my Sony, Vizio, and Panasonic, using their tuners, using the Comcast box and using the TivoHD. I've talked with the engineers of the local CBS and they are aware of this problem and said they have a problem with their encoder and were going to replace it but that was a while ago and may have dropped it from their priority list. If people don't complain about it I'm sure they would rather not have to make that kind of purchase and hope that people will just over look it or think that's normal.Mike, exactly when do you see these glitches and how long are they? I don't watch live TV generally and almost never watch non-network stuff on KPIX, so maybe I'm not tuned in when these problems occur. If they happen predictably, I'd like to check them out on my equipment.

--Terry

You left out the good part about the "dongle", if they can get approval, then Comcast can go all-digital and those folks who want/need analog can use the DTA.

Jim,

Actually, I didn't want to confuse people with the "dongle" word since there's two "dongles" that pertain to cable. The dongle for Tivo ( tuner resolver ) and being able to use it with SDV and the dongle that will allow people with analog sets get the digital channels. To many dongles being dangled around :p;)

Laters,
Mikef5

Mike, exactly when do you see these glitches and how long are they? I don't watch live TV generally and almost never watch non-network stuff on KPIX, so maybe I'm not tuned in when these problems occur. If they happen predictably, I'd like to check them out on my equipment.

--Terry

Terry,

CBS is my station of choice, I watch it most of the time especially when the CSI's are on ( NCIS is my favorite ). They have IMHO the best HD programming of the local stations. The actual glitching only happens once in a while and is not at any regular time frame but I have noticed in the past that it was most notable during their news casts, especially the noon news. Lately though it happens maybe once or twice a day but at random times. It normally only lasts a split second, like someone taking a still frame photo of the program, it is quite noticeable especially since the sound will go very high for about a second or two and then level out. That being said, tonight I have not seen it do it at all but the night is still young ;)

Laters,
Mikef5

I'm near Remington and Hollenbeck and still not upgraded. Got "the letter" back in October and I believe it said my area would be upgraded within the next 2-3 months. It's now been 4 months and counting. I have not seen any Comcast trucks in my neighborhood at all (hopefully they're there when I'm at work). I have not had any cable outages, as some have reported experiencing just before being upgraded. I guess I'll be upgraded when I'm upgraded. Simple as that. Frustrated, but nothing I can do other than jumping over to sat, which I'm reluctant to do.

I'm just down the street from you and no upgrade in this part of 94087 as of yet.

I'm just down the street from you and no upgrade in this part of 94087 as of yet.

I'm near Mary and Fremont and received the official letter just last week telling me that my service would be upgraded between March 20 and April 20. Two thoughts:


I'll believe it when I see it
I can't wait to see it!

Sometime between 10pm last night (Wed., 02.07.08) and this morning at 4am I was upgraded! (in the area southeast of Fremont/Mary off The Dalles)
Jim in 94087

I'm near Mary and Fremont and received the official letter just last week telling me that my service would be upgraded between March 20 and April 20.

Is it just me or does it seem like they're upgrading Sunnyvale from the outside and working their way in? From what I've read here, people NE, E, SE, S and SW of the 94087 area that I'm in have been upgraded. I think someone may have even reported being upgraded W of me, near El Camino & 85. Has anyone in the Bernardo/Washington area (NW of me) been upgraded yet?

My cousin used to work for Comcast and has buddies that still work there, and they work in Sunnyvale. According to his buddies, they're currently working on the upgrades in my area, but I still have not seen any trucks. It's feeling more and more like I'll be one of the last nodes in Sunnyvale to be upgraded. :(

Is it just me or does it seem like they're upgrading Sunnyvale from the outside and working their way in? From what I've read here, people NE, E, SE, S and SW of the 94087 area that I'm in have been upgraded. I think someone may have even reported being upgraded W of me, near El Camino & 85. Has anyone in the Bernardo/Washington area (NW of me) been upgraded yet?

My cousin used to work for Comcast and has buddies that still work there, and they work in Sunnyvale. According to his buddies, they're currently working on the upgrades in my area, but I still have not seen any trucks. It's feeling more and more like I'll be one of the last nodes in Sunnyvale to be upgraded. :(

Mannaxman,

Don't feel like the Lone Ranger. My brother use to work for the cable company ( TCI, AT&T and a short time with Comcast ) and I know a couple of people at Comcast ;) and that didn't get me upgraded any sooner when my area got upgraded either but I didn't think that it would anyway. They have to do the upgrades when and where they can and they don't do one area over another just because they know someone in that area but your area is being worked on and will be done soon, it's just taking a little longer than everyone would like. Trust me it will be worth it in the long run, it just sucks waiting for it to happen but it will happen.

Laters,
Mikef5

I see the KPIX freeze and sound problems on the SD programs like Peoples Court and
Judge Judy. I watch ch. 705. I have not seen the problem on any HD programs.

I have a Comcast HD DVR model Motorola DCT3412 I. I've had this unit for a year or two. Is there an upgraded model available from Comcast with more storage or better features?

Mannaxman,

Don't feel like the Lone Ranger. My brother use to work for the cable company ( TCI, AT&T and a short time with Comcast ) and I know a couple of people at Comcast ;) and that didn't get me upgraded any sooner when my area got upgraded either but I didn't think that it would anyway. They have to do the upgrades when and where they can and they don't do one area over another just because they know someone in that area but your area is being worked on and will be done soon, it's just taking a little longer than everyone would like. Trust me it will be worth it in the long run, it just sucks waiting for it to happen but it will happen.

Laters,
Mikef5

Mike,

I know that knowing someone who works for Comcast isn't going to make my area get upgraded any sooner. But, I'm sure everyone else on this forum who isn't upgraded yet would agree, it's extremely frustrating (1) to have Comcast give you a time frame of when your area will be upgraded and not even come close to getting it done in that timeframe and (B) to know that areas all around you are already upgraded.

Now that I'm done ranting, thanks for all the great information you continuously provide here on the forum. :)

Mike,

I know that knowing someone who works for Comcast isn't going to make my area get upgraded any sooner. But, I'm sure everyone else on this forum who isn't upgraded yet would agree, it's extremely frustrating (1) to have Comcast give you a time frame of when your area will be upgraded and not even come close to getting it done in that timeframe and (B) to know that areas all around you are already upgraded.

Now that I'm done ranting, thanks for all the great information you continuously provide here on the forum. :)

I'm in the same boat as you: 94087 and not yet upgraded. Does anyone have luck complaining to Comcast and getting upgraded or a discount? For all the inferior services we have been getting (no Blast, very few HD channels), and yet charged the same price as everyone else, we deserve some break. I wouldn't mind getting free HBO for a year :).

Mike,

I know that knowing someone who works for Comcast isn't going to make my area get upgraded any sooner. But, I'm sure everyone else on this forum who isn't upgraded yet would agree, it's extremely frustrating (1) to have Comcast give you a time frame of when your area will be upgraded and not even come close to getting it done in that timeframe and (B) to know that areas all around you are already upgraded.

Now that I'm done ranting, thanks for all the great information you continuously provide here on the forum. :)

I totally agree with you. I've been doing this ( trying to get my area and other areas upgraded and working with Comcast ) for over 4 years so I know how frustrating it can be. But.....

One of the bad things about giving a time frame is if you don't meet that time frame then people dump all over you for not meeting that time frame but if you don't give some type of a time frame you are dumped on for being to vague or just giving pie-in-the-sky promises, so Comcast is dumped on one way or the other, it's a no win situation for them.

These time frames they give are the best time frame if everything goes well and trust me they don't always go well, they are not written in stone and shouldn't be taken that way. I've had many long talks with Mr. Johnson and I'm amazed that he still tries to give us the best estimates of when things will happen knowing that he will get dumped on if they don't meet that time frame but he still does it just to keep us in the loop and let us know that they have not forgotten about us and that they are working to get things done. I don't know that many corporations that have people in them that would take that time to do that for you.

That being said, please continue to express your concerns here. Comcast does read this forum and I bring up things to them when I can. That is what they need and want from their customers, otherwise they will think all is well in the Land of Oz when it's not. Besides, it gives me a mission in life, to be that thorn in their side :p;)

Laters,
Mikef5

I'm near Mary and Fremont and received the official letter just last week telling me that my service would be upgraded between March 20 and April 20. Two thoughts:


I'll believe it when I see it
I can't wait to see it!



Aside from the initial letter I received the first week of October saying "upgrades were on the way" I haven't received anything from Comcast, except a letter with the rate increase info.

I have a Comcast HD DVR model Motorola DCT3412 I. I've had this unit for a year or two. Is there an upgraded model available from Comcast with more storage or better features?

There is, but Comcast is not supporting it properly.......
The Moto upgrade is currently the DCT/DCH3416.

The DCH has an issue with the red recording light indicators being
knocked out by a previous upgrade. Comcast has yet to resolve this issue,
and our contacts here (Mr. J., etc.) have not responded to our requests
since September. :(

I see the KPIX freeze and sound problems on the SD programs like Peoples Court and
Judge Judy. I watch ch. 705. I have not seen the problem on any HD programs.

I have noticed that sometime during most Peoples Court episodes there is a momentary freeze, the screen changes and turns greenish for an instant, and when it clears, the sound is always louder for a few seconds before everything returns to normal. This happens only once per episode. I have also seen this OTA, so it is either KPIX or the source feed they are getting. I also have not seen this on other programs, SD or HD (I don't watch Judge Judy). It's a very peculiar and specific breakup that happens the same way each time.

There is, but Comcast is not supporting it properly.......
The Moto upgrade is currently the DCT/DCH3416.

The DCH has an issue with the red recording light indicators being
knocked out by a previous upgrade. Comcast has yet to resolve this issue,
and our contacts here (Mr. J., etc.) have not responded to our requests
since September. :(

I've never had an issue of something that was scheduled to be recorded not being recorded. So that's just a little annoyance for me (the recording light indicator not working).

There is, but Comcast is not supporting it properly.......
The Moto upgrade is currently the DCT/DCH3416.

The DCH has an issue with the red recording light indicators being
knocked out by a previous upgrade. Comcast has yet to resolve this issue,
and our contacts here (Mr. J., etc.) have not responded to our requests
since September. :(

Thanks, I appreciate the response. The additional capacity would be more useful than the lights for me ... if it comes down to it.

Is it just me or does it seem like they're upgrading Sunnyvale from the outside and working their way in? From what I've read here, people NE, E, SE, S and SW of the 94087 area that I'm in have been upgraded. I think someone may have even reported being upgraded W of me, near El Camino & 85. Has anyone in the Bernardo/Washington area (NW of me) been upgraded yet?
(

I'm near Bernardo/El Camino (94086) and haven't been upgraded. I don't think anyone in that general area has been upgraded or will be soon enough. I've been noticing the same pattern as you and come to the conclusion that having highway 85 and 237 nearby has something to do with it. There was some talk a while ago about having to replace a battery in a common access way which I assume must be one of these highways. Knowing how ploddingly govt agencies work, who knows how long it is going to get the permission for doing that. So it looks like those of us in this area are in the boondocks as far as getting the upgrade quickly is concerned.

Yeah I am frustrated. As far as I am concerned they shouldn't have sent me a letter promising Feb 18 and then not deliver. It would have been better to be blissfully anaware and suffer Comcast's overpriced meager fare.

Thanks, I appreciate the response. The additional capacity would be more useful than the lights for me ... if it comes down to it.

currently, i'm shopping for something to replace my comcast DVR (6412) because of the reason you just stated: more HDD space. Turns out Comcast is rolling out Tivo units to some areas. Not sure when it will be in the bay area. Just found out 5 min ago so I don't know much else... tivocommunity is where i read this.

Also, I just got off the phone with comcast and they told me that if I go buy a third party HD-DVR (which are much easier to pop in a 1TB drive).. to just come on down to a comcast center to get cable cards and exchange my 6412 for some other box ...in order to continue getting on-demand.

that's the direction i'm about to go. hope that helps..


edit: i am going to also be checking directtv and dish promotions too. not sure what offers are available

edit2: wow, how does over 300 hours in HD recoding space sound.. done with 2.5TB raid0 and tivo (http://www.mfslive.org/tivo_hd.htm) :o

Thanks, I appreciate the response. The additional capacity would be more useful than the lights for me ... if it comes down to it.

Yes, it has 160GB versus your current 120GB.

I've never had an issue of something that was scheduled to be recorded not being recorded. So that's just a little annoyance for me (the recording light indicator not working).

I understand. It's a personal preference. I've wiped out recordings and turned the DVR off while it was recording because of no indicator lights, so it's much more of an issue for me, and several others on various forums about this.
I also believe that the bottom line is that any DVR supplied to us by Comcast should operate as it was intended to by the manufacturer, with the full set of features.

There is the DCT-3416 - 160GB, same as the DCT-3412, but a 160GB HDD. Only a few offices got these I think. Then the new DCH-3416, also 160GB, newer hardware/firmware.

I don't know how you could "wipe out" recordings by turning the box off. It won't turn off during a recording (at least the older DCT-3412 I have doesn't, it throws up a warning message).

You can buy your own DVR (Tivo, whatever) but then you have to hassle with getting TWO cable cards installed (and I hear 1 is bad enough) and you won't get On Demand. I guess they suggested turning in the 3412 for a DCT-6200, which is basically the same box, only without a hard drive (well, and it has an analog tuner and DVI output instead of HDMI) but they charge.. what is it now... $8/mo for those?

You can buy your own DVR (Tivo, whatever) but then you have to hassle with getting TWO cable cards installed (and I hear 1 is bad enough) and you won't get On Demand. The HDTiVo (as opposed to the Series3 TiVo) only requires 1 M-card, which can serve both tuners.

I'm in the same boat as you: 94087 and not yet upgraded. Does anyone have luck complaining to Comcast and getting upgraded or a discount? For all the inferior services we have been getting (no Blast, very few HD channels), and yet charged the same price as everyone else, we deserve some break. I wouldn't mind getting free HBO for a year :).

When I moved from Mountain View to Sunnyvale, I used this very tactic and complained about the downgrade in service and how it was not acceptable to pay the same rate I did before and receive far fewer HD channels, and so I would either be downgrading to limited basic (since that's essentially all the HD channels we get here) or make the move to satellite. As a result, I have been getting HBO "free" for the last year and a half (I called in when my first "free" year ended since I had not been upgraded yet and got the offer extended for another year and this time Starz was thrown in, not that there's anything worth watching on those channels since we don't get Starz HD here).

I received the letter back in October saying my neighborhood should be upgraded in 2-3 months. Four and a half months later, we have not been upgraded. After the three months was up, I called Comcast, and was told to just hang on a few more weeks until the middle of Feburary and we should be upgraded. It's now the end of February. A few weeks ago, I received another letter stating my neighborhood should be upgraded some time between Feb 18 - Mar 23. I have seen a few CableCom trucks digging in my area (near Mary and California) since December, so maybe there is hope, but I'm not holding my breath.

You can buy your own DVR (Tivo, whatever) but then you have to hassle with getting TWO cable cards installed (and I hear 1 is bad enough) and you won't get On Demand.

I have never had *ANY* CableCard issue for over a year with my two S3s. Each one has 1TB, and I have so many recordings I don't have time to watch. That's all the "on demand" I need.

I haven't had any CC trouble either in my S3, it's been close to 17 mos now.

Neither have I (9 months now). I'm guessing Walk was referring to the installation of the cards which definitely had its issues back in the day. However I haven't heard anyone complain about CC installation in a while. Could it have to do with the fact that the DCH's now require CableCARDs???? Hmmmmmm :D

Neither have I (9 months now). I'm guessing Walk was referring to the installation of the cards which definitely had its issues back in the day. However I haven't heard anyone complain about CC installation in a while. Could it have to do with the fact that the DCH's now require CableCARDs???? Hmmmmmm :D

I think there was some incorrectly provisioned cards that were causing problems, I remember some members discussing it here, but I've had mine since less than 2 weeks after the S3 was released, I think it was Sept 15, 2006, and haven't had a problem.

