That's wrong. I dealt with this a few years ago. I just looked at my bill yesterday. For this bill, I have 2 Comcast DVR's and 1 Tivo. I'm charged:

$15.95 x 2 for the 2 DVR's
$1.79 for the CableCARD (two single-stream)
$6.99 for 1 extra outlet

All digital packages include one outlet so that takes care of one of the DVR's. The extra outlet charge is for the other DVR. And NO extra outlet charge for the Tivo/CableCARD.

Just last week I exchanged one of the DVR's for a multi-stream CableCARD (got another Tivo). My next bill should not have any additional outlet fee.

So sorry, to repeat this and make it ABSOLUTELY clear.. Are you saying that I could get a CableCard for my Tivo (assuming M card) and my bill would ONLY go up $1.50/month?

I too have been under the impression it would go up ~$8.50 (and close to $20 total if I wanted to get cablecards for my S3 AND my TivoHD).

I still would love to try to get cablecards for free instead of the 'boxes' they're talking about... But if I can really just pay for a CableCard for my TivoHD, I might just do it (and possibly leave my S3 for JUST analog that remains)... and still potentially get one of the 'free' boxes just to play with for my hard drive/DVD recorder. (Yeah, I have a lot of recorders. I technically have 7 tuners, counting 2 unsubscribed series 1s... well 1 has been unplugged for a long time, one is about to lose its subscription.)

The $6.99 ADO fee includes one cable card
An S3 requires a 2nd card so that would cost $6.99 + $1.75

or $15.73 at least in San Jose/Cupertino it does.

All I can say is that about 2 years ago (when I got my Tivo S3) I called them and said I shouldn't be charged the additional outlet fee now that I was using a CableCARD device. The CS pretty quickly agreed and made the change. I have since moved, changed my package a few times, and I'm still not paying for it. I guess I'll find out next month now that I have 2 Tivo's. I'll post to let everyone know what happens.

There should be ADO fees for CableCards. Otherwise, why can't I get as many CableCards as I want from Comcast, for FREE?

is this thread about money 24/7 ?

any news when we will get some new HD channels?

speed, msnbc, bravo, fx,fox, fox business... etc..

didn't comcast and HDnet/cuban sign a deal?

After hearing all these complaints about Comcast overcharges, I thought I'd mention:

You can watch most shows on the internet, for free.

All I can say is that about 2 years ago (when I got my Tivo S3) I called them and said I shouldn't be charged the additional outlet fee now that I was using a CableCARD device. The CS pretty quickly agreed and made the change. I have since moved, changed my package a few times, and I'm still not paying for it. I guess I'll find out next month now that I have 2 Tivo's. I'll post to let everyone know what happens.

The digital starter subscription (Whichever package) Includes one Digital outlet. It's only when you got to additional Devices or require additional cable cards for a device that they nickle and dime you.

So if you have just one TivoHD there would be no additional fees.
If you have just one S3 there is a fee for the 2nd cable card.
If you have 2 TivoHD, there is one charge for an additional digital outlet.
If you have one TivoHD and one S3, there is one additional cable card and one additional digital outlet charge.

That's wrong. I dealt with this a few years ago. I just looked at my bill yesterday. For this bill, I have 2 Comcast DVR's and 1 Tivo. I'm charged:

$15.95 x 2 for the 2 DVR's
$1.79 for the CableCARD (two single-stream)
$6.99 for 1 extra outlet

All digital packages include one outlet so that takes care of one of the DVR's. The extra outlet charge is for the other DVR. And NO extra outlet charge for the Tivo/CableCARD.

Just last week I exchanged one of the DVR's for a multi-stream CableCARD (got another Tivo). My next bill should not have any additional outlet fee.
Be happy with what you got. You convinced the rep to implement something different from Comcast's billing policies.

For normal situations when people aren't so fortunate, each STB needs to be associated with an outlet, either the "free" one that comes with the service, or an explicit one that you pay for using the "additional outlet fee"

You are basically paying $6.99 less per month than most people would be paying.

The $6.99 AO fee might apply to Cablecards also. I don't know, never used them. I think the 1st one is free, and the 2nd one for use in the same device (ie Tivo HD) is $1.75, but if it's a 2nd/3rd/etc Cablecard used in another device, in another room/etc.. it may be $6.99.
The first CableCARD is only "free" in the sense that it is already bundled into the Additional Outlet fee. It isn't really free because your bill went up by $6.99 and part of that fee (internally at Comcast) goes towards leasing the device.

Here's my latest bill (I have two TiVos, one with an M-card and one with two S-cards, and a set-top box; also note that all of them have full HD access):

Standard Cable -- $60
Digital Preferred -- $17
2x Digital Additional Outlets -- $14 ($7 each)
2x Dual C-card Dig Access -- $3.58 ($1.79 each)
High Definition TV -- $7
Sports Entertainment Package -- $5
WWE 24-7 Subscription -- $8

With taxes and fees, it's now around $125/month - and that's without Comcast Phone or Internet.

-- Don
You are paying for too many CableCARDs. There should only be 1 x $1.79 fee in your situation.

HD STB - included "free" outlet + $7 HDTV equipment fee
TiVo S3 - additional outlet $6.99 + $1.79 Dual C-card fee (first C-card included in ADO fee)
TiVo HD - additional outlet $6.99 (first C-Card included in ADO fee)

Is anyone else missing the Bravo channel? It is normally on 181, but today it is missing from the program guide and when I punch in 181 on the remote it takes me to 182. My old replay shows it on both 181 and 733, but this doesn't help if the Comcast box won't allow those channels.

Is anyone else missing the Bravo channel? It is normally on 181, but today it is missing from the program guide and when I punch in 181 on the remote it takes me to 182. My old replay shows it on both 181 and 733, but this doesn't help if the Comcast box won't allow those channels.Working OK here. Must be a problem with your headend.

If Comcast was genuinely confused about $7 charge, they would return your fee for last 3 years. Try that too. I would not be surprised at all it is a deliberate policy at some high level to keep reps misinformed to their advantage.

After an hour on the phone talking with three different people at Comcast, they agreed to credit me back $77 for the past 11 months of overcharging me. They said they needed to research my bills for the previous 2 years before they credit me those as well.

There's definitely misinformation inside Comcast. One of the guys I talked to asked his supervisor about the $7 charge who informed him that it was needed for HD content. When I pointed out that their website says HD content is free--only the box should have a rental fee--he agreed with me that I should have the fee removed.

They also said they'd have to lookup the promotion I'm supposed to be on. I was supposed to get Digital Starter for $33/month for a year, but it prematurely expired after 6 months, so check your bill if you also had that.

Hope this helps anyone else in my situation!

The first CableCARD is only "free" in the sense that it is already bundled into the Additional Outlet fee. It isn't really free because your bill went up by $6.99 and part of that fee (internally at Comcast) goes towards leasing the device..

For "additional" devices yes, but not for the 1st one.

.

For "additional" devices yes, but not for the 1st one.

I think sfhub is right (as usual) : Esentially cable card is free rental. It does not matter whether it first or "additional". What you pay for is for "additional outlet".

Tivo S3 is special case since it does not support multistream card (Comcast made an exception by saying we will only charge "1.75" for extra card, rather than 6.99 for additional outlet).

That's what Comcast is charging me ($6.99 AO fee, no cablecard fee) for the 2nd TiVo. So that's correct?

yes. sounds correct.

There should be ADO fees for CableCards. Otherwise, why can't I get as many CableCards as I want from Comcast, for FREE?

(This is hypothetical since it has been cleared up that the additional outlet fee _is_ apparently normal and expected, which is what most of us thought all along..)

But for your hypothetical, because most people have to pay for extra cablecards. In other words, it's $7 vs $1.50 each. (So I guess I'll continue to go without cablecards. I can imagine paying $1.50/month for one for my TivoHD.. Not $7/month for my TivoHD, plus more if I want to get my S3 hooked up too.)

We just moved to San Jose and are looking to start with Limited Basic. From what I have read through the threads, this is limited to channels 2-35, but others who've been grandfathered in are getting other channels too. Also, OTA local broadcast channels (NBC,ABC,CBS,PBC) are available in HD with a QAM tuner (my HDTV). Even if I sign up today, limited basic will still be analog even though the switch to digital is imminent. Is all of this correct? Is there anybody who has recently signed up for limited basic here who is getting anything better than the above?

Thanks.

The current theory is that Limited basic will stay analog for a while, yes.

As to whether you can get local HD channels, you should, but it depends on how the frequencies are set up on your head end. Comcast will install what's called a "trap" on your line, this blocks (filters out) channels 32-71 or so (after 71 they come back, you might get stuff like TVland or Travel Channel on 72-73). Unfortunately if your local HD channels fall in that frequency range, they will get filtered out also.

According to some people they aren't supposed to let that happen.. but I mean it's Comcast, one hand never has a clue what the other is doing.. they change frequencies on a whim and quite often they fall into the trap range.

The current theory is that Limited basic will stay analog for a while, yes.

As to whether you can get local HD channels, you should, but it depends on how the frequencies are set up on your head end. Comcast will install what's called a "trap" on your line, this blocks (filters out) channels 32-71 or so (after 71 they come back, you might get stuff like TVland or Travel Channel on 72-73). Unfortunately if your local HD channels fall in that frequency range, they will get filtered out also.

According to some people they aren't supposed to let that happen.. but I mean it's Comcast, one hand never has a clue what the other is doing.. they change frequencies on a whim and quite often they fall into the trap range.Hmmm... has anyone seen a case of Limited Basic not getting the HD locals? With Limited Basic they will rent you a HD STB (at least they did when I first subscribed a couple of years ago), so if the trap blocks those frequencies, even the HD STB would not get the HD locals, would it not?