You left out the good part about the "dongle", if they can get approval, then Comcast can go all-digital and those folks who want/need analog can use the DTA.
It's amazing what they can pack into a "dongle" these days. I've always thought of them as a relatively simple converter.

This DTA they are talking about is very advanced parallel signal processing. It needs to tune *and* mpg decode 30-70 mpg streams in parallel and also simultaneously output analog. Try to have your PC decode a few mpg streams (even SD 704x480i) and watch it start to choke from various bottlenecks.

Anyway, if they do come out with this DTA there's a good chance they will use this product, since Comcast invested in the company (along with Cisco, Brighthouse, etc.)
http://www.broadlogic.com/products/terapix.php

In response to Mikef5, I don't see why this DTA would hasten SDV. Getting rid of analog gives them more bandwidth to play with so that would more likely delay or make unnecessary the use of SDV than it would hasten SDV.

The whole of ADS takes up under 54MHz right now, whereas getting rid of analog (something DTA allows them to do), would open up around 414MHz.

Even if you take an agressive view that only 1/4 of ADS channels are being used at any time, SDV on the ADS channels would only save you around 40MHz. The big savings for SDV would be on the HD channels, not the ADS channels, and the HD channels (other than locals) already require a box that can already be software upgraded to support SDV, so if they wanted to do SDV stuff is in place already even without DTA.

I haven't had any CC trouble either in my S3, it's been close to 17 mos now.
Same here, installed correctly the first time, 13 months, no problems.

All my problems were billing problems which took months to resolve.

You probably should post this in the appropriate Vizio thread, in the Display/LCD forum. It sounds like it is a Vizio tuner issue to me.
Just a few quick questions and hopefully some helpful pointers

1. Do you have alot of cable splitters between the source cable outside and your TV?
If so then you may need a broadband amplifier. You can pick one up at Home Depot, Lowes's, Radio Shack or Online. I added my amplifier at my cable wall input inside the house (2 splitters outside between me and the source). Before the amplifier I was seeing artifacts and loss of signal. Get one with multiple outputs. I have a single line in and 5 amplified outputs. This sort of amplifier will help both analog cable channels and digital channels (QAM).

2. If 1 above does not help then you may have a TV tuner problem or a display processor problem. One way to isolate this issue is to get a Digital Convertor Box from Comcast and then drive your TV through the HDMI port and then through the SVHS port observing the picture in both cases for the same channel.

If you can recieve digital channels with no problem though SVHS using the convertor box with no problem then you can assume the digital signal is properly decoded, decompressed and displayed on your TV. If not then you likely have a transmission problem from the cable source having shown two different QAM tuners to fail (Converter Box and VIZIO)

If you can recieve digtial channels with no problem through the HDMI port using the convertor box then you can point a big finger at the VIZIO Tuner and not the display processor.

I had a new VIZIO and JVC Side by Side in my house and compared both when receiving a non-amplified cable signal. Both displays showed loss of signal and significant artifacts on several channels. After inserting an amplifier I found both units to operate 99% Artifact free on all digital channels.


No all artifacts (blockiness on displays) come from lossy transmission. In general if the artifacts are gross in effect and happen alot then you most likely have a very lossy channel to your receiver. If you get a rare artifact during motion then this could be due to a noise event in the cable or could be related to the Encoding Algorithm used for the source Video.

Same here, installed correctly the first time, 13 months, no problems.

All my problems were billing problems which took months to resolve.

lol...same here, I had a $5.00 late charge for a $19.95 service call charge where they never fixed anything, I disputed the original $19.95, said they would fix it, but it kept showing up on my bill, hence the $5 late charge. After a couple of calls and a trip to the office and it still wasn't fixed, I just paid it. Screwing around with these people over $25 is not worth my time.


On another subject, the following concerns me, specifically, how well it will be implemented. Comcast is moving to 3 HD into 1 QAM technology, at least in some areas.

http://www.cedmagazine.com/Article-High-definition-TV-Bandwidth-Race.aspx



And finally, this is just too funny, or too sad(my vote goes with sad), depending on your point of view,

"Comcast acknowledges that it hired people to take up room at an F.C.C. hearing into its practices."
http://www.portfolio.com/news-markets/top-5/2008/02/26/Comcast-FCC-Hearing-Strategy

Apparently this sort of thing is SOP, doesn't seem like it should be allowed though, especially with an FCC public(We The People...) hearing on a university campus. Capitalism at it's finest. :D

Just a few quick questions and hopefully some helpful pointers

1. Do you have alot of cable splitters between the source cable outside and your TV?
If so then you may need a broadband amplifier. You can pick one up at Home Depot, Lowes's, Radio Shack or Online. I added my amplifier at my cable wall input inside the house (2 splitters outside between me and the source). Before the amplifier I was seeing artifacts and loss of signal. Get one with multiple outputs. I have a single line in and 5 amplified outputs. This sort of amplifier will help both analog cable channels and digital channels (QAM).

2. If 1 above does not help then you may have a TV tuner problem or a display processor problem. One way to isolate this issue is to get a Digital Convertor Box from Comcast and then drive your TV through the HDMI port and then through the SVHS port observing the picture in both cases for the same channel.

If you can recieve digital channels with no problem though SVHS using the convertor box with no problem then you can assume the digital signal is properly decoded, decompressed and displayed on your TV. If not then you likely have a transmission problem from the cable source having shown two different QAM tuners to fail (Converter Box and VIZIO)

If you can recieve digtial channels with no problem through the HDMI port using the convertor box then you can point a big finger at the VIZIO Tuner and not the display processor.

I had a new VIZIO and JVC Side by Side in my house and compared both when receiving a non-amplified cable signal. Both displays showed loss of signal and significant artifacts on several channels. After inserting an amplifier I found both units to operate 99% Artifact free on all digital channels.


No all artifacts (blockiness on displays) come from lossy transmission. In general if the artifacts are gross in effect and happen alot then you most likely have a very lossy channel to your receiver. If you get a rare artifact during motion then this could be due to a noise event in the cable or could be related to the Encoding Algorithm used for the source Video.

Thanks for your info. I'll answer as much as I can, and ask something too. This problem is occurring right now, starting at 3:22 pm Pacific and lasting until now at 3:55. Whoops! Right now at 3:56, powering off and on, it is now "fixed". I was going to ask someone else if they were also seeing any issues with KPIX-DT 5-1 right now. So much for that!

1. Comcast already put an amplifier onto my cable in November, SVI SV-A15PRS. Also I have a splitter after that, but to be sure that was not the problem, I connected the cable (with the amplifier) directly to the TV a few days ago, and the problem occurred many times.

This amplifier seems to have only 1 output. Even it did have more than one, how would the multiple outputs be used? Do you mean instead of having a splitter after the amplifier, I would just use the amplifier alone?

2. Sorry, which is the SVHS port? Comcast was supposed to come yesterday, but they did not show up (at least I get $20 from them). When I schedule again, I'll make sure they bring the box that will help diagnose this problem, as you have suggested.

Would the methods you describe help diagnose, even if the problem is not occurring at that instant? I'm worried that they will get here and not see it fail, and they'll give up. And I don't have any idea how to make it fail.

My problem doesn't seem to start with any artifacts or pixelation or such things. The display just freezes, that's it, and only analog channels are okay (others get "no signal"). After I power off and on, the same thing may reoccur for many hours or just a few minutes. Other digital channels (and analog) are always good when I power back on, unless I start with it tuned to 5-1. If that channel is "bad", then all digital ones are gone again, etc.

Does any of what I have described seem to narrow it down to the tuner or the display processor? It seemed like a tuner problem to me, because if I don't power off and on, no digital channels are found during the channel scan. If I do power off and on before running the scan, it finds over 120 digital ones.

Vizio promised to call me between 24-48 hours, and that's ending within one hour. I'm not too happy with them so far.

Thanks for your help, and I'll keep you posted on what I learn.

I have exactly the same problem you described. Maybe we can figure this out together, hopefully.

I just got a Magnavox LCD HDTV (26MF377B) 2 weeks ago and I'm using San Francisco Comcast analog cable via the TV's built in QAM tuner. Watching channel 5-1 a short while will sometimes cause the picture to freeze. I can change the channel and the main channels will be fine but all subchannels, whether they are HD or not, will then be blank with "channel not available" displayed. The only way I found to return the subchannels is to turn the TV off and on again. Only the CBS HD channel has this problem. Anyone have a guess to what might be wrong or how to resolve this?

TIA,
Ben




I bought a new Vizio two weeks ago and am having a problem. I have Comcast service and live in San Jose.

Using the QAM tuner (I have the coax from the wall directly into my TV's coax port), I get 75 analog and over 120 digital channels. I am having trouble with ONE of the digital HD channels, KPIX-DT, 5-1. The channel "freezes" now and then, and then if I switch to other digital channels (i.e. any with a dash), all of them show "no signal". All analog channels are still fine. If I power the tv off and on and I already am tuned to something other than 5-1, all channels are fine. If I tune to 5-1, sometimes the freeze happens again right away, most of the time, it does not.

I called Vizio (I sent email but they did not answer), and they said it is correct that when ONE digital channel loses reception, ALL of them are gone. I cannot see anyone saying that on this forum. Is that what others see? I have seen people discussing problems on a specific channel, but they don't talk about other channels being bad, or having to power off/on to get them all back.

Also, I called Comcast and described the channel 5-1 KPIX-DT behavior. They do not see any reason why this single channel would give me trouble. (Of course, other channels may fail, but I've only had the TV two weeks, and so far, this is the only one that has shown this behavior). Comcast said they could come look, but I said that I can't recreate the problem at will. They said I could wait until it happened and call them. But this doesn't seem to persist, so I don't know if that makes any sense. It does seem to be particularly bad between about 7:30 pm and 9:30 pm, but there are certainly other times I've seen it (like a few minutes ago at 11:15 am).

I will certainly try to find out more about the reception problem soon. But my primary concern is with the Vizio itself. Does anyone agree with them that this ONE channel's failure should cause ALL digital channels to be gone, and that I must power the TV off and on to get them back? I am wondering if the QAM tuner is defective.

By the way, I tried to scan for channels when this channel failed, and it took 25 minutes and found NO digital channels. I powered off and on, scanned again, it took only 5 minutes and found all of the channels.

Thanks. I'm new to the forum and would appreciate any help.

I have exactly the same problem you described. Maybe we can figure this out together, hopefully.

I just got a Magnavox LCD HDTV (26MF377B) 2 weeks ago and I'm using San Francisco Comcast analog cable via the TV's built in QAM tuner. Watching channel 5-1 a short while will sometimes cause the picture to freeze. I can change the channel and the main channels will be fine but all subchannels, whether they are HD or not, will then be blank with "channel not available" displayed. The only way I found to return the subchannels is to turn the TV off and on again. Only the CBS HD channel has this problem. Anyone have a guess to what might be wrong or how to resolve this?

TIA,
Ben

Have you read message #5347 from OldTony and my response to him in #5349? OldTony's remarks are interesting and might help us. I was beginning to think this problem was unique to my Vizio, but it sounds like your problem is very similar.

When I moved from Mountain View to Sunnyvale, I used this very tactic and complained about the downgrade in service and how it was not acceptable to pay the same rate I did before and receive far fewer HD channels, and so I would either be downgrading to limited basic (since that's essentially all the HD channels we get here) or make the move to satellite. As a result, I have been getting HBO "free" for the last year and a half (I called in when my first "free" year ended since I had not been upgraded yet and got the offer extended for another year and this time Starz was thrown in, not that there's anything worth watching on those channels since we don't get Starz HD here).

I received the letter back in October saying my neighborhood should be upgraded in 2-3 months. Four and a half months later, we have not been upgraded. After the three months was up, I called Comcast, and was told to just hang on a few more weeks until the middle of Feburary and we should be upgraded. It's now the end of February. A few weeks ago, I received another letter stating my neighborhood should be upgraded some time between Feb 18 - Mar 23. I have seen a few CableCom trucks digging in my area (near Mary and California) since December, so maybe there is hope, but I'm not holding my breath.

I called in and complained. The first tier CS person was totally unsympathetic, so I asked to transfer to a customer service manager. That guy sounded a little more smooth, but won't state any ETA for upgrade in my area, and won't give me any freebies or breaks just because we have not been upgraded. So I basically wasted half an hour for nothing. He also said, alarmingly, that it may be 3rd quarter or the end of the year before we're upgraded, and that we should just wait patiently. That DirecTV pull is getting stronger and stronger...

I called in and complained. The first tier CS person was totally unsympathetic, so I asked to transfer to a customer service manager. That guy sounded a little more smooth, but won't state any ETA for upgrade in my area, and won't give me any freebies or breaks just because we have not been upgraded. So I basically wasted half an hour for nothing. He also said, alarmingly, that it may be 3rd quarter or the end of the year before we're upgraded, and that we should just wait patiently. That DirecTV pull is getting stronger and stronger...

Clau,

The CSR's have no clue when an area is or isn't going to be updated. They read from a prepared script or worse they pull things out of thin air. The problem with your area is with the city of Sunnyvale and getting permits to continue their upgrades and having to wait for AT&T to be ready to do their upgrades along side of them. If you look back a few posts I stated that but I'll check to see what the status is with the permits. Here's the part that I referred to....

In Sunnyvale we stand, as of this morning, at the 50% completed milestone. Several neighborhoods that received a "notice" are waiting for one of our competitors to put a new power supply unit in place, (our equipment is co-located in the right-of-way in this particular Sunnyvale neighborhood). Another Sunnyvale neighborhood that received the "notice" is waiting for a large underground bore to be completed so we can run our fiber in the new conduit. In this neighborhood we are waiting on a permit from the local water company.


Always take what a CSR says with a healthy dose of salt, the people here have a better handle on what's happening than any CSR does. ;)

Laters,
Mikef5

In response to Mikef5, I don't see why this DTA would hasten SDV. Getting rid of analog gives them more bandwidth to play with so that would more likely delay or make unnecessary the use of SDV than it would hasten SDV.

The whole of ADS takes up under 54MHz right now, whereas getting rid of analog (something DTA allows them to do), would open up around 414MHz.

Even if you take an agressive view that only 1/4 of ADS channels are being used at any time, SDV on the ADS channels would only save you around 40MHz. The big savings for SDV would be on the HD channels, not the ADS channels, and the HD channels (other than locals) already require a box that can already be software upgraded to support SDV, so if they wanted to do SDV stuff is in place already even without DTA.
SFHub,

I'm not concerned about the DTA being used, it's just like having a box except that it's a heck of a lot smaller. The DTA only allows you to view digital channels on an analog tv set, it doesn't free up anything. My point was they are thinking of keeping 30 ANALOG channels even after the digital transition date. That wastes bandwidth that could be used to add more HD or more digital channels. They need to get rid of all of the analog channels now and for those that still want to use an analog tv give them the DTA or a box. People with digital tv's can still plug in their cable to their digital tv sets and get the same programming that they are getting right now on the analog stations only it will be digital and not analog, that won't change.

Right now Comcast is not using SDV except in 3 test areas and I've heard nothing about it being deployed any time soon but with all the clamor for more HD and Comcast recently adding Blast to their internet package, eventually they will need more bandwidth and that's when SDV will be used ( or some compression scheme, like mpeg-4 ) so get rid of analog completely now because eventually it will have to go one way or the other.

Laters,
Mikef5

When I moved from Mountain View to Sunnyvale, I used this very tactic and complained about the downgrade in service and how it was not acceptable to pay the same rate I did before and receive far fewer HD channels, and so I would either be downgrading to limited basic (since that's essentially all the HD channels we get here) or make the move to satellite. As a result, I have been getting HBO "free" for the last year and a half (I called in when my first "free" year ended since I had not been upgraded yet and got the offer extended for another year and this time Starz was thrown in, not that there's anything worth watching on those channels since we don't get Starz HD here).

I received the letter back in October saying my neighborhood should be upgraded in 2-3 months. Four and a half months later, we have not been upgraded. After the three months was up, I called Comcast, and was told to just hang on a few more weeks until the middle of Feburary and we should be upgraded. It's now the end of February. A few weeks ago, I received another letter stating my neighborhood should be upgraded some time between Feb 18 - Mar 23. I have seen a few CableCom trucks digging in my area (near Mary and California) since December, so maybe there is hope, but I'm not holding my breath.

It is getting ridiculous. I did see a CableCom truck on my street this morning when I was on my way to work.

And finally, this is just too funny, or too sad(my vote goes with sad), depending on your point of view,

"Comcast acknowledges that it hired people to take up room at an F.C.C. hearing into its practices."
http://www.portfolio.com/news-markets/top-5/2008/02/26/Comcast-FCC-Hearing-Strategy

Apparently this sort of thing is SOP, doesn't seem like it should be allowed though, especially with an FCC public(We The People...) hearing on a university campus. Capitalism at it's finest. :D
Jim,

Well, it's sad and funny but what struck my funny bone was, when I was going to college people would pay me to sit in class and take notes for them while they were doing other things.... Happens all the time... hope they got their moneys worth... I did ;)

The other part of your post was very interesting and sort of demonstrates the reason to get rid of analog now and not wait. I've heard rumors about the mpeg-4 being used and that concerns me but the 3 HD channels in a single stream is not as bad as it seems if the streams are muxed properly. The bad thing is there will never be enough bandwidth on any system that will make everyone happy, it's a never ending story....;)

Laters,
Mikef5

SFHub,

I'm not concerned about the DTA being used, it's just like having a box except that it's a heck of a lot smaller. The DTA only allows you to view digital channels on an analog tv set, it doesn't free up anything. My point was they are thinking of keeping 30 ANALOG channels even after the digital transition date. That wastes bandwidth that could be used to add more HD or more digital channels. They need to get rid of all of the analog channels now and for those that still want to use an analog tv give them the DTA or a box. People with digital tv's can still plug in their cable to their digital tv sets and get the same programming that they are getting right now on the analog stations only it will be digital and not analog, that won't change.

Right now Comcast is not using SDV except in 3 test areas and I've heard nothing about it being deployed any time soon but with all the clamor for more HD and Comcast recently adding Blast to their internet package, eventually they will need more bandwidth and that's when SDV will be used ( or some compression scheme, like mpeg-4 ) so get rid of analog completely now because eventually it will have to go one way or the other.

Laters,
Mikef5

Mike, I'm going to try and hunt down some more info on the DTA, but as I understand it, and it seems to be implied in the article as well, is that the DTA will be used on all-digital systems - digital signal in, analog signal out - meaning that the full spectrum of bandwidth would be on the digital plane. Everyone in your neighborhood would be getting nothing but digital signals from the cable feed, those who want/need analog signals would use the DTA on that cable feed.

IOW, the full 860MHz+ could be used for digital services instead of wasting 180-420MHz on 30-70 analog channels.

The article even mentions Comcast wanting to be at least 20% all-digital across it's systems by the end of 2008.

Clau,

The CSR's have no clue when an area is or isn't going to be updated. They read from a prepared script or worse they pull things out of thin air. The problem with your area is with the city of Sunnyvale and getting permits to continue their upgrades and having to wait for AT&T to be ready to do their upgrades along side of them. If you look back a few posts I stated that but I'll check to see what the status is with the permits. Here's the part that I referred to....


Always take what a CSR says with a healthy dose of salt, the people here have a better handle on what's happening than any CSR does. ;)

Laters,
Mikef5

Thanks for the info. I notice quite a few AT&T trucks in the neighborhood. So that's a good sign? :)

Mike, I'm going to try and hunt down some more info on the DTA, but as I understand it, and it seems to be implied in the article as well, is that the DTA will be used on all-digital systems - digital signal in, analog signal out - meaning that the full spectrum of bandwidth would be on the digital plane. Everyone in your neighborhood would be getting nothing but digital signals from the cable feed, those who want/need analog signals would use the DTA on that cable feed.

IOW, the full 860MHz+ could be used for digital services instead of wasting 180-420MHz on 30-70 analog channels.

The article even mentions Comcast wanting to be at least 20% all-digital across it's systems by the end of 2008.

Jim,

What the article said ( at least the way I read it ) was that Comcast could go all digital, getting rid of all analog and use the DTA for those with an analog set or they could keep 30 analog channels and move the rest of the channels to the digital tier and not use the DTA. I agree with the first option, get rid of all analog and go all digital. Give DTA's to those that have analog sets and have done with it now. But it looks like Comcast wants to keep those 30 analog channels to help ease the transition to an all digital system.... NOOOOOOOOOO !!!! that's my point.

Laters,
Mikef5

Jim,

What the article said ( at least the way I read it ) was that Comcast could go all digital, getting rid of all analog and use the DTA for those with an analog set or they could keep 30 analog channels and move the rest of the channels to the digital tier and not use the DTA. I agree with the first option, get rid of all analog and go all digital. Give DTA's to those that have analog sets and have done with it now. But it looks like Comcast wants to keep those 30 analog channels to help ease the transition to an all digital system.... NOOOOOOOOOO !!!! that's my point.

Laters,
Mikef5

They do seem to say 2 different things in that article, all we can hope for is that the bay area will be in that 20% all-digital. Yeah, right, the bay area be on the bleeding edge with Comcast technology?? :rolleyes::D

They do seem to say 2 different things in that article, all we can hope for is that the bay area will be in that 20% all-digital. Yeah, right, the bay area be on the bleeding edge with Comcast technology?? :rolleyes::D

I hope we're 100 per cent digital, I mean why wait for the inevitable ??? Make use of the bandwidth now. This reminds me of the shift from black and white to color ( Yep, I'm old enough to remember that :eek: ) .
The thing is it was Brian Roberts himself that said he wanted to keep those 30 analog channels to help ease the way to all digital :rolleyes:

Laters,
Mikef5

I hope we're 100 per cent digital, I mean why wait for the inevitable ??? Make use of the bandwidth now. This reminds me of the shift from black and white to color ( Yep, I'm old enough to remember that :eek: ) .
The thing is it was Brian Roberts himself that said he wanted to keep those 30 analog channels to help ease the way to all digital :rolleyes:

Laters,
Mikef5

Well, they have to balance their existing customer base needs against what they want to do and how soon they want to be there. You mention the word "dongle" to grandma and gramps and grandma going to give gramps a funny look.

I think Comcast still has 35-45% of it's sub base on analog only, that's a lot of people to keep happy, and a big chunk of income for Comcast.

Maybe we could get all the members here to park their cars in the San Ramon Comcast bay area headquarters parking lot, taking up all the spaces until they do what we want. ;):D

...<snip>...
They need to get rid of all of the analog channels now and for those that still want to use an analog tv give them the DTA or a box. People with digital tv's can still plug in their cable to their digital tv sets and get the same programming that they are getting right now on the analog stations only it will be digital and not analog, that won't change.
...<snip>...

Laters,
Mikef5

What about those of us who are receiving the expanded basic tier of channels in analog right now directly (no STB's) into multiple sets in the house? When all digital will those be carried in clear QAM so I could continue to receive all the same channels directly with no STB's (on digital TV's, of course)? I would love it, but I don't know how Comcast can do that since they wouldn't have any way to restrict the channels for the basic cable people. :confused:

What about those of us who are receiving the expanded basic tier of channels in analog right now directly (no STB's) into multiple sets in the house? When all digital will those be carried in clear QAM so I could continue to receive all the same channels directly with no STB's (on digital TV's, of course)? I would love it, but I don't know how Comcast can do that since they wouldn't have any way to restrict the channels for the basic cable people. :confused:You've probably answered your own question. In the future, expanded basic will likely require a settop for every set.

Well, they have to balance their existing customer base needs against what they want to do and how soon they want to be there. You mention the word "dongle" to grandma and gramps and grandma going to give gramps a funny look.

I think Comcast still has 35-45% of it's sub base on analog only, that's a lot of people to keep happy, and a big chunk of income for Comcast.

Maybe we could get all the members here to park their cars in the San Ramon Comcast bay area headquarters parking lot, taking up all the spaces until they do what we want. ;):D

Jim,

I think you put the older generation in an unfair light, they're a lot smarter than most people give them credit for. The problem with the older generation isn't that they don't understand technology, they're just are set in their ways and resist change for as long as they can.

As far as the possibility of cable losing customers to the sat's if they lose the analog channels, it's not going to happen if they really think about it.

Where are they going to get the analog signal from if cable goes all digital ?? To Dish ?? Sorry, they are all digital... To Directv ?? Sorry, they are all digital too. My favorite company, AT&T U-verse ??? Guess what ... they're all digital too, as a matter of fact they use a form of SDV in their system, one of the reasons my sister left them and came back to cable. Plus the fact that with the SatCo's you have to have a box for every piece of equipment that you want to connect to ( more than one tv, dvr, vcr or any other such device ). With cable, even if they go all digital tomorrow, you can still get the basic channels by just plugging the cable into your digital tv, digital recorder, or your digital whatever. Yes you will have to get a digital piece of equipment but that's just a fact of progress and it's time to get off that analog addiction and come into the 21th Century. At least with cable you will still get the basic channels without having to have a box on every outlet/piece of equipment. Yes, you will have to have a box/cable card to get the premium stuff but you already have to do that now.

Harsh, I'm sure it is and I'm sure there are still people out there that say " My black and white tv is just fine for me, why should I change ??" and the answer to that is, You don't have to change but don't be surprised when you get left behind as technology advances forward. Good Grief, they're going to make available to you DTA's/boxes that will let you still use your analog equipment so there's no excuse not to go all digital.

The broadcast analog signal is going away next February, it's time to get ready for it and stop prolonging the inevitable.

End of Digital Transition commercial ...... ;)

Laters,
Mikef5

Clau,

The CSR's have no clue when an area is or isn't going to be updated. They read from a prepared script or worse they pull things out of thin air. The problem with your area is with the city of Sunnyvale and getting permits to continue their upgrades and having to wait for AT&T to be ready to do their upgrades along side of them. If you look back a few posts I stated that but I'll check to see what the status is with the permits. Here's the part that I referred to....



Always take what a CSR says with a healthy dose of salt, the people here have a better handle on what's happening than any CSR does. ;)

Laters,
Mikef5

Do you know of someone at Comcast that I can email my complaints to? That CS manager said that I have to write a letter and mail it the old-fashioned way into Comcast. I haven't written letters and mailed them via US mail for a long time :).

Do you know of someone at Comcast that I can email my complaints to? That CS manager said that I have to write a letter and mail it the old-fashioned way into Comcast. I haven't written letters and mailed them via US mail for a long time :).

http://www.comcast.com/Corporate/Customers/contactus/ContactUs.html

Clau,

The CSR's have no clue when an area is or isn't going to be updated.

Always take what a CSR says with a healthy dose of salt, the people here have a better handle on what's happening than any CSR does. ;)

Laters,
Mikef5

I couldn't agree more. I called back in late Sept. regarding a problem I was having with one of my STB's and, while waiting on the hit to my STB, I asked if he could give me an update on the upgrades for Sunnyvale. He told me all of Sunnyvale should be upgraded by the end of October. I didn't believe him when he said it, and rightfully so. But there was a tiny part of me that was hoping he knew what he was talking about. Maybe he meant the end of Oct. '08?!?!? :rolleyes:

Do you know of someone at Comcast that I can email my complaints to? That CS manager said that I have to write a letter and mail it the old-fashioned way into Comcast. I haven't written letters and mailed them via US mail for a long time :).

Clau,

You already have, Mr. J. reads this forum and that's why I'm still here, to address your concerns.

For my edification, the next time you talk to a "Cs Manager" and they give you that kind of answer, get his/her name. There is no reason that you have to write a letter to Comcast to address your concerns or needs ( unless you want a permanent record of it for your records ) . That is his job, to assist customers not to tell them to write a letter. Comcast doesn't need that kind of "Manager".

Laters,
Mikef5

I haven't written letters and mailed them via US mail for a long time :).

US mail is probably still the most effective way to resolve problems which cannot be handled by 1st/2nd level CSRs. I have written letters to CEOs of AT&T, Chase, etc. with positive results. I'm sure the CEOs don't actually read these letters, but they have teams of people with more authorities than the CSRs.

US mail is probably still the most effective way to resolve problems which cannot be handled by 1st/2nd level CSRs. I have written letters to CEOs of AT&T, Chase, etc. with positive results. I'm sure the CEOs don't actually read these letters, but they have teams of people with more authorities than the CSRs.

They actually have people that screen the mail and pass on the ones they think are important enough or would require a higher manager ( CEO etc. ) to answer. The CEO or higher managers really don't have the time to deal with all of the mail that they receive. That's why I'm amazed that Mr. J. does what he does for this area even though he doesn't have to. But that being said, that's why it's the Local Manager's job to address the concerns of their area and not pass the buck to someone else, unless the problem is beyond their control or expertise. My feeling is that the "CS Manager" that Clau talked to just didn't want to deal with it and was blowing him off... just my feeling since I didn't know both sides of the story.

Laters,
Mikef5

Clau,

The CSR's have no clue when an area is or isn't going to be updated. They read from a prepared script or worse they pull things out of thin air. The problem with your area is with the city of Sunnyvale and getting permits to continue their upgrades and having to wait for AT&T to be ready to do their upgrades along side of them. If you look back a few posts I stated that but I'll check to see what the status is with the permits. Here's the part that I referred to....



Always take what a CSR says with a healthy dose of salt, the people here have a better handle on what's happening than any CSR does. ;)

Laters,
Mikef5

That is interesting. I didn't realize that there was specific information about hold ups from the city of Sunnyvale. This concerns me as a resident and I think we have a right to complain to the city council. I just sent this mail to them to ask about this -

Hi,
As a resident of a city in one of the most high tech areas in the world, it saddens me to realize that we have such inferior Cable TV/Internet services which have yet to be fully upgraded after many promises. To add salt to the injury, we pay the same as others who enjoy much better services.

As you might know I'm talking about Comcast's promises of upgrades, which were supposed to be completed in Sunnyvale by the end of last year. Comcast has sent residents of the yet to be upgraded areas many notices with specific dates that they have missed consistently.

What is the City Council doing to track Comcast and its promise to upgrade? There has been talk on some message boards on the Internet that some of the hold up has been due to delays in receiving permits from the city. After years of delays when Comcast is finally doing the upgrades what is the hold up? Why can the City not do everything in its power to help and hold Comcast accountable? After all we have been paying the same as others and it is the duty of the City to look after residents rights in these regards.

The City council should realize that having a good communication infrastructure is vital to being part of a vibrant Silicon Valley; otherwise Sunnyvale will be left behind as one sleepy backward town in the midst of our other high tech neighbors.


My suggestion is that others should also question the city council. The more that people question, the more they will realize this is an issue and do something about it. After all they are politicians who have been elected by city residents and are supposed to look after our best interests. The email id for the city council is council@ci.sunnyvale.ca.us

I don't have them yet, but based on my experience with the current system, the limited basic channels (local channels) are clear, and the rest are encrypted. For anything outside the limited basic channels, you will need to subscribe to the appropriate Comcast tier and have a HD STB or a cable card based solution.

That is correct. If those extra channels were unencrypted anyone would be able to receive them with a QAM tuner. I think I'd run to buy a QAM tuner if I could save the extra monthly cost. :)

does this mean that I can watch these channels even if I don't subscribe to comcast? Just need a QAM tuner (hdhomerun or pc) and I can get these?