That is generally true. But with Comcast, unless something is a rule or local law, nothing is assured. Is there a rule that over the air should be available to 'Limited Basic'?

That is generally true. But with Comcast, unless something is a rule or local law, nothing is assured. Is there a rule that over the air should be available to 'Limited Basic'?

That said, I don't think Comcast will go out of their way to block Local HD channels to Limited Basic customers. It is just that if some of these get assigned to wrong frequency by mistake at some local head end, then it might take much longer to fix.

No I highly doubt that Comcast will block any local channels and as I've suggested before that they will take away the Extended Basic channels in analog (more or less announced) and move the digital versions in the filter area and hopefully the HD versions there too. That will get them more subscriptions from people who don't want a box but have an HD set with a QAM tuner. Right now they have to encrypt the HD versions for subscription management but not if moved to the filter area. Time will tell.

I think non-local HD channels should remain encrypted. It's too easy for people to remove the traps.

FCC regs on encrypting HD locals has been interpreted several ways, but to the best of my knowledge, Comcast adheres to the most common interpretation that local broadcast channels are to delivered in the clear regardless of whether or not they're analog or digital.

IOW, anything that you can get with an antenna, that Comcast also carries, will remain unencrypted.

Comcast promptly sent me a couple of DTAs I'll use on a couple of secondary TVs. I must say, the digital picture on my 18 year old Magnovox has never looked this good.

Comcast is supposed to switch in my area to 'mostly' digital on March 9th. Is there any word as to when/if/how soon they'll add HD channels (maybe the ones that some in the Bay Area received in November)?

IOW, anything that you can get with an antenna, that Comcast also carries, will remain unencrypted.

I think the question is if there is a similar restriction that it should be available (not just unencrypted) to Limited Basic customers?

Most likely there isn't such a rule, otherwise PSIP info wouldn't be so messed up.

When is this happening?
Looks like it's official. I just got a message on my box saying Comcast SportsNet California will be moving from channel 400 to 89 on march 11th.The message mentioned the A's games now being on Comcast SportsNet California but no mention of the Sharks. So I guess we can assume they'll stay on Comcast SportsNet Bay Area for the rest of the season. No mention of a HD channel for Comcast SportsNet California being added though so I guess we have to wait and see on that one

I think the question is if there is a similar restriction that it should be available (not just unencrypted) to Limited Basic customers?

Most likely there isn't such a rule, otherwise PSIP info wouldn't be so messed up.

I'm not sure what the question is. To the best of my knowledge, at least in Santa Rosa, all local OTA broadcast channels are available with a Limited Basic subscription. Likewise, all local HD channels are also available with just Limited Basic. The only reason for getting higher tiers is to receive cablenets, both SD and HD along with premium channels.

No mention of a HD channel for Comcast SportsNet California being added though so I guess we have to wait and see on that one

Look at channel 720 and tell me what it says.......:eek: :p

Yes Comcast has bought controlling interest in FSN-HD Bay Area and renamed it CSN-HD. That's where the Sharks and the Giants have had their HD programing for quite awhile and the last I heard that was not changing, as a matter of fact they said they would increase the amount of coverage for the local teams on that channel.

Now the A's are a different story, they are the red headed stepchild of the local sports teams ( sort of like the 550 MHz areas were for so long ). They get very little HD coverage even though they are probably a better team ( right now ) than the Giants and that's coming from a die hard Giants fan. One can only hope that will change in the future.

Laters,
Mikef5

I'm not sure what the question is. To the best of my knowledge, at least in Santa Rosa, all local OTA broadcast channels are available with a Limited Basic subscription. Likewise, all local HD channels are also available with just Limited Basic. The only reason for getting higher tiers is to receive cablenets, both SD and HD along with premium channels.

Jim is absolutely right. The last I heard when I asked about this very same thing was... What you are legally receiving in the clear right now will remain that way when we shift to digital. That was a while ago but I have heard nothing officially to say that has changed and I deal in facts and not rumors so until I hear officially otherwise that is what they intend on doing.

Laters,
Mikef5

Look at channel 720 and tell me what it says.......:eek: :p

Yes Comcast has bought controlling interest in FSN-HD Bay Area and renamed it CSN-HD. That's where the Sharks and the Giants have had their HD programing for quite awhile and the last I heard that was not changing, as a matter of fact they said they would increase the amount of coverage for the local teams on that channel.

Now the A's are a different story, they are the red headed stepchild of the local sports teams ( sort of like the 550 MHz areas were for so long ). They get very little HD coverage even though they are probably a better team ( right now ) than the Giants and that's coming from a die hard Giants fan. One can only hope that will change in the future.

Laters,
Mikef5

I think you missed what he was saying, channel 720 is not CSN-HD, it's CSNBA-HD and carries the Giants and Warriors. Comcast Sports Net California will carry the A's and the Sharks if I'm not mistaken and is primarily a Sacramento area channel which also carries the Sac Kings, there is no HD version for the bay area.

This was hinted at awhile back here, in other words, A's and Sharks games will no longer be on CSNBA-HD anymore. It was first noticed when a DirecTV exec questioned Comcast's reasoning for removing content from CSNBA and then asking more money for carriage of the channel. We talked about here a month or so ago.

Talk about timing !!!!

COMCAST SPORTSNET BAY AREA OPENS NEW ERA IN NORTHERN CALIFORNIA SPORTS COVERAGE



Network to Launch Extensive Schedule of Original Sports News, Debate and Analysis on Monday, April 6

Creation of 100+ Person News Team Includes Experienced On-Air Personalities

Finishing Touches on 37,000 Square Foot State-of-the-Art Studio; Facility to Serve as Hub of Local Sports Coverage



SAN FRANCISCO, CA -- Comcast SportsNet Bay Area, the home of “Authentic Bay Area Sports,” today unveiled details

surrounding the launch of Northern California’s most comprehensive sports programming operation, including signature

sports news and analysis shows, the creation of a 100+ person newsroom featuring some of the most experienced on-air

personalities in sports, and a brand new state-of-the-art studio facility.



Comcast SportsNet Bay Area will debut its lineup of original sports news programming on Monday, April 6. Signature

shows will include SportsNet Central and Chronicle Live.



SportsNet Central will be the region’s only live daily locally-focused sports news show, and will provide Northern

California sports fans with in-depth, comprehensive news coverage on hometown teams, breaking local and national

news, up-to-the-minute scores, the best local video highlights and daily insider reports on the Bay Area’s teams.

Concentrating on key local stories and scores from across the Northern California region, along with exclusive

interviews with players and coaches, and unprecedented access to hometown teams, SportsNet Central will be the place

for local fans to turn seven nights a week with live 30-minute newscasts at 6:00 p.m., 10:30 p.m. and 12 midnight.



Also debuting on Comcast SportsNet Bay Area on April 6 will be the show Chronicle Live, produced in partnership with

the San Francisco Chronicle sports department. Chronicle Live, a new, hour-long daily sports talk show, features a

rotating panel of sports experts from the San Francisco Chronicle including reporters and columnists, and other

sports authorities from the region. Chronicle Live will analyze and debate hot sports topics each day from 5:00

p.m. to 6:00 p.m., and be hosted by veteran Bay Area sports announcer Greg Papa.



Comcast SportsNet’s on-air team of experts is backed by a newly formed 100+ person news team of reporters, editors,

producers, talent bookers, researchers, and other professional positions. Since January 2008, Comcast SportsNet Bay

Area has hired more than 90 news, creative and production professionals, growing its staff of 30 employees in 2008

to over 120. Comcast SportsNet’s on-air team is comprised of nine anchors/reporters:

SCOTT REISS Reiss joined Comcast SportsNet Bay Area in October 2008 and has anchored preview and wrap up analysis

for San Jose Sharks and Golden State Warriors telecasts, and other shows. His background includes eight years at

ESPN. Reiss graduated from Stanford University where he did play-by-play at the school’s radio station for the

Cardinal baseball and men’s basketball teams.



DAMON ANDREWS Andrews brings nearly 20 years experience to Comcast SportsNet Bay Area, and most recently worked in

Los Angeles as a television sports director and anchor. Before that, he was the national sports anchor for FSN Bay

Area, FSN Chicago and FSN Ohio. Andrews has been recognized with numerous industry awards for journalism.



MATT MORRISON Morrison helped launch the start-up news operation at Comcast SportsNet Northwest. His experience

includes national exposure with CNN/SI, FOX Sports, and CNBC. Morrison grew up in Tiburon, graduated from Redwood

High School in Larkspur, and was an All-MCAL (Marin County Athletic League) in football and baseball.



GREG PAPA Host of Comcast SportsNet Bay Area’s Chronicle Live, Papa is a 22-year veteran of Bay Area sports

broadcasting and one of the most accomplished announcers in the sports television industry. He has been the

play-by-play voice for the San Francisco Giants, Oakland A’s, Oakland Raiders and Golden State Warriors. His

national network assignments have included work with ABC, NBC, ESPN and Turner Sports.



MINDI BACH Bach has worked with Comcast SportsNet Bay Area (formerly FSN Bay Area and SportsChannel Pacific) since

1995 in various roles, most recently as host of A's Pregame Live and A's Postgame Live. She was a reporter on San

Francisco Giants telecasts during the 2005 MLB season and has also worked at several Bay Area television stations as

an anchor/reporter.