HIGH-DEFINITION TELEVISION (HDTV)
Limited Basic HD
702 KTVU (FOX) HD
703 KNTV (NBC) HD
704 KRON - HD
705 KPIX (CBS) HD
706 KICU HD
707 KGO - (ABC) HD
709 KOED - HD
712 KBCW - HD

does this mean that I can watch these channels even if I don't subscribe to comcast? Just need a QAM tuner (hdhomerun or pc) and I can get these?

HIGH-DEFINITION TELEVISION (HDTV)
Limited Basic HD
702 KTVU (FOX) HD
703 KNTV (NBC) HD
704 KRON - HD
705 KPIX (CBS) HD
706 KICU HD
707 KGO - (ABC) HD
709 KOED - HD
712 KBCW - HD

No it doesn't mean that you can receive these channels without a subscription to Comcast. You have to be hooked up to them first to have a QAM input. It is illegal to hook yourself up to them, so don't try that.

does this mean that I can watch these channels even if I don't subscribe to comcast? Just need a QAM tuner (hdhomerun or pc) and I can get these?

HIGH-DEFINITION TELEVISION (HDTV)
Limited Basic HD
702 KTVU (FOX) HD
703 KNTV (NBC) HD
704 KRON - HD
705 KPIX (CBS) HD
706 KICU HD
707 KGO - (ABC) HD
709 KOED - HD
712 KBCW - HD

No, that would be theft. You may have something coming through on an un-subscribed cable feed, but it would be a mistake on Comcast's part for not blocking the line.

I think he's just asking if he can get the HD channels if he only has Basic Cable and the answer would be yes. If Comcast is blocking the upper frequencies then that would be illegal or a mistake. The non-local channels are encrypted in that range anyway. Exception being the digital SD versions of the same channels available on Basic.

That is interesting. I didn't realize that there was specific information about hold ups from the city of Sunnyvale. This concerns me as a resident and I think we have a right to complain to the city council. I just sent this mail to them to ask about this -

Hi,
As a resident of a city in one of the most high tech areas in the world, it saddens me to realize that we have such inferior Cable TV/Internet services which have yet to be fully upgraded after many promises. To add salt to the injury, we pay the same as others who enjoy much better services.

As you might know I'm talking about Comcast's promises of upgrades, which were supposed to be completed in Sunnyvale by the end of last year. Comcast has sent residents of the yet to be upgraded areas many notices with specific dates that they have missed consistently.

What is the City Council doing to track Comcast and its promise to upgrade? There has been talk on some message boards on the Internet that some of the hold up has been due to delays in receiving permits from the city. After years of delays when Comcast is finally doing the upgrades what is the hold up? Why can the City not do everything in its power to help and hold Comcast accountable? After all we have been paying the same as others and it is the duty of the City to look after residents rights in these regards.

The City council should realize that having a good communication infrastructure is vital to being part of a vibrant Silicon Valley; otherwise Sunnyvale will be left behind as one sleepy backward town in the midst of our other high tech neighbors.


My suggestion is that others should also question the city council. The more that people question, the more they will realize this is an issue and do something about it. After all they are politicians who have been elected by city residents and are supposed to look after our best interests. The email id for the city council is council@ci.sunnyvale.ca.us
TridentTrinity,

That was a very good letter to your city council and I urge more people to get involved with their city government like this. Hopefully, this will get them on the ball ( both Comcast and the city ) to get things moving in the right direction. I can see that the recent rains may have delayed the digging of the new bore hole for the fiber runs but that should be not a problem now with the rains going away for a while. Hope more people follow your example. ;)

Laters,
Mikef5

Jim,

I think you put the older generation in an unfair light, they're a lot smarter than most people give them credit for. The problem with the older generation isn't that they don't understand technology, they're just are set in their ways and resist change for as long as they can.


I'm not disputing the need to go digital, full steam ahead.

You mention satco, and telco as requiring a digital piece of equipment as well. True, but you forgot OTA. The sort of folks who would be most inclined to only have/want those analog 30 channels would be the ones that might forsake subscription TV all together and just use one of the DTV tuners being handed out by the government(2 of them free I believe), with additional one's being about $40. So with a $40 expenditure they will have TV on 3 different displays with no monthly fees - an antenna would be a requirement as well of course.

Comcast doesn't want to lose those customers, in a market where revenue growth is coming from existing subs rather than gaining new subs - the sub TV market is very close to saturation now, meaning if one doesn't have sub-based TV now they are unlikely to get it in the future - losing those subs is not only a loss of a monthly rev stream of $30-40, but a larger loss in that if they leave there's no chance to build that rev stream higher with increased products/programming packages.

Plus, if they leave, it's unlikely they'll come back, at the very least they'll be able to weigh the pro and cons of all the providers offerings without that process being weighted by already being subscribed to one.

Gotta treat that "bird in the hand" very carefully...:D

P.S. I'm getting very close to that "older generation" myself, the AARP has been sending me stuff in the mail for over a year now. :eek::D

I think he's just asking if he can get the HD channels if he only has Basic Cable and the answer would be yes. If Comcast is blocking the upper frequencies then that would be illegal or a mistake. The non-local channels are encrypted in that range anyway. Exception being the digital SD versions of the same channels available on Basic.

Well, he did say "even if I don't subscribe to comcast?", but, maybe that's not really what he meant. :)

Has anyone heard anything from Comcast about further HD channel additions in the Bay Area? Our last updates were sometime back in the Fall. We still don't have Sci-Fi HD, CNN-HD, TLC-HD or Food-HD. While these are not "stunning" choices, getting them would be some indication of progress. Comcast really is lagging in the HD arena and , frankly, On Demand HD choices leave much to be desired. Some of the premium On Demand HDs can drop to as few as four or five movies for several weeks at times.

As of this morning 94086 at Washington and Waverly had the new channels. Finally. I haven't had a chance to check them all out and update my tivo lineup yet, but my TiVoHD successfully tuned in USAHD so I assume the rest of the upgrade is active as well.

Well, he did say "even if I don't subscribe to comcast?", but, maybe that's not really what he meant. :)

yeah, that is what I meant. I was just wondering if those local channels are free over cable lines since they are OTA. That's all. This stuff gets confusing to me. no criminal intent here, but thanks for the warning everyone lol

yeah, that is what I meant. I was just wondering if those local channels are free over cable lines since they are OTA. That's all. This stuff gets confusing to me. no criminal intent here, but thanks for the warning everyone lol

A Basic Cable subscription will run only about $13-$25 or so per month, depending on where you are located and it will get you the local HD channels. :)

I'm not disputing the need to go digital, full steam ahead.

You mention satco, and telco as requiring a digital piece of equipment as well. True, but you forgot OTA. The sort of folks who would be most inclined to only have/want those analog 30 channels would be the ones that might forsake subscription TV all together and just use one of the DTV tuners being handed out by the government(2 of them free I believe), with additional one's being about $40. So with a $40 expenditure they will have TV on 3 different displays with no monthly fees - an antenna would be a requirement as well of course.

Comcast doesn't want to lose those customers, in a market where revenue growth is coming from existing subs rather than gaining new subs - the sub TV market is very close to saturation now, meaning if one doesn't have sub-based TV now they are unlikely to get it in the future - losing those subs is not only a loss of a monthly rev stream of $30-40, but a larger loss in that if they leave there's no chance to build that rev stream higher with increased products/programming packages.

Plus, if they leave, it's unlikely they'll come back, at the very least they'll be able to weigh the pro and cons of all the providers offerings without that process being weighted by already being subscribed to one.

Gotta treat that "bird in the hand" very carefully...:D
Jim,

The OTA people will have no choice but to go digital, that's what the whole program is about... the over the air analog broadcasts are going away. They will have to use a digital to analog converter just like everyone else to use them on their old analog tv's or they will have to get a digital tv. These OTA people have no need for cable or the SatCo's, they are happy with what they get over the air so they don't even figure into what's happening on cable or the satco's, they're happy with what they have. They get the channels that they want and get it for free, to them going to cable or the satco's is not an option.. why pay for what you get for free, even if you have to get a converter or a new digital tv ???

The analog people that use cable don't do it because it's free, they do it because it's more convenient, no antenna, rotors, guywires etc. That's why there's a basic tier on cable, for people that just want the basic channels and nothing else. The problem is analog wastes bandwidth that can be used else where. So the basic premise is the same, Where are they going to get an analog signal for their analog equipment.... Nowhere, it's going away. The last of the providers, cable, will eventually have no choice but to get rid of all of the analog channels and go all digital. My suggestion to cable would be after the February transition date drop analog also and go all digital. This gives people a year to get a DTA, cable box, cablecard, or TivoHD and continue receiving their programming with which ever provider they choose be it cable or the satco's. They will all be digital and basically be on a level playing field. Why are the satco's not required to carry the analog channels but cable is required too ?? Fair competition ?? Not.... but that's another topic for another time ;)

Laters,
Mikef5

A Basic Cable subscription will run only about $13-$25 or so per month, depending on where you are located and it will get you the local HD channels. :)

that's good to know. I'm trying to figure out how to cut down on my tv bill & shopping for alternatives. all i want are HD channels, but i'm paying over $110 per month and never watch 90% of the channels. Plus, my wife and I don't watch TV every day so it seems kind of wasteful. i wish there were a cheaper plan at Comcast to ONLY get all the HD channels.

Dish just came out with a plan like that for $30... sounds good, but no locals. which is why asked that previous question actually. the only thing with Dish is that they don't have FSN and I "need" my Giants games :D The new dish DVR sounds awesome too.. the VIP722

Direct TV has tons of HD channels & looks to be the best in terms of HD offerings. But it's the same issue over there... paying full price for 10% of the content. I'll have to look more into the new HR20/21 DVR they released.

One thing is for sure. I can't stand these comcast DVRs... and that's another big reason I'm shopping around. I'm either paying for stuff I don't watch, or for inferior hardware

& thanks for the clarification gentlemen!

that's good to know. I'm trying to figure out how to cut down on my tv bill & shopping for alternatives. all i want are HD channels, but i'm paying over $110 per month and never watch 90% of the channels. Plus, my wife and I don't watch TV every day so it seems kind of wasteful. i wish there were a cheaper plan at Comcast to ONLY get all the HD channels.

Dish just came out with a plan like that for $30... sounds good, but no locals. which is why asked that previous question actually.

the only thing with Dish is that they don't have FSN and I "need" my Giants games :D

Well, for the last 5-6 years I've found that supplementing a Comcast Limited Basic sub with DirecTV and it's overwhelming amount of HD works pretty well. This may change when Comcast finally brings my area into the 21st century, but even then, I seriously doubt they'll come close to the HD channel count D* has, and they can't touch DirecTV when it comes to sports packages. Eventually maybe, but not for awhile.

I think you can add locals to the Dish package for about $5. I'm not sure where it leaves Dish with FSNBA-HD now that Comcast owns the network. They may already have a contract and just not the TP space to transmit, or they may not even have the contract, I haven't followed that in awhile.

DirecTV has FSNBA-HD, for games only currently.

Well, for the last 5-6 years I've found that supplementing a Comcast Limited Basic sub with DirecTV and it's overwhelming amount of HD works pretty well. This may change when Comcast finally brings my area into the 21st century, but even then, I seriously doubt they'll come close to the HD channel count D* has, and they can't touch DirecTV when it comes to sports packages. Eventually maybe, but not for awhile.

I think you can add locals to the Dish package for about $5. I'm not sure where it leaves Dish with FSNBA-HD now that Comcast owns the network. They may already have a contract and just not the TP space to transmit, or they may not even have the contract, I haven't followed that in awhile.

DirecTV has FSNBA-HD, for games only currently.
Jim,

Speaking of the Giants and baseball :p
Did you see the Giants are now on NBC and not KTVU anymore ?? :eek:
and no indication that they will show the games in HD or not..... but here's the strange thing, Kruk, Kuip and John Miller will still be the announcers ... I don't get that .....Fox announcers on NBC :confused:

Laters,
Mikef5

Direct TV has tons of HD channels & looks to be the best in terms of HD offerings. But it's the same issue over there... paying full price for 10% of the content. I'll have to look more into the new HR20/21 DVR they released.

One thing is for sure. I can't stand these comcast DVRs... and that's another big reason I'm shopping around. I'm either paying for stuff I don't watch, or for inferior hardware

& thanks for the clarification gentlemen!

Comcast is stuck with having to use mass-produced Moto DVRs that are base-built for many different providers. Comcast DVRs(Moto) are close to the bottom of the barrel(my brother in SF was saying to me how annoying it is when the Comcast box decides to execute remote commands when it feels like it rather than when you input them).

DirecTV's HR20/21 are worlds better, but have a few quirks, definitely not show-stopping though. You can add up to 2-TB of storage to the D* DVRs, maybe even more now(I have a 1-TB with mine).

Dish DVR will accept external storage as well. The Dish DVR is a very, very good DVR, in fact, I'd rate it as good as the TiVo HD-DVRs as far as reliability and user experience. The TiVo does a few thing more/better, but it's more cost.

The Comcast Moto DVRs will not accept any additional storage, the max is 160GBs, maybe 20 hrs of HD recording time?

Jim,

Speaking of the Giants and baseball :p
Did you see the Giants are now on NBC and not KTVU anymore ?? :eek:
and no indication that they will show the games in HD or not..... but here's the strange thing, Krupe, Kype and John Miller will still be the announcers ... I don't get that .....Fox announcers on NBC :confused:

Laters,
Mikef5
Yes, I've been following that at the Yahoo SF group and there's isn't any info on HD. How did KTVU do the HD games? They produce them themselves, or use an outside production company, whoever FSN uses maybe?

My guess would be the games will not be in HD. Does KNTV even have any locally produced HD programming? Not even sure when KNTV is going HD for their news.

You see those announcers all over the place, ESPN(John Miller), etc.

time out. giants games are going to be broadcast in SD on NBC this year?!

Yes, I've been following that at the Yahoo SF group and there's isn't any info on HD. How did KTVU do the HD games? They produce them themselves, or use an outside production company, whoever FSN uses maybe?

My guess would be the games will not be in HD. Does KNTV even have any locally produced HD programming? Not even sure when KNTV is going HD for their news.

You see those announcers all over the place, ESPN(John Miller), etc.

I knew about John Miller and ESPN ( I like his attitude and his knowledge of baseball, sort of asks stuff that the normal Joe would ask, kind of refreshing :) ).

No, KNTV does not do the local news in HD, the only one that doesn't, or any other locally produced HD programming. I've already contacted their programming department about this, I'm waiting for their response to why no HD local programming and about the Giants games.

KTVU, did local HD stuff themselves, I believe Comcast invested some money with them so they could do that and is probably why Comcast bought controlling interest in FSN. My feeling on why the Giants decided to go with KNTV is because it's a local South Bay produced station. I believe the Giants are trying to stake their claim on the South Bay to offset the A's move to Fremont and to try and keep those fans. I guess time will tell. ;)

I wonder if the A's will be picked up by KTVU now that the Giants are on NBC ??

Laters,
Mikef5

Jim,

The OTA people will have no choice but to go digital, that's what the whole program is about... the over the air analog broadcasts are going away.

Right, but what I'm saying is that if faced with the option of having Comcast install a box/dongle vs just getting a free converter(with no monthly sub cost attached) some folks may decide to tell cable to pack it in.

As I mentioned above, Comcast can ill afford to lose any subs, investor pressure on producing dividends instead of plowing profits into expansion is getting larger and one way to do that is the increase the revenue per existing sub instead of a zero sum game of losing and adding subs. Make the existing ones more profitable, that's what's behind all the HSI and telco packages, get more money from the same well.

Granted, the amount of existing subs who may chose to leave may be small, but the market is cutthroat now with economy down, new housing way down, meaning no new subs to add - they have to keep the ones they have already have, and if it means they will continue to provide analog channels while they nurse them into more expensive packages, then that's what I expect they do.

You can't sell anything to somebody if they've already left your store.

time out. giants games are going to be broadcast in SD on NBC this year?!

Only about 15 or so, the regular(hopefully more this year) compliment of HD games will still be on FSNBA-HD.

I knew about John Miller and ESPN ( I like his attitude and his knowledge of baseball, sort of asks stuff that the normal Joe would ask, kind of refreshing :) ).

No, KNTV does not do the local news in HD, the only one that doesn't, or any other locally produced HD programming. I've already contacted their programming department about this, I'm waiting for their response to why no HD local programming and about the Giants games.

KTVU, did local HD stuff themselves, I believe Comcast invested some money with them so they could do that and is probably why Comcast bought controlling interest in FSN. My feeling on why the Giants decided to go with KNTV is because it's a local South Bay produced station. I believe the Giants are trying to stake their claim on the South Bay to offset the A's move to Fremont and to try and keep those fans. I guess time will tell. ;)

I wonder if the A's will be picked up by KTVU now that the Giants are on NBC ??

Laters,
Mikef5

Who knows, frankly I'm surprised there's still MLB on "free TV" anymore, eventually you'll need some sort of subscription service to see any baseball, most sports for that matter. Even the NFL is flexing it's muscle with taking "free TV" games and putting them on their own cablenet.

This is one area where DirecTV is leading the pack, they have the space and contracts to cover darn near any sport worth watching, and I mean all the games in every city if it suits you.

As of this morning 94086 at Washington and Waverly had the new channels. Finally. I haven't had a chance to check them all out and update my tivo lineup yet, but my TiVoHD successfully tuned in USAHD so I assume the rest of the upgrade is active as well.

Thats good. Interesting that this is more confirmation that the upgrades seem to be closing in from all around to the broad area in which I live. Ah well I guess people in my area might very well be the last to see the upgrades.

Right, but what I'm saying is that if faced with the option of having Comcast install a box/dongle vs just getting a free converter(with no monthly sub cost attached) some folks may decide to tell cable to pack it in.

As I mentioned above, Comcast can ill afford to lose any subs, investor pressure on producing dividends instead of plowing profits into expansion is getting larger and one way to do that is the increase the revenue per existing sub instead of a zero sum game of losing and adding subs. Make the existing ones more profitable, that's what's behind all the HSI and telco packages, get more money from the same well.

Granted, the amount of existing subs who may chose to leave may be small, but the market is cutthroat now with economy down, new housing way down, meaning no new subs to add - they have to keep the ones they have already have, and if it means they will continue to provide analog channels while they nurse them into more expensive packages, then that's what I expect they do.

You can't sell anything to somebody if they've already left your store.

Keenan has it right. The digital transition does not mean anything has to change on cable. In fact, if Comcast required folks to get STB's by turning off analog, even on expanded basic channels, they'd bleed subs like mad, and they know it too. Even if they gave boxes away for free, many people do not want to deal with more than one remote control. If you force them to change, a good chunk would probably move to DBS.

So they can't really shut off analog on reclaim channels with losing a bunch of subs. If they don't shut off analog and reclaim the spectrum, they will lose a bunch of subs because they have no capacity for adding a lot of HD. So there you have it. Pick your poison.

There are companies working on boxes that would decode and remodulate analog on a multichannel basis, so the operator could go all digital on the plant, but given you clean analog on 40-50 channels in the house. But that takes truck rolls to deploy and isn't cheap.

One thing they could do to blunt the impact would be to ship everything in expanded basic's digital version in the clear, so a digital TV could decode it without a box. Now, that would be a popular offering, but I don't think they are thinking about that.

One thing they could do to blunt the impact would be to ship everything in expanded basic's digital version in the clear, so a digital TV could decode it without a box. Now, that would be a popular offering, but I don't think they are thinking about that.

That's one of the obstacles they face, first you tell Standard Cable subs they'll need a box to get those extra 40 channels, then they may consider dropping down to Limited Basic, but then you hit them with needing a box/dongle just to get any channels at all and it's open season on which provider they could choose to go with.

Having the "plug it into the wall and it works" capability is a feather in cable's cap and they are going to be very cautious about how they move away from that ability, and losing the sub is not an option(shouldn't be anyway).

I expect at the very least we'll still have the basic 30 analog channels on bay area systems for quite a few years yet, maybe 2010-2011? I hope not, but I'm not in the cable TV business.

Jim,

Speaking of the Giants and baseball :p
Did you see the Giants are now on NBC and not KTVU anymore ?? :eek:
and no indication that they will show the games in HD or not..... but here's the strange thing, Kruk, Kuip and John Miller will still be the announcers ... I don't get that .....Fox announcers on NBC :confused:

Laters,
Mikef5
Kruk and Kuip don't work for the local station they work for the Giants, that's why you also see them on FSN.

I didn't get a chance to turn my TV on this morning, but I'd love to come home after work to upgraded channels. :)

Hmm.. OK, according to OldTony if we can show 2 QAM tuners (VIZIO and Magnavox) to fail then we likely have a transmission problem from the cable source. If true, what can we do about it? :confused:


Have you read message #5347 from OldTony and my response to him in #5349? OldTony's remarks are interesting and might help us. I was beginning to think this problem was unique to my Vizio, but it sounds like your problem is very similar.

Jim,

Speaking of the Giants and baseball :p
Did you see the Giants are now on NBC and not KTVU anymore ?? :eek:
and no indication that they will show the games in HD or not..... but here's the strange thing, Kruk, Kuip and John Miller will still be the announcers ... I don't get that .....Fox announcers on NBC :confused:

Laters,
Mikef5
In the Yahoo SF bay HDTV group, Richard Swank, former chief engineer at KNTV, said that his contacts told him "most games will be in HD" although there was no detail on how many or which games in particular.

FSN schedule is up here (http://fsnbayarea.com/Schd_Giants.jsp)

In the Yahoo SF bay HDTV group, Richard Swank, former chief engineer at KNTV, said that his contacts told him "most games will be in HD" although there was no detail on how many or which games in particular.

I just got an email from KNTV programming department and they confirm that most of the Giants games are going to be in HD and that the local news will go HD later this year. I should've asked if they had a schedule for the Giants games.... Darn... :o
Nice to see Mr. Swank is still in the area, maybe he can get them off their butts and get some decent HD programming. I hope they don't get the Olympics again ;)

Laters,
Mikef5

EDIT
I just re-read the email and it doesn't say most games it says and I'm quoting " the Giants games on KNTV will be in HD". It doesn't say most, it implies all games will be HD. I have a tendency to believe Mr. Swank, that most of the games will be HD but I'd love it if it was all the games will be HD. :)

Now what about the A's ???? :p

Laters,
Mikef5

I kinda doubt that unless they are only doing home games.

Only about half the FSN games are in HD, if that. They don't drive the truck out to i.e. Pittsburg or Cincinnati, it depends on that town's capability. Of course FSN also has the problem where they only have 1 HD truck and have to cover A's, Sharks, and Warriors at various times of the season...

...The problem is analog wastes bandwidth that can be used else where. So the basic premise is the same, Where are they going to get an analog signal for their analog equipment.... Nowhere, it's going away. The last of the providers, cable, will eventually have no choice but to get rid of all of the analog channels and go all digital. My suggestion to cable would be after the February transition date drop analog also and go all digital.... Googling around on this topic, my impression is that, per a Sept '07 FCC compromise, cable companies that are not already all-digital must provide analog, SD, and possibly HD signals for all local broadcasters that elect must-carry carriage--for at least three years past the 2/17/09 transition date.

For example, see here (http://www.telecomlawblog.com/cable-fcc-adopts-postdigital-transition-mustcarry-rules-extends-ban-on-exclusive-programming-contracts-and-opens-inquiry-into-tying-agreements.html)

SFHub,

I'm not concerned about the DTA being used, it's just like having a box except that it's a heck of a lot smaller. The DTA only allows you to view digital channels on an analog tv set, it doesn't free up anything. My point was they are thinking of keeping 30 ANALOG channels even after the digital transition date. That wastes bandwidth that could be used to add more HD or more digital channels. They need to get rid of all of the analog channels now and for those that still want to use an analog tv give them the DTA or a box. People with digital tv's can still plug in their cable to their digital tv sets and get the same programming that they are getting right now on the analog stations only it will be digital and not analog, that won't change.

Right now Comcast is not using SDV except in 3 test areas and I've heard nothing about it being deployed any time soon but with all the clamor for more HD and Comcast recently adding Blast to their internet package, eventually they will need more bandwidth and that's when SDV will be used ( or some compression scheme, like mpeg-4 ) so get rid of analog completely now because eventually it will have to go one way or the other.

Maybe I misunderstood, I thought the whole point of the DTA was to get rid of analog completely. If you keep analog around I don't see the point of DTA.

Everything I described was assuming DTA would be the key to getting rid of analog without pissing off analog customers.

What about those of us who are receiving the expanded basic tier of channels in analog right now directly (no STB's) into multiple sets in the house? When all digital will those be carried in clear QAM so I could continue to receive all the same channels directly with no STB's (on digital TV's, of course)? I would love it, but I don't know how Comcast can do that since they wouldn't have any way to restrict the channels for the basic cable people. :confused:
Since they don't want to increase costs by including CableCARD, one scenario had the considering DTA only for limited basic users and higher packages would require STB, CableCARD, etc. They also mentioned some other technique to deal with expanded basic which I kind of glossed over because it seemed like it wasn't fleshed out yet.

Jim,

The OTA people will have no choice but to go digital, that's what the whole program is about... the over the air analog broadcasts are going away. They will have to use a digital to analog converter just like everyone else to use them on their old analog tv's or they will have to get a digital tv. These OTA people have no need for cable or the SatCo's, they are happy with what they get over the air so they don't even figure into what's happening on cable or the satco's, they're happy with what they have. They get the channels that they want and get it for free, to them going to cable or the satco's is not an option.. why pay for what you get for free, even if you have to get a converter or a new digital tv ???

The analog people that use cable don't do it because it's free, they do it because it's more convenient, no antenna, rotors, guywires etc. That's why there's a basic tier on cable, for people that just want the basic channels and nothing else. The problem is analog wastes bandwidth that can be used else where. So the basic premise is the same, Where are they going to get an analog signal for their analog equipment.... Nowhere, it's going away. The last of the providers, cable, will eventually have no choice but to get rid of all of the analog channels and go all digital. My suggestion to cable would be after the February transition date drop analog also and go all digital. This gives people a year to get a DTA, cable box, cablecard, or TivoHD and continue receiving their programming with which ever provider they choose be it cable or the satco's. They will all be digital and basically be on a level playing field. Why are the satco's not required to carry the analog channels but cable is required too ?? Fair competition ?? Not.... but that's another topic for another time ;)
I think the point is once the convenience of analog cable goes away, people (who chose cable for convenience) are willing to consider all sorts of other options they put off in the past. They'll consider OTA and it won't be that big a deal because they get 2 free decoders from the government for their older TVs and any newer TVs will have a tuner builtin already, along with newer TiVos. They'll consider the pain of installing a Sat dish and while they are at it, they'll consider installing an OTA antenna to supplement the Dish with full locals. Sat is making in-roads to make the install easier now. I noticed some relatives had Sat installed and it only required 1 wire run from the dish to the receiver (where the signal was split out again)

The premise is not that cable will be just as inconvenient as other solutions so people will still stick with cable if they drop analog.

The premise is people put up with higher rates for less services on cable specifically because it is convenient. Take that away one is left with Sat and OTAs superior channel lineup and pricing vs an equally inconvenient cable solution.

I think you can add locals to the Dish package for about $5. I'm not sure where it leaves Dish with FSNBA-HD now that Comcast owns the network. They may already have a contract and just not the TP space to transmit, or they may not even have the contract, I haven't followed that in awhile.
The Dish PVR my relatives got supports OTA digital locals for free and they get you to pay $5 for guide data support (so you can record digital locals conveniently)

As I mentioned above, Comcast can ill afford to lose any subs, investor pressure on producing dividends instead of plowing profits into expansion is getting larger and one way to do that is the increase the revenue per existing sub instead of a zero sum game of losing and adding subs. Make the existing ones more profitable, that's what's behind all the HSI and telco packages, get more money from the same well.
If I were running a company, I think spending $35 on a DTA to keep a customer that pays $15 a month is worthwhile. Even handing out 2 for free would still be worth it because it would allow the company to drop analog with minimal subscriber loss and you would make it back in full in less than 5 months (Comcasts costs for content on limited basic is almost negligible so margins are high) Dropping analog would open more revenue streams and DTA would allow them to do it without sacrificing the base revenue stream.

Personally I use analog and digital in my house and I would forego considering other options if they had a DTA solution coupled with dropping analog, especially if the DTA was a low power device.

There are companies working on boxes that would decode and remodulate analog on a multichannel basis, so the operator could go all digital on the plant, but given you clean analog on 40-50 channels in the house. But that takes truck rolls to deploy and isn't cheap.
I thought that was the whole point of the DTA Mikef5 pointed out? I would imagine Comcast had that in mind when they invested in Broadlogic and their Terapix massively parallel video processor.

The way they described the DTA it didn't look like it would be that difficult for someone to self-install. Unplug your exising cable from TV/VCR/etc., connected it to DTA, connnect DTA to your TV/VCR/etc., plug in power.

They do self-installs on the DCT-700s, which IMO would be more complicated than a DTA dongle install.

That's one of the obstacles they face, first you tell Standard Cable subs they'll need a box to get those extra 40 channels, then they may consider dropping down to Limited Basic, but then you hit them with needing a box/dongle just to get any channels at all and it's open season on which provider they could choose to go with.
If someone only wants analog, just install the "DTA dongle" at the demarc point before the house splitter and they won't need any changes to their existing setup. That would keep the pure analog users happy. Don't call it a "DTA dongle" anymore, call it a "DTA drop amp"

Personally I don't think even the DTA dongle installed at each device is that much of a pain. It is a one time install and you can forget about from that point on. You still use your same equipment, remote control, etc. etc.

DTA dongle is far less intrusive than a DCT-700.

I think the point is once the convenience of analog cable goes away, people (who chose cable for convenience) are willing to consider all sorts of other options they put off in the past. They'll consider OTA and it won't be that big a deal because they get 2 free decoders from the government for their older TVs and any newer TVs will have a tuner builtin already, along with newer TiVos. They'll consider the pain of installing a Sat dish and while they are at it, they'll consider installing an OTA antenna to supplement the Dish with full locals. Sat is making in-roads to make the install easier now. I noticed some relatives had Sat installed and it only required 1 wire run from the dish to the receiver (where the signal was split out again)

The premise is not that cable will be just as inconvenient as other solutions so people will still stick with cable if they drop analog.

The premise is people put up with higher rates for less services on cable specifically because it is convenient. Take that away one is left with Sat and OTAs superior channel lineup and pricing vs an equally inconvenient cable solution.

Exactly. Cable loses that special convenience consideration by customers if they have to use a box/dongle just to see any TV at all. Once cable becomes just like satco they lose that advantage and it becomes an even playing field, a field that satco is currently kicking butt on. That's why the big push on telco, HSI and OnDemand, it's a need to differentiate themselves from the satcos in addition to increasing rev per unit, scarce, hard to come by units.

Ultimately, my suspicion is that Comcast's petition to the FCC to use the DTA is more about getting around the FCC's all-digital or provide multiple streams requirement as noted by Barte above rather than going flat out all-digital everywhere. If Comcast gets approval for the dongle, then they won't(they hope) be forced into the analog/multiple channel provision requirement. I think it's more about Comcast having options to go either way. Not that they will force everyone to use the dongle, but that they(Comcast) are not forced by regulation into one scenario or the other.

DirecTV is also moving to a single wire feed solution, and, it's no secret that some satco installations use the existing cableTV wiring to supply signals to multiple TVs in the house, and eventually can be used to supply the signal from the dish. IOW, that plug-it-in-wall wiring that was installed for cableTV is just as useful for satTV.