CHUCK FISHER Born and raised in San Francisco, Fisher was a sports anchor and reporter at various television

stations around the country, most recently in Dallas, TX. Fisher began attending Giants games at Candlestick Park

when he was just five years old. Fisher graduated from Sacred Heart Cathedral Preparatory in San Francisco,

attended City College of San Francisco, and graduated from Sonoma State.



DAVE BENZ Benz joins Comcast SportsNet Bay Area after working as a sports anchor/reporter in Washington, DC.

Before that, he worked at FSN Rocky Mountain and the MountainWest Sports Network – The Mtn. He hosted the

nationally televised AFL Weekly, Rockies All-Access, and many other shows. He also served as a play-by-play analyst

for the AFL’s Colorado Crush and men’s and women’s college basketball.



JAYMEE SIRE Sire joined Comcast SportsNet Bay Area in January 2008 and has served as a reporter on Oakland A’s,

Golden State Warriors and San Jose Sharks telecasts, and other shows. She was previously a sports reporter in San

Diego, CA, where she received several broadcasting accolades. At Washington State University, Sire received the

prestigious Judith Waller Award for Outstanding Senior Woman in Broadcasting in 2002.



KATE LONGWORTH Longworth joined Comcast SportsNet Bay Area in June 2008 and has served as a reporter on San Jose

Sharks and San Jose Earthquakes telecasts. She has hosted episodes of A Conversion With, Giants Classic Games, and

various specials. Longworth has also worked for Comcast SportsNet Mid-Atlantic and MountainWest Sports Network –

The Mtn. She was the first female sports anchor/reporter in Palm Springs, CA.



“Our lineup of entertaining, original and insightful programming will give fans the most in-depth, comprehensive

coverage on all Northern California sports on a daily basis,” said Ted Griggs, Vice President and General Manager,

Comcast SportsNet Bay Area. “For Bay Area sports fans, Comcast SportsNet will become the ultimate source for

complete local news coverage, breaking stories, highlights, scores, analysis and feature stories on their hometown

teams.”



“I am delighted to announce our team of sports news professionals and analysts,” said Chris Olivere, News Director,

Comcast SportsNet Bay Area. This talented group will provide fans with the best local sports coverage in the

country, bar none. We are looking forward to April 6, when we introduce our programming and our people to Bay Area

sports fans and change the way sports are covered and debated,”



SportsNet Central and Chronicle Live will originate from the network’s brand new state-of-the art studio, newsroom

and HD production facilities occupying 37,000 square feet at 370 3rd Street (South of Market) in San Francisco.



Comcast Sports Group operates 10 sports networks that cover more than 2,400 live sporting events annually and

deliver comprehensive sports news and analysis to 40 million cable and satellite homes. Comcast Sports Group’s

networks are: Comcast SportsNet Bay Area, Comcast SportsNet California, Comcast SportsNet Chicago, Comcast SportsNet

Mid-Atlantic, Comcast SportsNet New England, Comcast SportsNet Northwest, Comcast SportsNet Philadelphia, SNY, The

Mtn. – Mountain West Sports Network, and CSS. These networks provide live game coverage of 18 professional teams,

as well as college, minor league and other sports. For more information, see ComcastSportsNet.com.



# # #



COMCAST SPORTSNET CALIFORNIA ANNOUNCES INAUGURAL OAKLAND ATHLETICS TELECAST SCHEDULE



147-Game Schedule on Comcast SportsNet California is Most Comprehensive Telecast Season in Team History

Schedule Includes 75 Games in HDTV and Expanded A’s Pregame Live and A’s Postgame Live Coverage



SAN FRANCISCO, CA – Comcast SportsNet California, the new exclusive cable television home of the Oakland Athletics,

today announced the most comprehensive Athletics television schedule in the team’s history. Comcast SportsNet

California will exclusively present 147 Athletics games (145 regular season, 2 exhibition) for the 2009 Major League

Baseball season, an increase of 37 games from the Athletics’ overall telecast schedule last year. Comcast SportsNet

California’s coverage also includes 75 HDTV telecasts, a 75% increase from the previous season and the most HDTV

Athletics telecasts ever offered, as well as comprehensive A’s Pregame Live and A’s Postgame Live coverage. Today’s

announcement was made by Larry Eldridge, Vice President and General Manager, Comcast SportsNet California.



Prior to most home and away games, A’s Pregame Live will present keys to the game, exclusive pregame interviews,

feature stories on Athletic players and the latest team news. Immediately following the final out, A’s Postgame

Live will feature expert analysis, highlights, clubhouse interviews and player reaction, and a preview of the next

game. The reporting for A’s Pregame Live and A’s Postgame Live will be based at the stadium and anchored from the

network’s new state-of-the art studio, 24-hour newsroom and HD production facilities at 370 3rd Street (South of

Market) in San Francisco. On-air personnel for A’s Pregame Live and A’s Postgame Live will be announced at a later

date. Calling all the A’s games will be the veteran announcing team of Glen Kuiper and Ray Fosse.



For approximately 24 hours following each game, Comcast SportsNet California’s Athletics telecasts will be available

on Comcast Digital Cable’s ON DEMAND Channel 1 at no additional cost. Select Athletics HDTV games will also be

available ON DEMAND Channel 1.



Prior to the start of the regular season, Comcast SportsNet California will present Cactus League action from

Phoenix Municipal Stadium, when the Athletics take on the San Francisco Giants on Saturday, March 14 at 1:00 p.m.

In addition, the telecast schedule features a contest from the annual Bay Bridge Series as the Athletics play on the

road against the Giants on Thursday, April 2 at 7:00 p.m.



The first of 145 regular season games will be seen on Monday, April 6 at 7:00 p.m. as the Athletics begin the 2009

season on the road against the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. The Athletics take on the 2008 A.L. West Champion

Angels eighteen times on Comcast SportsNet California (April 6, 7, 8, 9; May 4, 5; July 16, 17, 18, 19; August 28,

29, 30; September 25, 26, 27; October 2, 4). The Athletics return to Oakland for their home opener on Friday, April

10 against the Seattle Mariners with coverage beginning at 6:30 p.m. with A’s Pregame Live and the game telecast at

7:00 p.m.



Extensive Athletics coverage includes games against two-time World Series Champion Boston Red Sox (April 13, 14, 15;

July 6, 7, 8, 27, 28, 29, 30), the 26-time World Series Champion New York Yankees (April 20, 21, 22; July 24, 25,

26; August 17, 18, 19), the 2008 A.L. Champion Tampa Bay Rays (April 24, 26; May 18, 19, 20; July 10, 12) and the

2008 A.L. Central Champion Chicago White Sox (June 1, 2, 3; August 14, 16; September 8, 9).



Interleague action includes games against their cross-bay rivals, the San Francisco Giants (June 12, 13, 14, 22, 23,

24), the 2008 N.L. West Champion Los Angeles Dodgers (June 16, 17, 18), the Arizona Diamondbacks (May 22, 23, 24),

the San Diego Padres (June 19, 20, 21) and the Colorado Rockies (June 26, 27, 28).



“We are delighted to be the new home of the Oakland Athletics,” said Eldridge. “For the first time A’s fans have a

dedicated and exclusive destination where they can follow their favorite team, and fans will get now more games,

more insider coverage and more HD with this change. Our 2009 telecast schedule of a record 147 games includes 75 HD

telecasts, expanded live pregame and postgame shows, and some innovative programming ‘twists’ that will make Comcast

SportsNet California A’s coverage unlike anything that has ever come before.”



About Comcast SportsNet California

Comcast SportsNet California, the home of leading Northern California sports coverage, is the regional sports

network for Oakland Athletics baseball; Sacramento Kings and Monarchs basketball; San Jose Earthquakes soccer;

University of California, Berkeley basketball and football; West Coast Conference basketball; CIF high school

basketball and football; and other sports-related content, including The Gary Radnich Show, Raiders Report, Raiders

Press Conference Live, SportsRise and SportsNight.



Comcast Sports Group operates 10 sports networks that cover more than 2,400 live sporting events annually and

deliver comprehensive sports news and analysis to 40 million cable and satellite homes. Comcast Sports Group’s

networks are: Comcast SportsNet Bay Area, Comcast SportsNet California, Comcast SportsNet Chicago, Comcast SportsNet

Mid-Atlantic, Comcast SportsNet New England, Comcast SportsNet Northwest, Comcast SportsNet Philadelphia, SNY, The

Mtn. – Mountain West Sports Network, and CSS. These networks provide live game coverage 18 professional teams, as

well as college, minor league and other sports. For more information, see ComcastSportsNet.com.



# # #



COMCAST SPORTS NET BAY AREA ANNOUNCES

2009 SAN FRANCISCO GIANTS COVERAGE ENHANCEMENTS AND TELECAST SCHEDULE

Schedule Features 137 Games - 134 Regular Season Telecasts and Three Exhibition Games

Network Expands Live Pregame and Postgame Coverage and Increases HDTV Coverage



SAN FRANCISCO, CA – Comcast SportsNet Bay Area, the home of “Authentic Bay Area Sports,” announced today its 2009

San Francisco Giants coverage plans, including additional live pre- and post-game coverage and more games in HD than

ever before. Comcast SportsNet Bay Area will offer viewers 137 Giants games (134 regular season, 3 exhibition), of

which 75 telecasts will be presented in HDTV. The announcement was made by Ted Griggs, Vice President and General

Manager, Comcast SportsNet Bay Area.



Comcast SportsNet Bay Area begins its coverage on Sunday, March 15 at 1:00 p.m. when the Giants host the Kansas City

Royals in Cactus League action from Scottsdale Stadium in Arizona. Additional spring training contests include

Thursday, March 26 at 7:30 p.m. against the Chicago Cubs and Sunday, April 5 at 1:00 p.m. versus the Los Angeles

Dodgers.