The Dish PVR my relatives got supports OTA digital locals for free and they get you to pay $5 for guide data support (so you can record digital locals conveniently)

That's true, I never think about that as I can't get OTA up here.

DirecTV is also moving to a single wire feed solution, and, it's no secret that some satco installations use the existing cableTV wiring to supply signals to multiple TVs in the house, and eventually can be used to supply the signal from the dish. IOW, that plug-it-in-wall wiring that was installed for cableTV is just as useful for satTV.
I think it would be very cool if DirecTV and Dish came out with their own version of this DTA concept. Instead of converting digital to analog, it would convert the Sat feed to QAM (in the clear) Then you only need to run the dish line to the demarc point, connect to this new DTQ(AM), and all your clear QAM TVs in the house have full access to what you subscribe to.

This would be the true digital equivalent of "cable-ready". Encryption, authorization, etc. up to the demarc point, from that point on, everything in the house is in the clear. Add a new TV, PVR, etc., just split the line and connect the cable.

I don't know if Terapix-like solutions can be scaled to handle the amount of channels available on Sat and handle decryption as well.

However this is when digital copy protection rears its ugly head and blows this type of solution out of the water because HBO, et al will demand that they can enforce CCI=0x01 or the equivalent.

Well, "I have a dream..."

Yup, post read like a great idea until the copy protection issue came up. :D

If someone only wants analog, just install the "DTA dongle" at the demarc point before the house splitter and they won't need any changes to their existing setup. That would keep the pure analog users happy. Don't call it a "DTA dongle" anymore, call it a "DTA drop amp"

Personally I don't think even the DTA dongle installed at each device is that much of a pain. It is a one time install and you can forget about from that point on. You still use your same equipment, remote control, etc. etc.

DTA dongle is far less intrusive than a DCT-700.
SFHub,

If the DTA can in fact be installed that way ( at the demarcation point before the splitter ) that would be a perfect way for Comcast to go all digital and still give those people that want an analog signal for what ever reason that suits them. My point was, to do something like that to free up bandwidth, and this would be the best way to do it. The thing I tried to point out was that the CEO of Comcast didn't want to do that, he implied that they ( Comcast ) would prefer to keep about 30 analog channels and move the rest of the channels to the digital tiers. That works but still wastes bandwidth, that they need in other places and it prolongs the digital transition on cable.

I'm all for going all digital and if this DTA can be connected the way you stated this could be done and the analog customer would have nothing to do or even have to know that something has changed, to him it would be transparent.

Now, here's a problem. $35-$40 per customer for this DTA, how many customers are analog customers of Comcast in the entire United States ??? I don't have the numbers but some think it's a significant number which would require Comcast to invest a significant amount of money to do this..... Comcast ( or any business for that matter ) loves to spend money..... probably not unless it affects the bottom line or if there's a way to recoup this lost money. That's probably the real reason that Comcast's CEO wants to keep some of the analog channels and move the rest to digital. It's not a money loss for them to do that, it would cost very little to do that and they placate the analog people a little longer.

So waste bandwidth and limit addition of new channels and services or use SDV or mpeg-4 compression so you don't lose analog customers. If that makes sense to anyone then I give up. You do realize that analog tvs are no longer being made, after the on hand supply is sold out you can only buy a digital tv...... and what will you need the analog signal for then ?? Like I said, you're only prolonging the inevitable, you might as well bite the bullet and go digital now.

I really hope they adopt your idea and go with the DTA. You can kill 2 birds with one stone, go all digital and free up bandwidth and still placate the analog customers but in business it's all about the bottom line and keeping shareholders happy and this will cost them big bucks and who's going to pay for this in the end ??? Not the shareholders, unless they're cable subscribers...

Laters,
Mikef5

If someone only wants analog, just install the "DTA dongle" at the demarc point before the house splitter and they won't need any changes to their existing setup. That would keep the pure analog users happy. Don't call it a "DTA dongle" anymore, call it a "DTA drop amp"

Personally I don't think even the DTA dongle installed at each device is that much of a pain. It is a one time install and you can forget about from that point on. You still use your same equipment, remote control, etc. etc.

DTA dongle is far less intrusive than a DCT-700.

I don't think you are reading this right. The DTA is not a "broadband" device. It merely takes unencrypted QAM digital signals and converts it to analog. In that way, it is less than a STB, but it still requires a remote since it has a tuner. That is why you need one for every set and you can't just mount it at the MPOE, because it has to be tuned by the user.

It also has all the issues of a STB from a control perspective.

Now, here's a problem. $35-$40 per customer for this DTA, how many customers are analog customers of Comcast in the entire United States ??? I don't have the numbers but some think it's a significant number which would require Comcast to invest a significant amount of money to do this..... Comcast ( or any business for that matter ) loves to spend money..... probably not unless it affects the bottom line or if there's a way to recoup this lost money. That's probably the real reason that Comcast's CEO wants to keep some of the analog channels and move the rest to digital. It's not a money loss for them to do that, it would cost very little to do that and they placate the analog people a little longer.

So waste bandwidth and limit addition of new channels and services or use SDV or mpeg-4 compression so you don't lose analog customers. If that makes sense to anyone then I give up. You do realize that analog tvs are no longer being made, after the on hand supply is sold out you can only buy a digital tv...... and what will you need the analog signal for then ?? Like I said, you're only prolonging the inevitable, you might as well bite the bullet and go digital now.
To be more accurate, analog TVs are still being made. Analog-only TVs aren't being made.

There's no argument at all that the world is going digital. People mostly have disagreements over when the transition point is and whether it is hard cut off or gradual.

I think $35/customer is very minimal. The alternative which they seemed perfectly willing to invest in to prepare for digital transition was 1-4 DCT-700's per household. DCT-700's cost more than DTA.

Besides, the $35 is dwarfed by what it would cost them to upgrade the infrastructure to add 200-400MHz of bandwidth.

Seriously I think at $35/customer the cost is really no issue at all relative to all the other solutions they would need to consider to go all digital.

Now *if* they planned on 30analog + DTA (in a particular market, not overall Comcast-world), that makes no sense at all to me. I didn't realize you were pointing out that Comcast wants to keep analog. I thought the whole time the point was DTA would let them drop analog. I can believe in some markets they would use DTA to drop analog, but in other markets they may choose live with 30analog for longer.

I don't think you are reading this right.
Apparently so, I didn't realize there was a 2nd page to that article. The first page didn't really say anything about a remote so I figured why shouldn't DTA use something like Broadlogic TeraPIX. Wishful thinking coupled with fast reading.

http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=146733&page_number=2
The DTA approach could also counter BroadLogic (see profile), another player in the digital-to-analog arena. BroadLogic has developed TeraPIX, a “headend on a chip” video processor that, when installed in a special cable residential gateway, converts incoming digital video to analog as it enters the home.

I wonder how much a TeraPIX solution would cost if you stripped out conditional access and CableCARD support. If you average 2 DTA's per analog user household that's $70 so I think if it can come in around that range it would be viable.

Apparently so, I didn't realize there was a 2nd page to that article. The first page didn't really say anything about a remote so I figured why shouldn't DTA use something like Broadlogic TeraPIX. Wishful thinking coupled with fast reading.

http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=146733&page_number=2
The DTA approach could also counter BroadLogic (see profile), another player in the digital-to-analog arena. BroadLogic has developed TeraPIX, a “headend on a chip” video processor that, when installed in a special cable residential gateway, converts incoming digital video to analog as it enters the home.

I wonder how much a TeraPIX solution would cost if you stripped out conditional access and CableCARD support. If you average 2 DTA's per analog user household that's $70 so I think if it can come in around that range it would be viable.

Hah! No way the terapix works with cablecard! It's not designed with cablecard in it, and would requires 10's of cablecards to work. Since the FCC refused to grant waivers to the MSO's for cablecard use, it pretty much doomed the terapix, as it would require a waiver. Part of the reason why the terapix was so cool is that it not only did demodulation and decode of a hundred streams of digital signals, but it decrypted them all at the same time too. So no way can cablecard be integrated into such a beast.

Now, I supposed if the MSO's turned crypto off, then you could make it work, but they aren't likely to do that. But it wouldn't save much. I know the Broadlogic folks, the dealt with crypto at the same time they did decode. It's all on an ASIC. It simplifies the chip, but doesn't really save any money.

The terapix is pretty expensive, but probably cheaper than having to do a full rebuild of a 550 plant, which could have been avoided with Broadlogic's technology. At this point, don't expect to see this solution in the SFBA.

To be more accurate, analog TVs are still being made. Analog-only TVs aren't being made.

There's no argument at all that the world is going digital. People mostly have disagreements over when the transition point is and whether it is hard cut off or gradual.

I think $35/customer is very minimal. The alternative which they seemed perfectly willing to invest in to prepare for digital transition was 1-4 DCT-700's per household. DCT-700's cost more than DTA.

Besides, the $35 is dwarfed by what it would cost them to upgrade the infrastructure to add 200-400MHz of bandwidth.

Seriously I think at $35/customer the cost is really no issue at all relative to all the other solutions they would need to consider to go all digital.

Now *if* they planned on 30analog + DTA (in a particular market, not overall Comcast-world), that makes no sense at all to me. I didn't realize you were pointing out that Comcast wants to keep analog. I thought the whole time the point was DTA would let them drop analog. I can believe in some markets they would use DTA to drop analog, but in other markets they may choose live with 30analog for longer.

SFHub,

Why after February of next year would I want or need an analog tv/tuner ?? For over the air signals ???? It's gone... So I can use it on cable ??? Even if you have a digital/analog tv/tuner, why use the analog tuner when you have access to a digital tuner ??? The need for an analog tuner is not needed, I can see getting an digital to analog converter so I can use my old analog tv until it blows up but the manufacturers are not going to put in ( at added cost ) a tuner that is not going to be used and a dual tuner is added cost. They operate at a low profit margin so they cut cost when they can. I'll look at the FCC mandate and see the exact wording but an analog tuner is a thing of the past and has no purpose after February next year.

As far as the cost to deploy new technology, go to a shareholders meeting and see what they discuss there ( Yes, I've gone to them and sorry I did ), it ain't customer satisfaction, it's what will this cost us and what do we get out of it. I can see in a business sense what the Comcast CEO would like to do makes sense in the business world, just not sense to getting the most out of your product.

Here's a thought, the next time anyone wants a new HD channel or some other nice addition to the system remember what's wasting that needed bandwidth or don't be surprised when they start using SDV or start compressing the signal or start squeezing more HD signals into a single feed..... Hey, we didn't lose those analog customers did we ?? That's kind of flippant and I apologize for that but I'm tired of all the bitching about wanting new HD channels and people's reluctance to do what it takes to get that, analog is going away so do it now.

Laters,
Mikef5

Now *if* they planned on 30analog + DTA (in a particular market, not overall Comcast-world), that makes no sense at all to me. I didn't realize you were pointing out that Comcast wants to keep analog. I thought the whole time the point was DTA would let them drop analog. I can believe in some markets they would use DTA to drop analog, but in other markets they may choose live with 30analog for longer.

While it's purely my suspicion, I'm pretty certain that the DTA has more importance to Comcast as a placating solution with regards to the FCC regs about all-digital or provide analog rather than a real world fix for dropping analog and pacifying analog subs at the same time.

IOW, the DTA is more a political device than an actual means to an end infrastructure-wise. "See, we have the DTA, now don't make us provide analog because we aren't 100% digital, we'll handle our analog subs in our own way in our own time". The DTA is probably going to used by Comcast to waive that all or analog ruling by the FCC, at least they are going to try, I believe the FCC still has to rule if that's an acceptable work-around to the ruling.

I think $35/customer is very minimal. The alternative which they seemed perfectly willing to invest in to prepare for digital transition was 1-4 DCT-700's per household. DCT-700's cost more than DTA.

Besides, the $35 is dwarfed by what it would cost them to upgrade the infrastructure to add 200-400MHz of bandwidth.

Seriously I think at $35/customer the cost is really no issue at all relative to all the other solutions they would need to consider to go all digital.

Now *if* they planned on 30analog + DTA (in a particular market, not overall Comcast-world), that makes no sense at all to me. I didn't realize you were pointing out that Comcast wants to keep analog. I thought the whole time the point was DTA would let them drop analog. I can believe in some markets they would use DTA to drop analog, but in other markets they may choose live with 30analog for longer.

Surely $35 is far more than they've saved by bandwidth limiting us HSI customers; they're just giving more value to their stockholder. And, since their astroturf (http://www.philly.com/inquirer/front_page/20080228_Comcast_admits_paying_attendees_at_FCC_hearing.html ) campaign is coming under scrutiny, just maybe we can get some real service.

Hi,

Ever since Comcast encrypted the Jade channel back in January for us down here in the South Bay (which leads me to ask, why does Comcast have different policies depending on what city you live in, in San Francisco, the Jade Channel is free from 6-12 pm), I've been looking for the cheapest way to get the Jade Channel.

But Comcast's website only shows information about their digital packages. I thought they offered the Jade Channel as a package by itself for about $11, now I don't see it. Nor does their website give me any info about their basic analog offering. There is a link that says "Basic Cable packages", but it doesn't take you anywhere.

Is what's on the website the only package that I can get now? Or are they hiding the packages that they actually offer but don't want people to buy.

So even though you're supposed to be able to buy things like the Jade Channel, which is a premium package, or get basic analog cable service, the $13-$16/month service that I've heard about, you can't find any info on them or order it on their website. What is up with that?

I'm already a Comcast customer, and the customer portal is pretty useless except for looking at bills. Certainly no additional info beside what you get from their non-login website.

One of the recent monthly statements should have a full price list.

One of the recent monthly statements should have a full price list.

The price for Jade as an a la carte service in Rohnert Park is $10.95 as of January, 2008 according to the price list that was sent to me at that time.

Anyone know if you can order UFC in HD? I see that they carry an old UFC match in HD on demand, but cannot find the new one that airs tonight?

Nope, there's no HD PPV channels yet.

Nope, there's no HD PPV channels yet.


I guess that's +1 for satellite tv then. :mad:

Been asking for UFC in HD for about a year now, I think.. Shame that Comcast doesn't offer it. I refuse to buy any PPV events, MMA or otherwise from them until they begin carrying the HD feed.

Been asking for UFC in HD for about a year now, I think.. Shame that Comcast doesn't offer it. I refuse to buy any PPV events, MMA or otherwise from them until they begin carrying the HD feed.

Funny how they show the last one in HD on Demand though...and for full price!?

I live in the 94086 area in Sunnyvale near Washington Park.
I used to be able to access local HDTV channels via my
Comcast Limited Basic Service cable. Starting yesterday
(3/1), however, those .1 channels are gone.
I've tried tuning in to the 70X chaneels but have had
no luck. Anyone knows whether this is the result
of the Comcast "upgrade" in Sunnyvale? It seems that
my Limited Basic service has been downgraded
rather than upgraded ...

I live in the 94086 area in Sunnyvale near Washington Park.
I used to be able to access local HDTV channels via my
Comcast Limited Basic Service cable. Starting yesterday
(3/1), however, those .1 channels are gone.
I've tried tuning in to the 70X chaneels but have had
no luck. Anyone knows whether this is the result
of the Comcast "upgrade" in Sunnyvale? It seems that
my Limited Basic service has been downgraded
rather than upgraded ...

Are you using a Comcast STB? If you are just connected via the coax directly to the TV try scanning channels again.

Are you using a Comcast STB? If you are just connected via the coax directly to the TV try scanning channels again.

I don't have a STB.
Rescanning did the trick.
My HDTV channels are back :-)

Thanks a lot bobby94928!!!

There ya go!!! :)

Here in 94110, I upgraded from my old ATTBI-era Surfboard 4200 to the 5101 and immediately saw the speed increases that I was not seeing on the 4200 -- 16 down, 2 up sustained Blast (not Boost, confirmed via FTP upload/down and Slingbox). The upload speed increase is particularly welcome.