Comcast SportsNet Bay Area will present the Giants home opener at AT&T Park against the 2008 N.L. Wild Card Winner,

the Milwaukee Brewers on Tuesday, April 7. Extensive Giants coverage on Comcast SportsNet Bay Area against playoff

contenders include nine contests with the 2008 N.L. West Champion Los Angeles Dodgers (April 13, 16, 27, 29; May 10;

August 11, 12; September 13, 20), six games against the 2008 World Series Champion Philadelphia Phillies (July 30;

August 1, 2; September 1, 2, 3), five matchups with the 2008 N.L. Central Champion Chicago Cubs (May 4, 5; September

24, 25, 27) and six games versus N.L. East contenders the New York Mets (May 14, 15; August 14, 15, 16, 17).

Interleague action includes games against their cross-bay rivals, the Oakland Athletics (June 12, 14, 22, 24), the

2008 A.L. West Champion Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (June 15, 16, 17), the Seattle Mariners (May 23, 24) and the

Texas Rangers (June 19, 21).



Comcast SportsNet Bay Area will present 75 Giants games in HDTV, a 25% increase from the previous season and the

most HDTV Giants telecasts the network has offered in a single season. For approximately 24 hours following each

game, Comcast SportsNet Bay Area’s Giants telecasts will be available on Comcast Digital Cable’s ON DEMAND Channel 1

at no additional cost. Select Giants HDTV games will also be available ON DEMAND Channel 1.



Prior to most home and away games, Giants Pregame Live will present a preview of the upcoming game, exclusive

pregame interviews, feature stories on Giants players and the latest team news. Immediately following the final

out, Giants Postgame Live will feature in-depth game analysis, highlights, clubhouse interviews and player reaction,

and a preview of the next game. All the reporting for Giants Pregame Live and Giants Postgame Live will be from the

stadium and anchored from the network’s new state-of-the art studio, 24-hour newsroom and HD production facilities

at 370 3rd Street (South of Market) in San Francisco. On-air personnel for Giants Pregame Live and Giants Postgame

Live will be announced at a later date.



“We’re pleased to offer our viewers the most comprehensive coverage ever in the history of Giants baseball,” said

Griggs. “Comcast SportsNet Bay Area’s coverage of the Giants continues to improve and gets stronger every season as

part of our commitment to give Giants fans inside, in-depth coverage. With a 2009 baseball telecast schedule of 137

Giants games, 75 HDTV telecasts, along with expanded Giants Pregame Live and Giants Postgame Live, Giants fans can

look forward to exciting baseball on Comcast SportsNet Bay Area all season long.”



Comcast Sports Group operates 10 sports networks that cover more than 2,400 live sporting events annually and

deliver comprehensive sports news and analysis to 40 million cable and satellite homes. Comcast Sports Group’s

networks are: Comcast SportsNet Bay Area, Comcast SportsNet California, Comcast SportsNet Chicago, Comcast SportsNet

Mid-Atlantic, Comcast SportsNet New England, Comcast SportsNet Northwest, Comcast SportsNet Philadelphia, SNY, The

Mtn. – Mountain West Sports Network, and CSS. These networks provide live game coverage 18 professional teams, as

well as college, minor league and other sports. For more information, see ComcastSportsNet.com.



# # #

And before you ask..... Yes there will be a new HD channel for the Oakland A's ........ Look for it on channel 721. :D

I can almost taste the hot dogs and beer now........

Laters,
Mikef5

And before you ask..... Yes there will be a new HD channel for the Oakland A's ........ Look for it on channel 721. :D

I can almost taste the hot dogs and beer now........

Laters,
Mikef5

So, essentially, they've removed the A's from CSNBA, added them to the Sac station -CSNC- and are now going to give us the HD version of that station here in the bay area. Does that mean we'll see Kings games here?

It's understandable why DirecTV was complaining about the rate increases for CSNBA given there's now less content.

So, essentially, they've removed the A's from CSNBA, added them to the Sac station -CSNC- and are now going to give us the HD version of that station here in the bay area. Does that mean we'll see Kings games here?

It's understandable why DirecTV was complaining about the rate increases for CSNBA given there's now less content.
Let's see, the Kings... Don't they have a big ball and bounce it on the floor and run up and down the court..... Basketball.... ARGH !!! :D

You know I didn't ask about the Kings but it might not because of market restrictions. This is the Bay Area not the Sacramento area. I don't know who's area the Kings would be encroaching in on but then again since CSNCA is now showing the A's, which is not a Sac area team, they just might show the Kings also down here. We'll just have to see when this new HD station gets added, I'll ask then ;)

Laters,
Mikef5

Let's see, the Kings... Don't they have a big ball and bounce it on the floor and run up and down the court..... Basketball.... ARGH !!! :D

You know I didn't ask about the Kings but it might not because of market restrictions. This is the Bay Area not the Sacramento area. I don't know who's area the Kings would be encroaching in on but then again since CSNCA is now showing the A's, which is not a Sac area team, they just might just show the Kings also down here. We'll just have to see when this new station gets added, I'll ask then ;)

Laters,
Mikef5
I'm pretty sure Kings games will be blacked out here, but you never know until they make it official. In fact, I think all the pro games on that channel, other than the A's and Earthquakes, will be blacked out here.

I'm pretty sure Kings games will be blacked out here, but you never know until they make it official. In fact, I think all the pro games on that channel, other than the A's and Earthquakes, will be blacked out here.

I really hate it when they black out games. It's one of the reasons I don't have the Sports Package, you never know what will get shown or what's going to be blacked out. I don't like paying for just some of the games, or those they deem should be shown in a particular area. Show them all, regardless of the area. I know this is a League thing and not a Comcast thing but it still irks me, I'm hoping when they finally add the MLB-HD channel here in the Bay Area it won't be put in the Sports Package like the NFL-HD was.

Laters,
Mikef5

I really hate it when they black out games. It's one of the reasons I don't have the Sports Package, you never know what will get shown or what's going to be blacked out. I don't like paying for just some of the games, or those they deem should be shown in a particular area. Show them all, regardless of the area. I know this is a League thing and not a Comcast thing but it still irks me, I'm hoping when they finally add the MLB-HD channel here in the Bay Area it won't be put in the Sports Package like the NFL-HD was.

Laters,
Mikef5

No, I highly doubt it will be in the Sports Package as Comcast is part owner of the channel, they'll want it as accessible as possible, more eyeballs, more money. That's one of the reasons why the NFL is having such resistance to getting their net on lower tiers that have more viewers, they own the whole network and didn't do a shared ownership thing like MLB did. Plus, there's the content issue, only 8-10 games out of some 260 played per year? Not very compelling.

Interesting, I wonder if DirecTV will unlock CSN-California for the Bay Area then.

Another local HD sports channel is good news, but that's just silly if they black out the other teams that play.. Maybe I'll get some more Cal games in HD now though.. hmmm. :)

I'm pretty sure Kings games will be blacked out herePardon me for asking, but why? Isn't that like blacking out (non-A's/Giants) Braves games on TBS or Cubs games on WGN?

I can understand if they want to black out the CSN-California broadcast of a Kings-Warriors game, as it directly competes with a San Francisco-area broadcast, but why black out, say, a Kings-Celtics game, especially if it doesn't have any pro sports competition on CSNBA?

-- Don

I have a setup using an HDHomerun with Mythtv and a new Samsung tv. When I do a channel scan on the Samsung I get far more channels than I do with the HDHomerun.

These extra channels seem to have appeared recently - the Samsung didn't pick them up when I did the first scan in early December. My thought is that Comcast has a new set of SD channels in preparation for the digital conversion.

Does anyone have any ideas about the HDHomerun's failure to pick up these channels? This box does have the original chip.

thanks

Kent

I've been threatening in this thread for months to dump Comcast here in Mill Valley for DirecTV. My hesitancy was largely based on aesthetic concerns about dish placement. (My wife was disinclined to have a big old obvious satellite dish hanging on the front eaves of our south-facing, newly remodeled house.) Notwithstanding those concerns, I finally pulled the trigger. I am now five days into it, and I am extremely happy about the switch. The only reasons I could imagine for keeping Comcast would be:

1. Need for high-speed internet or phone bundling.
2. Need for Comcast's admittedly more sophisticated InDemand service.
3. Aesthetic concerns about the dish.
4. Inability to get line of site to the satellites.

If those don't apply, it seems to me that EVERYTHING about DirecTV's service is equal to or (in most cases) vastly superior to Comcast.

1. HD Programming Comcast's claim to more HD is of course based on the volume of HD that they can spool to customers through OnDemand. But in terms of actual, live channels, DirecTV has far more programming. For many people, this just won't matter. Because we are talking about small niche areas--like MLB Network (which at present just runs the old Ken Burns' documentary and some studio programming with talking heads on the hot stove league), the secondary news channels (CNBC, ESPNEWS), secondary sports channels (Tennis HD, SpeedHD, etc.). Or alternatively, more species of the pay movie channels. (The initial 3 month freebie package gives you two HBO HD channels, four Showtime, and five Starz. After that, it looks like each pay subscription is about $15/mo or $35/mo if you kept all three.) There are also a few unfamiliar to Comcast subscriber HD channels, like Mark Cuban's HDNet channels.

The killer HD apps for my household are Tennis Channel and the upcoming MLB Season Ticket package. I've never been willing to pay $199/yr to see crappy SD broadcasts of the out-of-market teams. But with HD broadcasts available wherever they are actually transmitted, I'm going to give that a whirl this year. My wife is a big Tennis fan, and her only regret now is that we didn't have this in order to get more HD of the Australian Open.

2. HD PQ I really wanted to do an A/B comparison with Comcast, but it turned out not be feasible. The DirecTV DVRs require TWO coax connections. During the remodel we had dual lines pulled (actually part of a single thick cable containing phone, Cat5, and two coax--which I highly recommend to those remodeling). But the DirecTV DVRs need both coax feeds, so it wasn't practical to leave the Comcast box plugged in to do a side-by-side comparison.

My unscientific reaction is that the DirecTV HD PQ (on a 50" Fujitsu plasma) is a tiny bit softer than the better Comcast channels (e.g., the network locals). But it's certainly not enough to be certain of the fact, and it may well be my imagination. I have not noticed any of the artifacting that we all complained about when Comcast started moving to the three-packing program last year. I just got finished watching BSG off the DVR, and my impression was that the PQ was superior to Comcast. In fairness to Comcast, my perception is that their skill in achieving the compression necessary to three-packing has improved and that recent BSG episodes (for example) have been less problematic. I do perceive that on fast motion or quick pans, DirecTV's performance is better. Less digital blockiness. On balance, I'd give the slight edge to DirecTV. But YM (and your perception) MV.

3. SD PQ DirecTV boxes (the HR22 DVR and one HD receiver) are VASTLY superior to the Comcast Motorola box. Not much of a difference from my old cablecard TV. Big edge to DirecTV--at least if you are stuck with a Motorola box.

4. Native resolution mode: The DirecTV boxes all allow this, as well as a wide variety of modes about how to handle picture size. After wanting this for years, I find it a bit of a mixed blessing. For channel surfing, being in native resolution mode means my monitor needs to reset to capture the new resolution. This increases the normal channel surfing lag time quite a bit. Since I'm not that big a channel surfer--relying more on my universal remote to go to favorite channels--this is not a huge deal. And I believe I am getting marginally better HD performance out of this (since the Comcast boxes make you pick one resolution and convert for those channels not broadcasting at that resolution) because my Fujitsu monitor has a much better scaler than the Comcast Motorola boxes. This also may contribute to the better SD PQ noted above. Advantage DirecTV.

5. DVRsI went from one Motorola 6416 box to two DirecTV HR-22s. A huge improvement. I've never had a TV--still have a Replay box from way back when, never joined the Tivo faithful. So maybe the DirecTV box isn't in the caliber of a Tivo. But it seems every bit as good as the old ReplayTV in terms of interface--with quite a few modern improvements. And in comparison to the Comcast Motorola boxes, the darn thing just works. No evil lag time "stickiness". No shows that hiccup recording in the middle of the night because the Motorola box decides it needs to do something else. A very similar but much cleaner and more logical interface, with fewer features buried in sub-menus. Nice added features like a folder structure for recorded programs (so that, for example, your son's ten episodes of Mythbusters are grouped under one icon rather than filling your DVR recording listing page). Big big big improvement.

Oh, yeah. And you can set a recording instantly through the internet or your cell phone.

6. Interfacing with the Company and Their Product Another big upside to DirecTV. Their website is vastly superior to Comcast. It actually, amazingly, manages to have the correct current channel lineups and listings. The online chat guy who popped in to help me with the ordering actually knew what he was doing. The install took place within 72 hours of the order (probably would've been less, but I ordered on a Friday morning and had service on Monday at noon. Installer was timely and knowledgeable. Took about 3 hours, including dish installation and two DVRs and one STB. Followup calls from customer service to confirm that things had gone well. I hesitate to blame Comcast personnel, who have been (almost uniformly) polite and almost always showed a desire to help. But it seems like a much more ineffective bureaucracy, and the personnel are coping with a much more complex setup--where Mill Valley has a different channel frequency layout than Novato, and Mill Valley has less bandwidth than San Jose, or whatever. Real test will be when/if problems crop up with DirecTV. But given the lack of traffic on the Bay Area DirecTV thread, I'm suspecting this doesn't happen much.

7. OnDemand: This is an area where Comcast, as a networked technology, has a big advantage. To get OnDemand on DirecTV, you hook your DVR (have to have a DVR) up to your home network. When you order a program (whether pay or free), it then downloads over your home internet connection to the DVR hard disk. I haven't tried this--other than a few instructional videos--but it certainly will not be as fast as Comcast spooling a show out to you from the local head end. For me, this is not such a big deal. I'm not a big PPV consumer, and our family would mostly use inDemand for the very occasional video rental or to catch up with a missing network series episode. And it always annoyed me that Comcast does not provide HBO programming in HD in OnDemand. But one would have to acknowledge this is a Comcast advantage.

8. Esthetics A totally YMMV area. The installer was inclined to put the dish over our front porch area, where it would be very noticeable. We have a south-facing house, so this would be the front of the house. But he understood the issue and was able to mount it just behind the peak of the roof in a way that (because of the slope in front of our house) it is pretty much invisible from the front of the house. So this issue was resolved. Heck, I could probably get Comcast to come out and pull the cable drop off the pole and we we'd have a cleaner look to the front of the house.

9. Cost Another pretty big advantage for DirecTV. With Comcast, I was paying $135/mo for:

One SD cable box
One cable card
One Motorola DVR
HBO
Sports package (necessary for Tennis Channel)

With DirecTV, I upgraded my service a bit. But comparing apples to apples, and ignoring the first 12 month discount for the 24-month contract, I will get (after the 3 month freebie for HBO/Sho/Starz):

One HD cable box
One DVR
Another DVR
HBO
No sports package necessary since Tennis is included

For $72.99 (HD Plus DVR package) plus $15 for HBO plus 2 x $5 for the second and third receivers. Which if my math is right is $98.

Now one has to figure in the receiver cost, too. The first DVR was free. The second DVR was $199 and the third box (the HD receiver) was $99. Total cost about $300. But given the roughly $35 monthly diffference between the two services, I'll recoup that difference in less than nine months.

Except, of course, that for the first year the HD Plus DVR package is in fact $23/mo cheaper ($49.99 discounted rate vs. $72.99 non-discounted). So the monthly difference is really more like $58/mo for the first year. So I'll recoup the difference is less than 6 months. And be much much happier about the product I am getting.

Now, what I haven't mentioned to my wife is that I am likely to fritter away a fair bit of the savings. There is the aforementioned $199 annual for the MLB package, which I wouldn't buy on Comcast. For an extra $5/mo you can get all the regional sports networks. I'm not sure what good this does me, as I expect that they are blacked out for baseball in order to make sure people pay the $199 for the MLB package. And I'm not likely to spend a lot of time watching the Celtics or Lakers or Penguins (even if they are in glorious HD). But I'll probably keep that just to have it. Similarly, they hava a $5/mo HD Extra Package, which I can't quite figure out why I need:

HDNet Movies: Movies of all genres, including movies never before released in HD.
MGM HD: Round-the-clock MGM movies from a library of 4,000+ titles.
MHD (Music High Definition): High-definition music television from MTV.
Smithsonian HD: History, science, culture--all in stunning high def.
Universal HD: Films, series, sports and more from the NBC Universal library.

But which I have ordered anyways. Probably most insidious will be the desire to continue Showtime and Starz just because they have so darn many HD channels. I'll probably be able to resist that urge. Probably.

But for me, and my particular needs, I'm getting vastly superior service for less money. I would think that for most people who aren't getting a really great leveraged cost for telephone and internet--and is the Comcast cost and service really THAT good?--they would be FAR better off making the switch.

I'll keep this thread as one of my favorites and no doubt monitor it regularly out of curiousity to see how things are going in the Bay Area Comcast world. And I'll be happy to chime in with any questions anybody here has.

P.S. to Keenan. Thank you very much for holding my (virtual) hand as I worried through this switchover. Your advice to make the change was 100% right!

P.P.S. I gather that the rumors are that DirecTV is planning to enable whole-house sharing of DVR content through the ethernet connections on their devices. If that happens, then one probably doesn't need to have two DVRs they way that I do.

I agree with everything above :) Though I don't know why they didn't install a "SWM" switch for you - that lets you use just 1 coax run for the dual-tuner DVRs.

Also my HR22 does seem to get very slow sometimes, I'm not sure if it's a firmware thing or what, but complaints are common. It can take 10 seconds or more sometimes to respond to remote commands, menu stuff, channel changing etc. The good news here is that at LEAST it doesn't queue up remote commands, it just ignores any inputs while it's "busy", which I find vastly superior to the Comcast box's way of suddenly doing 50 things at once... but I do wish they could fix the latency. The non-DVR box upstairs (H20) is much much faster, like instant by comparison.

I'm not a tennis fan but the "Mix" thing they were doing during Oz Open was pretty neat, all in HD. You tune to a channel and it shows you 6 channels (maybe 8, in HD actually) at once, you move the cursor around and it switches the audio to that channel - press the button and it tunes to that channel. They have sports and news mix channels all the time, but they are in SD. I believe the NFL package is HD during the season though (like Oz Open was).

As far as picture quality, I find it much better. During movement, pans/etc.. it seems a bit "soft" but I prefer that to macroblocking on Comcast. I was able to A/B compare D* with Comcast, using the QAM tuner in the TV, I looked at Fox, ABC and CBS (football) and honestly didn't notice a bit of difference, and those channels are the few remaining non-compressed ones on Comcast so that's where I'd expect to see any difference.