So all you guys with a 4200, time to hit Amazon -- the 5101 is $47.

If you don't already have internet service from Comcast you might check out the deals at Circuit City. I paid $60-80, can't remember which, for a 5101 modem and have rebate checks totaling $230 coming. Paying $19.95 per month for the 6/384 service for 6 months. So basically, I'm getting 7.5 mos of internet service for free, modem included.

Once that's over I'll probably go with the 16/2, as long as the upgrade has been done up here and it's even available.

Is Comcast still sniffing for open/active ports on your firewall (ie HTTP/HTTPS/FTP/News/mail), monitoring total amount of data being transfered for each customer, trafficshaping? I switched to DSL because I heard you cant do anything with your internet connection except for browse the web and check email. I have all sorts of internet based services running. Most of the stuff I do uses upstream bandwidth. A few years back my friend was using an FTP server (on the standard port) and the got an email telling him hes breaking the rules.

Max speed for DSL in my area is 6mbit/sec down and 768kbps up max.

Is Comcast still sniffing for open/active ports on your firewall (ie HTTP/HTTPS/FTP/News/mail), monitoring total amount of data being transfered for each customer, trafficshaping? I switched to DSL because I heard you cant do anything with your internet connection except for browse the web and check email. I have all sorts of internet based services running. Most of the stuff I do uses upstream bandwidth. A few years back my friend was using an FTP server (on the standard port) and the got an email telling him hes breaking the rules.

Max speed for DSL in my area is 6mbit/sec down and 768kbps up max.

Well, Comcast does keep gross stats on user traffic to flag abuse. They don't generally tell you what the thresholds are, but I understand it's not just a simple number.

But at least they are not planning on searching traffic for pirated information and blocking like as AT&T is working on.

Well, Comcast does keep gross stats on user traffic to flag abuse. They don't generally tell you what the thresholds are, but I understand it's not just a simple number.

But at least they are not planning on searching traffic for pirated information and blocking like as AT&T is working on.

I guess that depends on how you look at it. Comcast has been shown to be using Sandvine technology to disrupt P2P traffic, legal or illegal. That's what that FCC public hearing was all about where Comcast had their own rent-a-mob stuffing seats at the venue.

If you don't already have internet service from Comcast you might check out the deals at Circuit City. I paid $60-80, can't remember which, for a 5101 modem and have rebate checks totaling $230 coming. Paying $19.95 per month for the 6/384 service for 6 months. So basically, I'm getting 7.5 mos of internet service for free, modem included.

Once that's over I'll probably go with the 16/2, as long as the upgrade has been done up here and it's even available.

I had the 6Mbs internet service and just asked to be upgraded to the 16Mbs service. I rebooted my cable modem and don't see any improvements based on the online bandwidth speed tests. what's an accurate one to use?

One of the recent monthly statements should have a full price list.

The price for Jade as an a la carte service in Rohnert Park is $10.95 as of January, 2008 according to the price list that was sent to me at that time.


Thanks for the response, I'll have to take a look at the statement when I get home. But it's curious that they don't have it listed on their website, nor even basic analog cable. Is this an indication that Comcast is going to phase out basic analog service?

I had the 6Mbs internet service and just asked to be upgraded to the 16Mbs service. I rebooted my cable modem and don't see any improvements based on the online bandwidth speed tests. what's an accurate one to use?

That's a good question. What does it show if you run the following test?
http://msiad.visualware.com/myspeed/

I just ran the above and it gave me the following, which reflects the Powerboost working, at least on the upload, as I can never get that speed over any length of time. That quality of service number changes all the time.
Speed test statistics
---------------------
Download speed: 4387280 bps
Upload speed: 1745320 bps
Quality of service: 61 %
Download test type: socket
Upload test type: socket
Maximum download pause: 98 ms
Average download pause: 6 ms
Minimum round trip time to server: 98 ms
Average round trip time to server: 104 ms


I've also seen folks say running the below test until it's about 75% DL'ed and see what speed it's at.
ftp://ftp1.optonline.net/test64

And then there's this one, but like most of these types of speedtests, it only shows you the initial burst of speed, not what it's typically going to run at.
http://www.speedtest.net/index.php

I'm not really sure of a good reliable test, and it also depends on where it is you want to measure the speed. Some folks test a download right from the Comcast server, usually the Comcast setup software, which supposedly will give you an accurate test. Not sure what the URL is for that though.

It's my understanding though that you should do a file DL from an ftp site, at least 50-75mbs, instead of clicking a link on an html page.

Hi all

I am in the portion of 94087 that was upgraded and I noticed that I receive most of the new channels except for about 8 of them (including NGC 757 which is really the only one I care about).

I use a Tivo Series 3 box and had read that some cable companies are starting to implement Switched Digital Video (SDV) which is a "channel on demand" technology where your cable box sends a request to the head-end to deliver a particular channel (much like on-demand except you are streamed a live channel instead of a stored program).

The problem is that since the Tivo box (actually cable card technology in general) does not have two-way communication, there is no way to send the proper request to the head-end to receive an SDV channel.

I had called this issue into Comcast and no one there could tell me why I could not receive channel 757. A service person even came out and just told me that the rebuild was in process and maybe not all channels were active - even though the signal strength of channel 757 reported by Tivo diagnostics showed a strong carrier signal. Now I am wondering if the channels I am not getting are SDV.

Does anyone happen to know if this is the case?

SDV is apparentely the future for cable systems as they can offer many more channels for much less bandwidth. Supposedly, Tivo is working with the cable companies to come up with a solution that would allow the two-way communication (hard to say how long this will take). I imagine any device (be it a TV or DVR) that uses a cable card will have this problem.

Thanks in advance!

Comcast is NOT using SDV in the Bay Area

They are not using it YET but almost certainly will be in the near future.

They are not using it YET but almost certainly will be in the near future.

Glad you said that and not me :p but I have to agree, Cox and Time Warner are using it big time and it's only a matter of time before Comcast is forced to use it, I just hope they get the " tuner resolver " for the Tivo to work with SDV before that happens.... I love my TivoHD ;)

Laters,
Mikef5

The problem is that since the Tivo box (actually cable card technology in general) does not have two-way communication, there is no way to send the proper request to the head-end to receive an SDV channel.

I had called this issue into Comcast and no one there could tell me why I could not receive channel 757. A service person even came out and just told me that the rebuild was in process and maybe not all channels were active - even though the signal strength of channel 757 reported by Tivo diagnostics showed a strong carrier signal. Now I am wondering if the channels I am not getting are SDV.

Actually CableCARD's themselves support 2-way. It is the host (in this case TiVo) that does not include the QPSK or DOCSIS modem that is needed by the CableCARD to complete the 2-way support.

Do you have Digital Classic service? 757 NGC is part of that. Most of the other HD channels just require Digital Starter. Actually after the recent change, I think NGC might be the only non-premium channel left in Digital Classic.

I have digital classic. I get all the HD channels except NFL and the premiums (HBO, etc).

Glad you said that and not me :p but I have to agree, Cox and Time Warner are using it big time and it's only a matter of time before Comcast is forced to use it, I just hope they get the " tuner resolver " for the Tivo to work with SDV before that happens.... I love my TivoHD ;)

Laters,
Mikef5

Well, maybe for once it will be good to be in the digital cable backwaters;)

I'm in 94087, in the Las Palmas Park neighborhood. Today two Comcast guys worked on the upgrade in our backyard. They were on ladders swapping out some boxes on the utility poles. They spent 4 hours there, and then left our house to go to another one down the street. They said that I was upgraded for a while, and then they found some problems they had to fix. So I'm still not upgraded yet, but more hopeful now.

Whatever they did improved the SNR of my modem by 1-2 dB, so at least they have not screwed anything up.

Here is the schedule for games on NBC11:

S.F. GIANTS SCHEDULE ON KNTV-NBC11 - 2008

Date Airtime Team

(All Home Games unless noted)

Sat. Mar 15 ---- 3:00pm ---- Seattle (Spring Training)
Tue. April 1 ---- 7:00pm ---- @ L.A.Dodgers
Tue. April 8 ---- 7:00pm ---- San Diego
Fri. April 25 ---- 7:00pm ---- Cincinnati
Sat. April 26 ---- 6:00pm ---- Cincinnati
Fri. May 9 ---- 7:00pm ---- Philadelphia
Fri. May 16 ---- 7:00pm ---- Chi White Sox
Sat. May 17 ---- 6:00pm ---- Chi White Sox
Fri. May 30 ---- 7:00pm ---- San Diego
Fri. June 13 ---- 7:00pm ---- Oakland
Tue. June 17 ---- 7:00pm ---- Detroit
Fri. June 27 ---- 7:00pm ---- @ Oakland
Sat. June 28 ---- 6:00pm ---- @ Oakland
Tue. July 1 ---- 7:00pm ---- Chicago Cubs
Fri. July 18 ---- 7:00pm ---- Milwaukee
Fri. July 25 ---- 7:00pm ---- Arizona
Sat. July 26 ---- 6:00pm ---- Arizona
Tue. Aug 26 ---- 7:00pm ---- Colorado
Fri. Sept 12 ---- 7:00pm ---- @ San Diego
Fri. Sept 19 ---- 7:30pm ---- @ L.A. Dodgers
Fri. Sept 26 ---- 7:00pm ---- L.A. Dodgers

Hope these are in HD, It'll be interesting to see how well they do the games this year as apposed to what KTVU did.
Oh yeah, you can catch these games on Comcast 703 :D;)

Laters,
Mikef5

Actually CableCARD's themselves support 2-way. It is the host (in this case TiVo) that does not include the QPSK or DOCSIS modem that is needed by the CableCARD to complete the 2-way support.

Do you have Digital Classic service? 757 NGC is part of that. Most of the other HD channels just require Digital Starter. Actually after the recent change, I think NGC might be the only non-premium channel left in Digital Classic.

Thanks for the info all! It will help me in my next attempt to train the Comcast CSR's! I have the Digital premium (I think that is what they call it) I get pretty much all the channels except for the half dozen or so that just give me a black screen. If not SDV then it's still a mystery why the channels are not coming in. Tivo doesn't give a "no channel found" message - it actually detects the channel, downloads the program info, but the screen is black. The S/N is about 32 dB per the diagnositic screen. Both cable cards in the Tivo show the same thing so it seems a cable card fault is unlikely so maybe I just need to hang tight until they are officially done with the upgrades....

I'm in 94087, in the Las Palmas Park neighborhood. Today two Comcast guys worked on the upgrade in our backyard. They were on ladders swapping out some boxes on the utility poles. They spent 4 hours there, and then left our house to go to another one down the street. They said that I was upgraded for a while, and then they found some problems they had to fix. So I'm still not upgraded yet, but more hopeful now.

Whatever they did improved the SNR of my modem by 1-2 dB, so at least they have not screwed anything up.

Hopefully this is good news for me as well. What time were they working on the poles? I haven't seen any Comcast guys in my neighbors backyard at all. And no one from Comcast has tried to go through my backyard to get to the pole either.

Thanks for the info all! It will help me in my next attempt to train the Comcast CSR's! I have the Digital premium (I think that is what they call it) I get pretty much all the channels except for the half dozen or so that just give me a black screen. If not SDV then it's still a mystery why the channels are not coming in. Tivo doesn't give a "no channel found" message - it actually detects the channel, downloads the program info, but the screen is black. The S/N is about 32 dB per the diagnositic screen. Both cable cards in the Tivo show the same thing so it seems a cable card fault is unlikely so maybe I just need to hang tight until they are officially done with the upgrades....
Another possibility is you have a pairing problem and the channels you can't see have non-zero CCI values. When you are tuned to the channel you cannot receive, go into TiVo diagnostics and see what the CCI value is.

Hopefully this is good news for me as well. What time were they working on the poles? I haven't seen any Comcast guys in my neighbors backyard at all. And no one from Comcast has tried to go through my backyard to get to the pole either.

They were at my backyard from shortly after 11 am until 4 pm. They might have taken a lunch break. They worked on the boxes up on the poles, but they also tinkered with the cable box at our house.

They were at my backyard from shortly after 11 am until 4 pm. They might have taken a lunch break. They worked on the boxes up on the poles, but they also tinkered with the cable box at our house.

Clau,
Are you on the Hollenbeck side of Las Palmas Park or the Remington side? At those hours, they most likely would not go through my backyard to get to the pole...my dog has one mean bark. Although, the PG&E guys have gone in my backyard at least once without knocking first (someone happened to be home when he started barking). Too bad he can't talk and tell me whether or not he's seen anyone up on the pole besides the squirrels he likes to chase. :D

Clau,
Are you on the Hollenbeck side of Las Palmas Park or the Remington side? At those hours, they most likely would not go through my backyard to get to the pole...my dog has one mean bark. Although, the PG&E guys have gone in my backyard at least once without knocking first (someone happened to be home when he started barking). Too bad he can't talk and tell me whether or not he's seen anyone up on the pole besides the squirrels he likes to chase. :D

I'm on the Hollenbeck side. My wife told me that today there are Comcast trucks on Hyde Park, FWIW.

PS: There is a Comcast truck on Russet now.

Here is the schedule for games on NBC11:

S.F. GIANTS SCHEDULE ON KNTV-NBC11 - 2008

Date Airtime Team

(All Home Games unless noted)

Sat. Mar 15 ---- 3:00pm ---- Seattle (Spring Training)
Tue. April 1 ---- 7:00pm ---- @ L.A.Dodgers
Tue. April 8 ---- 7:00pm ---- San Diego
Fri. April 25 ---- 7:00pm ---- Cincinnati
Sat. April 26 ---- 6:00pm ---- Cincinnati
Fri. May 9 ---- 7:00pm ---- Philadelphia
Fri. May 16 ---- 7:00pm ---- Chi White Sox
Sat. May 17 ---- 6:00pm ---- Chi White Sox
Fri. May 30 ---- 7:00pm ---- San Diego
Fri. June 13 ---- 7:00pm ---- Oakland
Tue. June 17 ---- 7:00pm ---- Detroit
Fri. June 27 ---- 7:00pm ---- @ Oakland
Sat. June 28 ---- 6:00pm ---- @ Oakland
Tue. July 1 ---- 7:00pm ---- Chicago Cubs
Fri. July 18 ---- 7:00pm ---- Milwaukee
Fri. July 25 ---- 7:00pm ---- Arizona
Sat. July 26 ---- 6:00pm ---- Arizona
Tue. Aug 26 ---- 7:00pm ---- Colorado
Fri. Sept 12 ---- 7:00pm ---- @ San Diego
Fri. Sept 19 ---- 7:30pm ---- @ L.A. Dodgers
Fri. Sept 26 ---- 7:00pm ---- L.A. Dodgers

Hope these are in HD, It'll be interesting to see how well they do the games this year as apposed to what KTVU did.
Oh yeah, you can catch these games on Comcast 703 :D;)

Laters,
Mikef5

i guess not a huge surprise all road games are on the west coast.

They were at my backyard from shortly after 11 am until 4 pm. They might have taken a lunch break. They worked on the boxes up on the poles, but they also tinkered with the cable box at our house.

I've been seeing a whole lot of activity today in my area near El Camino and Bernardo. Lots of CableCom and Comcast trucks. Hopefully this means the upgrade is coming soon but you never know. Perhaps my letter to the Sunnyvale City Council did something? :)

I'm near Sunnyvale-Saratoga Road & Remington. My roommate just texted me to mention that a few CableCom trucks were on the corner of Azure/Remington near the assisted living place. Looks like there's a lot of activity along that stretch of Remington today.

Do we have a date set for when Sunnyvale will get Blast! I know if there even is one it probably won't mean much but I'm excited to finally have internet service that can compare to the other good services around the country. I'm in 94086 Wolfe/Old San Francisco - Upgraded since Jan 08.