As far as VOD - I won't miss it. It (Comcast) was totally unreliable for me anyway, I could never get a HD stream during prime-time, and even other times. If you have fast internet you can download VOD from DirecTV, though you do have to wait for it to download, or at least I did with HD programs, so the "demand" part of it is a bit dodgy.. SD programs I can start watching almost right away, but with HD programs I'm better off letting it download completely, or at least 80-90%, otherwise it eventually catches up and pauses.

walk,

I noticed you have a PS3. Have you noticed that the HR22 (two of them, in my case) when networked shows up as a media server in the PS3. I'm not quite sure what good this is . . . videos won't play . . . but it's pretty cool.

Tom

Yes, that would be nice if it worked, though I suspect it never will, since if it did (if it was a standard DLNA media server) you could then copy videos off of the HR22, and they don't want us doing that. Case in point, you have to use their custom software on the pc (DirecTV2PC) which doesn't allow copying, only viewing. It shows up as a media device in Windows 7 beta too, but you can't do anything with it.

I have a setup using an HDHomerun with Mythtv and a new Samsung tv. When I do a channel scan on the Samsung I get far more channels than I do with the HDHomerun.

These extra channels seem to have appeared recently - the Samsung didn't pick them up when I did the first scan in early December. My thought is that Comcast has a new set of SD channels in preparation for the digital conversion.

Does anyone have any ideas about the HDHomerun's failure to pick up these channels? This box does have the original chip.

thanks

Kent

I haven't upgraded firmware or software in a while for the HDHomeRun but did download the latest last week and will probably build and install it (on Linux). HDHomeRun under the version I'm running doesn't pick up any PSIP stuff on some of the new SD channels. Are you saying you get those IDs with your Samsung? Definitely HDHomeRun finds the digital Extended Basic channels but you have to tune them in to find out what they are. I didn't like MythTV with its funky interface so unistalled it and used some simple bash shell scripts instead. The software I downloaded to build has an GUI interface for HDHomeRun probably like the Windows version. I also have the original hardware.

walk, moving my SWM switch and DirecTV2PC questions over to the SF DBS thread HERE: (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=15822370#post15822370)

Brian,

The Samsung only picks up the PSIP info for off air channels (KPIX-HD, for instance). The HDHomerun box and the Samsung capture the same information for those channels.

I am confused as to why the two devices would produce different results. The Samsung gets an SD version of Comedy Central, for instance, on channel 94-5.

Brian,

The Samsung only picks up the PSIP info for off air channels (KPIX-HD, for instance). The HDHomerun box and the Samsung capture the same information for those channels.

I am confused as to why the two devices would produce different results. The Samsung gets an SD version of Comedy Central, for instance, on channel 94-5.
I think it is more accurate to say Samsung only picks up PSIP info for those channels that have them. Only the cable channels that were originally OTA channels potentially have PSIP info for our area (though there is nothing stopping the other channels from having PSIP info other than Comcast choosing not to use equipment to populate the data)

Sometimes people are fooled into thinking one tuner is getting a channel another tuner is not because the tuners count subchannels differently (94.5 on Samsung might be 94.1 on Sharp). Other times some tuners will filter out a channel because some meta-data had malformed or unexpected data. I'm kind of surprised HDHomeRun isn't seeing a channel though. Usually it is the other way around where the TV doesn't see as much as HDHomeRun.

I think it is more accurate to say Samsung only picks up PSIP info for those channels that have them. Only the cable channels that were originally OTA channels potentially have PSIP info for our area (though there is nothing stopping the other channels from having PSIP info other than Comcast choosing not to use equipment to populate the data)

Sometimes people are fooled into thinking one tuner is getting a channel another tuner is not because the tuners count subchannels differently (94.5 on Samsung might be 94.1 on Sharp). Other times some tuners will filter out a channel because some meta-data had malformed or unexpected data. I'm kind of surprised HDHomeRun isn't seeing a channel though. Usually it is the other way around where the TV doesn't see as much as HDHomeRun.

It appears that I am having a problem with the HDHomerun channel scans in Mythtv. I did some more checking on another setup and found all of the channels that are showing on the Samsung available on the HDHomerun using Silicon Dust's tool and VLC.

The earlier discussions (and a Comcast mailer) regarding the move to more channels being available piqued my curiosity.

Anyone else in Santa Clara (or anywhere else) hear something about a delay in the digital upgrade? My mom tried to order the STB's via phone after receiving her letter on Friday and the CSR told her that A) they didn't have any boxes and B) Comcast was delaying the upgrade in Santa Clara. My brother, who also lives in SC, tried ordering them online last week and the site wouldn't let him. On the other hand, my mom spoke to one of her friends (also a SC resident) yesterday and that person *was* able to order the boxes via phone. Weird.

Edit: BTW, I meant the Comcast-specific digital switch, not the federal DTV transition which I already know has been pushed back.

I haven't heard anything about a delay, but my neighborhood is apparently served by the Santa Clara headend, because we got a notification letter a couple of weeks ago saying that we'd be switched on March 9th. I'm a "bulk tenant" subscriber and have been waiting for Comcast to work out the details of how they're going to handle that situation. I was going to check back with them this week. Please post if you find out more, one way or another.


Patty

I am in Santa Clara and I received the two free DTAs last week (I already had a DCH-3200 box). I had to order them over the phone because the website wasn't working. I also had to call twice to activate them. I haven't used them much but they seem fine except some of the "new" channels aren't available on the DTAs yet (like G4).

In Sunnyvale:

Internet went out for about 2 hours and came back with QAM64 modulation for the upstream :) No new speeds yet though, only the powerboost is higher. Lets hope for new things soon.

Double post, sorry.

Upstream is always QAM64.

My internet has been going out for no reason a lot lately, at home and at work, where we just had brand-new service installed a couple months ago. I mean, the whole thing is brand new, they just built some condos across the street and installed service there, we couldn't even get cable before that. They ran a brand-new drop from there, we have all brand-new modems and such, but it drops out at least once per day during business hours. We'll probably end up cancelling it and going back to DSL.

Has the 'green line' problem associated with Comcast's dvr's been solved with the latest boxes?

In Petaluma:

We lost KRON 4 in HD on Comcast, it used to be channel 4-2 but it is gone since Friday afternoon. Anybody has any idea why?
Thanks

I am in san jose and still get 4-2 Kron. But what I lost in my clear qam is espn, csn bay area and tnt. I had it yesterday to watch the all star game, but today nothing..does anyone know if they changed these clear qam channels?

But what I lost in my clear qam is espn, csn bay area and tnt. I had it yesterday to watch the all star game, but today nothing..does anyone know if they changed these clear qam channels?

These channels are supposed to be encrypted.

These channels are supposed to be encrypted.

He may be referring to the Expanded Basic SD versions? All the Expanded Basic lineup is unencrypted QAM for the time being up here.

I am in Santa Clara and I received the two free DTAs last week (I already had a DCH-3200 box). I had to order them over the phone because the website wasn't working. I also had to call twice to activate them. I haven't used them much but they seem fine except some of the "new" channels aren't available on the DTAs yet (like G4).

I just ordered two DTAs over the phone, and was told they are being processed and will arrive within two weeks. The CSR said the conversion date for San Jose is March 16th.

Hi Keenan,
Are you using a qam tuner to receive the digital sd channels from comcast cable? If so, could you please check if you are receiving espn? and what channel it is on? I am wondering if Comcast is moving these to different channels. Thanks.

Upstream is always QAM64.


Used to be QAM16 up until last night here. 94086

Used to be QAM16 up until last night here. 94086

same here in 94086! uploadspeed still the same....
------

ESPN + ESPN2 is on 84-8 / 84-9

Does anyone know if Fairfield will get NBC 11? We get the other bay area news channels out here except for NBC 11 & channel 11 has been vacant for us for the last 2 years. It used to be the TV Guide channel for us but they took it away.

Thats odd. I didn't know a neighboring city doesnt have NBC 11. Vallejo has NBC 11. I guess Fairfield uses the NBC channel from Sacramento?

Does anyone know if Fairfield will get NBC 11? We get the other bay area news channels out here except for NBC 11 & channel 11 has been vacant for us for the last 2 years. It used to be the TV Guide channel for us but they took it away.

False alarm..I lost the channels due to a Windows 7 update. I did a system restore and all is well.

Thats odd. I didn't know a neighboring city doesnt have NBC 11. Vallejo has NBC 11. I guess Fairfield uses the NBC channel from Sacramento?

But we get the bay area FOX, CBS, & ABC. KRON used to be NBC & back in 2001 before KNTV took over as the bay area's NBC we had the Bay Area NBC via KRON. So I'm not sure why we dont get KNTV.

After chatting with a representative from Comcast all the info I got was that the problem might be the station, meaning KRON 4 was not transmitting. But a couple of hours later the signal was back... uhmmmm

The funny thing is that NBC HD (11-1) is gone, I guess these Comcast guys are playing with the signals these days... we'll see what happens on Feb 18th.

Anyway, all this made me look for more info online and I found www . choisser . com / channels.html with good info for the Bay Area.

But we get the bay area FOX, CBS, & ABC. KRON used to be NBC & back in 2001 before KNTV took over as the bay area's NBC we had the Bay Area NBC via KRON. So I'm not sure why we dont get KNTV.

NBC no longer has an outlet in SF - since they canceled w. KRON. I assume SF is within the local "must carry" area for Fairfield.
KNTV is in San Jose - which is 40 miles further away. That is probably too far to be considered in your local area.

We are in Bkly and couldn't get S.J. signals OTA. When this happened, HD was just coming in and Comcast was slow in providing much HD. So, to get a lot of HD and get NBC - got both by getting a Canadian Sat. system. (The U.S. sat. systems weren't providing HD then either.)

...mike

NBC no longer has an outlet in SF - since they canceled w. KRON. I assume SF is within the local "must carry" area for Fairfield.
KNTV is in San Jose - which is 40 miles further away. That is probably too far to be considered in your local area.

Do the must-carry rules go by city of license or signal strength? KNTV's COL is San Jose, which is in the SF DMA, but could be outside the area required to be carried in Fairfield. But I remember KTEH having a battle with Comcast in Napa some years ago, when Comcast refused to carry them even after their engineers proved a certain signal strength in Napa. So maybe KNTV doesn't have the necessary signal strength in Fairfield?


Patty

Do the must-carry rules go by city of license or signal strength?

The FCC must-carry rules are determined by Nielsen DMA (designated market area), not COL or signal strength. If a cable system is within a qualifying station's DMA, that system has to find a way to stick the station on its lineup.

But we get the bay area FOX, CBS, & ABC. KRON used to be NBC & back in 2001 before KNTV took over as the bay area's NBC we had the Bay Area NBC via KRON. So I'm not sure why we dont get KNTV.

Fairfield and Vacaville are technically in the Sacramento-Stockton-Modesto DMA (the dividing line between the two DMAs is somewhere between Fairfield and Vallejo/Benicia), which means that Comcast is only really required to put the Sacramento local affiliates on those cable systems under the FCC's must carry regulations. Comcast carries the San Francisco stations (KTVU, KRON, KPIX, KGO, KOFY and KICU) on these two systems under what's called "significantly viewed," an FCC provision allowing cable operators to carry out-of-market local channels if enough people in the area are viewing them via antenna. KNTV was never considered "significantly viewed" in these parts, so Comcast (then AT&T Broadband) never felt compelled to carry it even after the Bay Area NBC affiliation moved to KNTV from KRON.

Once KNTV moved the transmitter to Mt. San Bruno from Loma Prieta Peak, their OTA signal dramatically improved in Solano County and you can probably get a decent signal with an outdoor antenna pointed in the general direction of Sutro/San Bruno. I remember getting a snowy analog picture using indoor rabbit ears in Vacaville, so I'm fairly sure you'd get a lock on KNTV-DT in Fairfield. So if you have your heart set on getting KNTV, throw up an antenna. Plus you'd probably get the other Bay Area affiliates, which are infinitely better than the ones from Sacramento anyway. :p

I got an ad in the mail for U-Verse yesterday so it has been launched in the area. I know they laid cables last fall but not on my block but one over. Looks like they are really out after Comcast offering up to 18 Mbps for Internet and some very competitive basic packages which include things like HDNet.

Anyone else in Santa Clara (or anywhere else) hear something about a delay in the digital upgrade? My mom tried to order the STB's via phone after receiving her letter on Friday and the CSR told her that A) they didn't have any boxes and B) Comcast was delaying the upgrade in Santa Clara. My brother, who also lives in SC, tried ordering them online last week and the site wouldn't let him. On the other hand, my mom spoke to one of her friends (also a SC resident) yesterday and that person *was* able to order the boxes via phone. Weird.

Edit: BTW, I meant the Comcast-specific digital switch, not the federal DTV transition which I already know has been pushed back.

Yes, I know I'm replying to myself, but in the news of the weird (or maybe this is typical for Comcast), less than a week after my mom unsuccessfully tried to order the free boxes from Comcast via the phone, she gets a message on her answering machine from Comcast reminding her to make sure she orders the boxes. When she calls this time, she is able to order the boxes and the CSR knows nothing about a delay in the upgrade that was mentioned in her previous call. My brother was also able to order his boxes earlier today.

The FCC must-carry rules are determined by Nielsen DMA (designated market area), not COL or signal strength. If a cable system is within a qualifying station's DMA, that system has to find a way to stick the station on its lineup.

You know, I started to ask that exact question, but then I realized that it couldn't based on the DMA, because there are several stations in the San Francisco DMA that aren't carried on Comcast in the Bay Area. For example, here in the South Bay, we don't even get the Santa Rosa stations, much less the one in Fort Bragg. Yet all of those are in the same DMA as we are.

So if it is based on the DMA, how come we don't get those stations?



Patty

You know, I started to ask that exact question, but then I realized that it couldn't based on the DMA, because there are several stations in the San Francisco DMA that aren't carried on Comcast in the Bay Area. For example, here in the South Bay, we don't even get the Santa Rosa stations, much less the one in Fort Bragg. Yet all of those are in the same DMA as we are.

So if it is based on the DMA, how come we don't get those stations?



Patty

Patty, KFTY is an all digital channel on cable. It is located on channel 199 on Comcast.

I got an ad in the mail for U-Verse yesterday so it has been launched in the area. I know they laid cables last fall but not on my block but one over. Looks like they are really out after Comcast offering up to 18 Mbps for Internet and some very competitive basic packages which include things like HDNet.

When Docsis 3 launches I think all 4mb customers speed triples. I still predict the demise of Uverse TV, and AT$T ends up using it for 'net & phone.

When Docsis 3 launches I think all 4mb customers speed triples. I still predict the demise of Uverse TV, and AT$T ends up using it for 'net & phone.

"4mb customers"? Comcast has a 4mb tier?

"4mb customers"? Comcast has a 4mb tier?

I forget - that was so long ago. There is a 4 and a 6 depending on what else you have, like Internet with no TV is 4, right?

I forget - that was so long ago. There is a 4 and a 6 depending on what else you have, like Internet with no TV is 4, right?

I think you're right, never noticed the 4 before, it's available to those without TV service.

I'd like to see the $42.95 12/2 tier offered here soon. Apparently it's available in DOCSIS 3.0 markets

I still predict the demise of Uverse TV, and AT$T ends up using it for 'net & phone.
Based on lower prices, better SD quality, superior forward error correction, superior video codecs, and no limit to system content delivery other than licensing? Yeah, that makes sense--they've no chance at all. Sounds like the proclamations of DSS doom, while DirecTV posts its best quarter ever and Charter Cable is on the rocks. Even with pair bonding, cable broadcast transmissions are a wasteful, primitive technology. Coupled with a company with even worse customer service than AT&T (amazing feat, that), cable looks really great.

AT&T is admittedly hamstrung by infrastructure, using decades-old copper wire pairs never designed to handle broadband, but cable is careful to make the slowest improvements possible. You also get the genius marketing decisions to overinflate the HD offerings (Comcast has the fewest HD channels of any of the major providers), knock satellite picture quality (which is leaps and bounds better and more reliable than Comcast's in California), and lead the charge in the massive bill inflation over the past decade.

DOCSIS 3.0 provides a lot of potential, but Comcast has never really delivered on potential before. Why would they start now?

How about a reality check here and before you say anything, Yes, I'm a cable advocate and I've had cable since the days of TCI and later when AT&T had this cable system ....

Based on lower prices, better SD quality, superior forward error correction, superior video codecs, and no limit to system content delivery other than licensing? Yeah, that makes sense--they've no chance at all. Sounds like the proclamations of DSS doom, while DirecTV posts its best quarter ever and Charter Cable is on the rocks. Even with pair bonding, cable broadcast transmissions are a wasteful, primitive technology. Coupled with a company with even worse customer service than AT&T (amazing feat, that), cable looks really great.
I can say the same thing about cable or Directv or Dish. Lower prices ??? They all jack up their prices, Directv just did and AT&T will be following shortly and so will Comcast or any other provider. The difference in their offerings is hard to quantify because they don't offer like packages between providers so you can't compare apples to apples. Do they do this so you can't compare them realistically and to confuse you when you try ??? ;)

Better SD picture quality... This varies between areas, I can tell you for a fact that in my area ( Milpitas ) that the quality of the SD pictures is better than what I saw on AT&T but I'm sure there are other areas where this would be just the opposite. So to say that over all AT&T has better SD picture quality is subjective to what you have seen and not indicative of the whole AT&T system or any other provider.

Superior video codecs ?? and these codecs are what ??? I don't work for any provider and I'm not a systems tech so I have no knowledge on which codecs are superior to each other and which ones they use. I only can judge on what I can see with my eyes and I find nothing wrong with what is being used on cable right now. Can they improve it, yes. Will they improve it, they'd better and I see no reasonable reason why they wouldn't.

Oh, Doom and Gloom. I've heard the same said of Comcast, Dish, Directv and even AT&T. One's market share goes up so it means the rest are going down the tubes.... Market rubbish and spin doctrine. They've all been around since the early days and I don't see that changing anytime soon.

Customer service.... not going to touch that one.... I've only seen one company that I have personally dealt with that has a decent customer service and that's Sonic Net but I'll be leaving even them soon ( I'll explain why in a later post but people that know me will know why ;) ).

AT&T is admittedly hamstrung by infrastructure, using decades-old copper wire pairs never designed to handle broadband, but cable is careful to make the slowest improvements possible. You also get the genius marketing decisions to overinflate the HD offerings (Comcast has the fewest HD channels of any of the major providers), knock satellite picture quality (which is leaps and bounds better and more reliable than Comcast's in California), and lead the charge in the massive bill inflation over the past decade.
Wait, AT&T hamstung by infrastructure etc. ...... Didn't you just say they were superior and used superior video codec's ???

Copper wire was never meant to handle broadband?? Yes, and cable was designed to handle Tv video only and not broadband either so they both are doing things that it wasn't initially designed to do. You decide on which one is doing it right or not. I can see possibilities for both providers but that's dependent on who is willing to invest the bucks into their system to make those possibilities a reality. I can tell you Comcast has invested a lot of bucks just getting the Bay Area upgraded to a level that they can finally start looking into doing other things to the system without having to just do upgrades of the existing systems and equipment and this area was a mess from the git-go. My only bitch is that it takes IMHO way to long for them to decide to do anything but being slow and steady isn't necessarily a bad thing, just a pain to have to wait but I'd rather that it was done right than rushed out in a screwed up matter or before it's ready for prime time.