Do we have a date set for when Sunnyvale will get Blast!

After the upgrades most likely. It's like Permaboost (R) all over again.

http://www.speedtest.net/result/241200335.png

Another possibility is you have a pairing problem and the channels you can't see have non-zero CCI values. When you are tuned to the channel you cannot receive, go into TiVo diagnostics and see what the CCI value is.

I did check the CCI for channels I did not receive and it is indeed 0x00. I compared the diagnostic info for a neighboring channel that works fine (758) to one that displays a black screen (757) and really didn't see any clue. The modulation is QAM256, signal strength is 99-100, and the S/N is 35-36 dB for the channels compared. Even the closed-caption and Dolby sound icons are lighting up in the program info box for channel 757 that shows a black screen which I find is also odd.

Thanks for all the info!

Now what about the A's ???? :p

Laters,
Mikef5
Just got the below from KICU/KTVU,

Hi Jim,

We are hoping to have at least some of the games in HD, but that is currently under discussion, and should be announced in the next week or so. It was suggested that fans check back on our website (www.kicu.com) in a week or two. Hopefully, we know by then. Thanks for writing.



Lori Darnell

KTVU Channel 2 /TV36 - KICU Program Assistant

Is Comcast still sniffing for open/active ports on your firewall (ie HTTP/HTTPS/FTP/News/mail), monitoring total amount of data being transfered for each customer, trafficshaping? I switched to DSL because I heard you cant do anything with your internet connection except for browse the web and check email. I have all sorts of internet based services running. Most of the stuff I do uses upstream bandwidth. A few years back my friend was using an FTP server (on the standard port) and the got an email telling him hes breaking the rules.

Max speed for DSL in my area is 6mbit/sec down and 768kbps up max.

I've been running a web server, ftp server, mail server for six different domains, VNC... you name it... on my Comcast connection for a few years. The only times they've shut anything down was when they closed port 25 when a mail account got compromised and was used for spam. This happened twice. Once I figured out what happened and closed the hole, I simply called them up, pretended like I didn't know the policy, told them that I use these services for work, and promised to figure out another solution if they'd please just this one time pretty please open the port back up. Each time, they reluctantly agreed. Last one was about nine months ago.

That said, they're cracking down on mail specifically. I've moved most of my mail domains off to GMail, but still run web and ftp on my home server. As I understand it, they don't really care, as long as it's not for commercial purposes and doesn't cause a significant amount of traffic. Mine's just a Movable Type instance for my personal domain, and a friend's band website on another domain, neither of which see a ton of action (less than a thousand page views a day).

they block most of the common p2ps, edonkey, bit torrent, etc..

they block most of the common p2ps, edonkey, bit torrent, etc..

Disrupt would be a better description, they don't outright block that sort of traffic. They insert false "disconnect"(can't think of the right term) packets in the data stream so that the destination peer thinks the data has stopped. It's more complicated than that, but in a nutshell, Comcast "shapes" P2P traffic. This was what that net neutrality meeting was all about the other day(the one where they stuffed the seats with sleeping employees :p), whether Comcast's method of handling P2P traffic was a "reasonable" implementation.

I think that there is also an 'accepted' limit of around 90-100Gb download per month on Comcast Internet. If you go over once you get a call, go over twice and they ban you for a year.

Tolax

I think that there is also an 'accepted' limit of around 90-100Gb download per month on Comcast Internet. If you go over once you get a call, go over twice and they ban you for a year.

Tolax

I don't think Comcast as ever stated any specifics caps. I know some folks have had some issues, but as far as I know, Comcast has never said any specific amount will get you into trouble.

there is a cap, it's around 200GB/month
http://consumerist.com/consumer/leaks/comcasts-download-cap-is-200-gb-but-only-in-areas-with-subpar-networks-301316.php

Hi..I live near El Camino and Bernardo too...been waiting for a real long time for the upgrade...saw some Cablecom trucks yesterday too...wonder if they were for the upgrade or for the prolonged internet outage we had....

Called Comcast and asked them to waive my charges for this month...they put me on hold for an hour....i lost patience and hung up....sigh...what is customer satisfaction coming to these days??

-Siva.

there is a cap, it's around 200GB/month
http://consumerist.com/consumer/leaks/comcasts-download-cap-is-200-gb-but-only-in-areas-with-subpar-networks-301316.php

Maybe so, but I've never seen it publicly stated, in terms of service agreements or otherwise, of any specific cap. I'm sure there is some internal trigger that starts a process to engage the subscriber, but unless Comcast makes that information public as stated policy it will eventually get them in trouble. It already has to a degree as the FCC is looking at internet usage interference by providers, and I believe there's a current lawsuit against them for such practices.

I don't like it, but on the other hand, what could somebody be DL'ing that they used over 600GBs in 2 months? That's roughly 1.5 hrs of HD per day, about 400MBs per hour 24/7, thats' a heck of a lot of data.

I believe a lot of this will change once video DL'ing becomes commonplace, it will have to. We've already got DirecTV doing VOD DL'ing over telco and cable internet lines, I can't see that continuing very long without the infrastructure provider having something to say about it.

Woo hoo! I'm finally upgraded! I noticed because my Tivo could no longer tune to HBOHD on 730 this morning. Now to rerun guided setup on my Tivo so that I get the guide for the new HD channels.

I'm in 94086 near Mary and California. I guess all the CableCom trucks near there for the last few weeks have been a good sign. :)

Woo hoo! I'm finally upgraded! I noticed because my Tivo could no longer tune to HBOHD on 730 this morning. Now to rerun guided setup on my Tivo so that I get the guide for the new HD channels.

I'm in 94086 near Mary and California. I guess all the CableCom trucks near there for the last few weeks have been a good sign. :)

So I'm having a problem. When repeating guided setup for 94086 and answering the channel lineup questions, I still end up with my old channel lineup. I'm also trying 94087 and still get the old channels. I tried calling Tivo Customer support and the representative was unable to help me and just told me that it's a lineup problem that he would not be able to assist me with and to call Comcast. Not cool. :(

So, to all of you out there who are in upgraded areas with Tivos, how did you get your Tivo to recognize the new channels in the guide? What zip code did you use to fool the Tivo into seeing the new channels, or is there a trick to answering the questions in guided setup to get the Digital rebuild lineups?

Maybe so, but I've never seen it publicly stated, in terms of service agreements or otherwise, of any specific cap. I'm sure there is some internal trigger that starts a process to engage the subscriber, but unless Comcast makes that information public as stated policy it will eventually get them in trouble. It already has to a degree as the FCC is looking at internet usage interference by providers, and I believe there's a current lawsuit against them for such practices.

I don't like it, but on the other hand, what could somebody be DL'ing that they used over 600GBs in 2 months? That's roughly 1.5 hrs of HD per day, about 400MBs per hour 24/7, thats' a heck of a lot of data.

I believe a lot of this will change once video DL'ing becomes commonplace, it will have to. We've already got DirecTV doing VOD DL'ing over telco and cable internet lines, I can't see that continuing very long without the infrastructure provider having something to say about it.
it's not stated anywhere, but they have had a cap for a long time. people have complained about it, but since it only seems to happen to people that are blatently abusing the service, they don't get a lot of sympathy...

you're right about potential future problems... if HD video streaming becomes commonplace, the caps will probably have to be raised.. with the new "BLAST!" service, 2MB per second? you'd hit the cap after only ... 28 hours if my math is correct.. or let's say you're streaming 5Mbit video from Xbox Live, 89 hours... that's about 3 hours a day. Ok that's a lot, but not unreasonable (though, would be expensive I guess...)

Lots of cable activity in LG, too. In fact, so much that we seem to lose the cable connection for a few hours most days. As someone who works mostly out of my home, that makes me doubly happy I switched my ISP to Verizon last year. I don't care about TV during the day, but I gotta have my internet connection to get any work done!

Hi..I live near El Camino and Bernardo too...been waiting for a real long time for the upgrade...saw some Cablecom trucks yesterday too...wonder if they were for the upgrade or for the prolonged internet outage we had....

Called Comcast and asked them to waive my charges for this month...they put me on hold for an hour....i lost patience and hung up....sigh...what is customer satisfaction coming to these days??

-Siva.

Customer satisfaction and Comcast? I don't think the two are well acquainted. Comcast consistently scores as having one of the worst customer service in the country -
http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/SavingandDebt/Advice/HowCompaniesWereRanked.aspx

Woo hoo! I'm finally upgraded! I noticed because my Tivo could no longer tune to HBOHD on 730 this morning. Now to rerun guided setup on my Tivo so that I get the guide for the new HD channels.

I'm in 94086 near Mary and California. I guess all the CableCom trucks near there for the last few weeks have been a good sign. :)

Thats good news. I guess this is more proof that my area is very likely going to be one of the later ones to be upgraded. I haven't seen any more activity in the area after that one day. I suppose they could have been working here as part of upgrading some other area.

I did check the CCI for channels I did not receive and it is indeed 0x00. I compared the diagnostic info for a neighboring channel that works fine (758) to one that displays a black screen (757) and really didn't see any clue. The modulation is QAM256, signal strength is 99-100, and the S/N is 35-36 dB for the channels compared. Even the closed-caption and Dolby sound icons are lighting up in the program info box for channel 757 that shows a black screen which I find is also odd.

Thanks for all the info!
Tune to an encrypted channel you don't receive. Press LiveTV to switch tuners, and switch the other tuner to an encrypted channel you do receive.

Then look at the CableCARD diagnostic menu under "Conditional Access"

Compare the data for the two channels.

If it says Auth: NOT_SUBSCRIBED, somehow your account says you are not supposed to receive the new channels and you need to tell Comcast they haven't authorized your account to receive those channels.

So, to all of you out there who are in upgraded areas with Tivos, how did you get your Tivo to recognize the new channels in the guide? What zip code did you use to fool the Tivo into seeing the new channels, or is there a trick to answering the questions in guided setup to get the Digital rebuild lineups?After Guided Setup prompts you for your ZIP code, there is a screen right before where it begins asking the several "what you get on channel NN" questions. You can press ENTER on that screen, and it will present you a list of candidate lineups. You would want to pick a "Rebuild" lineup. In fact, you can go to zap2it.com and it will present the same candidate list for a given ZIP code, so you can see if what it shows for a lineup is what you are actually seeing.

WOO HOO!!! Upgraded finally!! Checked channels this morning before going to work and more HD and VOD. No SciFi HD in the listings even though on the card listing the new channels to come out with the upgrade has it in Limited Basic tier. Anyone else in Santa Rosa upgraded too? I'm on West Ninth :eek: between North Dutton and Stony Point for reference. JasonQG, efball, montyward, keenan, any others? It seems that Comcast kept their word, more or less on the upgrade.

i am saving patience to wait till the date that Comcast said in its letter....Feb 18th to March 23rd....so as long as its not 23rd yet, i am not panicking....

WOO HOO!!! Upgraded finally!! Checked channels this morning before going to work and more HD and VOD. No SciFi HD in the listings even though on the card listing the new channels to come out with the upgrade has it in Limited Basic tier. Anyone else in Santa Rosa upgraded too? I'm on West Ninth :eek: between North Dutton and Stony Point for reference. JasonQG, efball, montyward, keenan, any others? It seems that Comcast kept their word, more or less on the upgrade.

Nothing here in the area bordered by 4th, Sonoma, Brookwood and Farmers, at least nothing at my castle. :D

I have to say though, at this point I'm more interested in a faster internet than anything else. There aren't any HD channels in the Comcast upgraded lineup that DirecTV doesn't already have as far as I can tell.

WOO HOO!!! Upgraded finally!! Checked channels this morning before going to work and more HD and VOD. No SciFi HD in the listings even though on the card listing the new channels to come out with the upgrade has it in Limited Basic tier.

Really?! SciFi HD is coming to the Bay Area?

Hi Guys -

I'm in Los Gatos (95030) - Los Gatos Blvd and Fillmer. Comcast upgraded from coax to fiber about two weeks ago but I haven't heard boo since on any actual new services (additional HD channels, OnDemand, etc). I have both an HD Motorola cable box and a HD Tivo Series 3. The agents at Comcast are clueless on the upgrade plan, they simply say "It's not an option on my screen". Anyone have any experience or knowledge on how long Comcast typically takes from fiber install to actual service upgrade???

Thanks in advance,
Allen

Hi Guys -

I'm in Los Gatos (95030) - Los Gatos Blvd and Fillmer. Comcast upgraded from coax to fiber about two weeks ago but I haven't heard boo since on any actual new services (additional HD channels, OnDemand, etc). I have both an HD Motorola cable box and a HD Tivo Series 3. The agents at Comcast are clueless on the upgrade plan, they simply say "It's not an option on my screen". Anyone have any experience or knowledge on how long Comcast typically takes from fiber install to actual service upgrade???

Thanks in advance,
Allen

saw them working on a pole today right near your house on l.g. blvd. wonder what's taking them so long to get the new service up?

WOO HOO!!! Upgraded finally!! Checked channels this morning before going to work and more HD and VOD. No SciFi HD in the listings even though on the card listing the new channels to come out with the upgrade has it in Limited Basic tier. Anyone else in Santa Rosa upgraded too? I'm on West Ninth :eek: between North Dutton and Stony Point for reference. JasonQG, efball, montyward, keenan, any others? It seems that Comcast kept their word, more or less on the upgrade.

Can you post a pic of that lineup card? SciFi-HD in Limited Basic doesn't make sense, sure it isn't Digital Classic, or whatever it is they call it now?

WOO HOO!!! Upgraded finally!! Checked channels this morning before going to work and more HD and VOD. No SciFi HD in the listings even though on the card listing the new channels to come out with the upgrade has it in Limited Basic tier. Anyone else in Santa Rosa upgraded too? I'm on West Ninth :eek: between North Dutton and Stony Point for reference. JasonQG, efball, montyward, keenan, any others? It seems that Comcast kept their word, more or less on the upgrade.

I was in the Comcast office to pick up the DVR box and the lady showed me a map showing each neighborhood node with the ones highlighted having been upgraded. It was about half of the city, maybe a little less. She also said they are working from Highway 12/Farmers Lane to the east at the current time. Then again, she could be full of it. Glad to hear upgrades are happening though.

Really?! SciFi HD is coming to the Bay Area?

Apparently, but not in my area 95401.

Here's a scan of the card. I had to crop it but the pertinent info is there.

She also said they are working from Highway 12/Farmers Lane to the east at the current time.

Sounds like they passed me by, ah well...story of my life...:p

Here's a scan of the card. I had to crop it but the pertinent info is there.

That's weird, but hey, works for me! :)

Here's a scan of the card. I had to crop it but the pertinent info is there.

Is anyone able to tune in 736? I'm not able to, but I also don't know whether there's any delay between a station showing up on an integrated box and in the cablecard station map.

Is anyone able to tune in 736? I'm not able to, but I also don't know whether there's any delay between a station showing up on an integrated box and in the cablecard station map.

I am happy either way, as it looks like 736 will be coming our way to deliver us SciFi-HD! Yippie!

WOO HOO!!! Upgraded finally!! Checked channels this morning before going to work and more HD and VOD. No SciFi HD in the listings even though on the card listing the new channels to come out with the upgrade has it in Limited Basic tier. Anyone else in Santa Rosa upgraded too? I'm on West Ninth :eek: between North Dutton and Stony Point for reference. JasonQG, efball, montyward, keenan, any others? It seems that Comcast kept their word, more or less on the upgrade.

No, check back with me in 2010. Still my prediction.

No, check back with me in 2010. Still my prediction.

Comcast will hookup everyone else in town first and leave us two for last since we've been the biggest complainers. :p:D

Comcast will hookup everyone else in town first and leave us two for last since we've been the biggest complainers. :p:D

Quite possible. I know they already skipped me, since I'm real close to where they started.

Does anyone know if Comcast is planning on showing UFC and Pride Fights PPV in HD On Demand or Boxing?