Lead the charge in the massive bill inflation ????? Leaps and bounds better and more reliable than Comcast is in California ??? You have a propensity to exaggerate your views. They ALL have jacked up their prices and for the most part they ALL are in the same ball park as the rest of the market is. No one likes to have to pay a lot of money for anything but it's just a fact of the times and the market. No company, not even AT&T or Comcast, wants to lead the charge to charge more money from their customers, if they did they'd soon be out of business.

DOCSIS 3.0 provides a lot of potential, but Comcast has never really delivered on potential before. Why would they start now?

( Biting my tongue....... ;) ) Wait a while and ask me about this again...... and the reason they would start now is because the system is nearly upgraded enough to do this like I said above.

Don't get me wrong, Comcast is far from being perfect and I've never said that they were and I'd be the first to let them know when they are doing something that IMHO is wrong ( just ask Mr. J. ;) ) but all providers want your money and they will do or say anything that will get you to part with your money to them. Don't believe the spin ads ( for any of them ), and do your own research. Go to the other forums for AT&T, Dish, and Directv and see what their customers are saying about them. You'll find that they all have problems and good and bad things about them, just sift through the BS and deal with the facts. In the end, it's your money, get what's best for you.

Laters,
Mikef5

Based on lower prices, better SD quality, superior forward error correction, superior video codecs, and no limit to system content delivery other than licensing? Yeah, that makes sense--they've no chance at all. Sounds like the proclamations of DSS doom, while DirecTV posts its best quarter ever and Charter Cable is on the rocks. Even with pair bonding, cable broadcast transmissions are a wasteful, primitive technology. Coupled with a company with even worse customer service than AT&T (amazing feat, that), cable looks really great.

AT&T is admittedly hamstrung by infrastructure, using decades-old copper wire pairs never designed to handle broadband, but cable is careful to make the slowest improvements possible. You also get the genius marketing decisions to overinflate the HD offerings (Comcast has the fewest HD channels of any of the major providers), knock satellite picture quality (which is leaps and bounds better and more reliable than Comcast's in California), and lead the charge in the massive bill inflation over the past decade.

DOCSIS 3.0 provides a lot of potential, but Comcast has never really delivered on potential before. Why would they start now?

Are you an AT&T employee? :-) Comcast has it's issues, but please, AT&T U-verse is competitive? You are wrong about Comcast having the fewest number of HD offerings, I think AT&T does, certainly if you could the fact that there only a max of two HD streams allowed into you home at once. AT&T's VDSL system also is in a world of hurt - the french made VDSL muxes were crap, so much so that AT&T even dumped them as a vendor and is now using Adtran.

And while the MSFT software that powers u-verse has gotten better, it still has reliability bugs. Better codecs? Please, it's not the issue of which codec you use, but the quality of the encode and decode that matter. You can make an H.264 stream look really bad compared to an MPEG2 stream by starving it of bits. Which AT&T kinds of needs to do because the VDSL loop delivers so little capacity comapred to an HFC network.

AT&T took the cheap way out here and tried to avoid doing what everyone knows needs to happen to compete with cable - FTTH. At least VZ is making a real attempt at competing. U-verse will never be able to compare, and it is so proprietary. Just try feeding a TV without one of the IP STB's they provide. And no, the IP video stream is completely inaccessable to PC's and other network devices. Completely proprietary.

No, Comcast definitely has it's issues, but don't think AT&T is the innovator here.

Based on lower prices, better SD quality .....

I pay Comcast less than $20/month and sometimes record 4 HD channels at the same time. AT&T offers neither. I don't watch anything from SD channels.

I can say the same thing about cable or Directv or Dish. Lower prices ???
Yes, lower prices. Alternative services have always been priced below cable TV. Price increases are inevitable, but the level of inflation at cable companies is currently the subject of numerous FCC complaints. Cable bills have more than doubled in the past ten years; satellite services have increased by much smaller margins.
Better SD picture quality... This varies between areas, I can tell you for a fact that in my area ( Milpitas ) that the quality of the SD pictures is better than what I saw on AT&T
A mathematical impossibility, sorry. Comcast SD bitrates are 1.5-2Mbps MPEG2--an inferior codec requiring substantially higher bitrates to maintain accuracy. DirecTV and U-verse, both on MPEG4 (same quality at roughly half the size), both offer 3Mbps SD channels.
So to say that over all AT&T has better SD picture quality is subjective to what you have seen and not indicative of the whole AT&T system
Again, a technical impossibility. AT&T is delivered over an IP network. The content is national, and picture quality is the same all over, unlike the cable broadcast/headend system which does result in strong quality variation. Signal integrity is an issue, but that affects artifacting, macroblocking, and other signal problems, not the quality of the image data received.
Superior video codecs ?? and these codecs are what ???
MPEG4.
Oh, Doom and Gloom. I've heard the same said of Comcast, Dish, Directv and even AT&T. One's market share goes up so it means the rest are going down the tubes...
My point exactly!
Wait, AT&T hamstung by infrastructure etc. ...... Didn't you just say they were superior and used superior video codec's ???
The infrastructure in that case referring to the physical plant, not the central equipment, which was already discussed.
Copper wire was never meant to handle broadband?? Yes, and cable was designed to handle Tv video only and not broadband either so they both are doing things that it wasn't initially designed to do.
No, coaxial cable was always designed for a specific data bandwidth, hugely in excess of what the POTS system can provide. Copper pairs are absolutely at their limits. Coax is still a question of efficiency. You can run gigabit ethernet over coax--not physically possible with POTS. Just like fiber has a massive capacity benefit on coax, coax has on POTS.

For that reason alone, cable speeds should be at least an order of magnitude better than DSL at the same price--but they're not.
You have a propensity to exaggerate your views.
Tell it to Consumer Reports and JD Power. Your propensity for streams of question marks and an obvious lack of technological foundation speaks more to the issue than anything I've said.

Don't believe the spin ads ( for any of them ), and do your own research. Go to the other forums for AT&T, Dish, and Directv and see what their customers are saying about them. You'll find that they all have problems and good and bad things about them, just sift through the BS and deal with the facts.
That's the entire point--this "predicted demise" of non-cable systems reeks of fanboyism, and these responses just reinforce that view.

I didn't take a position to advocate either satellite or IPTV (Fios/U-verse) service--I simply rejected the claim that cable is so rah-rah superior that it doesn't have a thing or eighteen to learn from its competitors.
Are you an AT&T employee?
No. Clearly based on the inclusion of AT&T and DirecTV in my post (and by implication Verizon and Dish), not to mention my statement about AT&T's terrible customer service, that is not the case.
You are wrong about Comcast having the fewest number of HD offerings, I think AT&T does, certainly if you could the fact that there only a max of two HD streams allowed into you home at once.
That doesn't have anything to do with content offerings. Just look at the channel lists. Comcast has the fewest number of HD channels--everyone else has more. Comcast just recently added such basics as SciFi and Food Network, for crying out loud. They rely on the number of titles available on demand, which is a pretty strange metric when you're talking about television service. If they want to claim being the biggest HD rental service, fine, but they are intentionally misleading customers into thinking that they're getting more HD channels than everyone else, when in fact that is simply not true.
AT&T's VDSL system also is in a world of hurt - the french made VDSL muxes were crap, so much so that AT&T even dumped them as a vendor and is now using Adtran.
The VDSL system is in a world of hurt? Get real. Every vendor has its share of supplier issues--it doesn't affect the
And while the MSFT software that powers u-verse has gotten better, it still has reliability bugs.
Coming from the land of the freezing, 80s-vintage UI, and super slow land of the DCT, I think just about anyone would take an HDMI bug.
Better codecs? Please, it's not the issue of which codec you use, but the quality of the encode and decode that matter.
The codec directly determines the quality.
You can make an H.264 stream look really bad compared to an MPEG2 stream by starving it of bits.
That's bitrate, not codec choice. MPEG2 streams are starved of bits--just look at the obvious and significant decline in Comcast picture quality when they switched to triple-packing last year. It's horrible, because bitrate reduction is a much more significant issue with MPEG2 than MPEG4/H.264.
AT&T took the cheap way out here and tried to avoid doing what everyone knows needs to happen to compete with cable - FTTH. At least VZ is making a real attempt at competing.
AT&T took the accessible route, with the minimum interruption of services, and can bring the service to areas faster, more inexpensively, and where laying fiber isn't an option. They're choosing different paths. Once the service is widely available, individual communities can make the upgrades and provide the fiber, which enhances capacity. Verizon is doing it all at once, and thus will be confined to particular geographic areas.

Cable has also taken the cheap way, resting on its own hardware, so the point you're trying to make is moot. They continue to push more and more of this wasteful broadcast technology when they were presented with the perfect opportunity to go IPTV, which would allow them to offer full-quality video by delivering only channels being viewed. But they recently invested in an incredibly expensive digital broadcast backend infrastructure and want to sit on it for as long as possible, just like the phone company.
Just try feeding a TV without one of the IP STB's they provide.
TVs don't have IP tuners, so obviously a STB is required--just like with digital cable. You want to talk proprietary? I've got two words for you: Cable card. The whole thing has been botched by cable companies who don't want to give you a cheaper substitute to their own boxes. Two-way communication and full featuresets are still a myth, and forget about un-encrypted channels sticking around. Completely proprietary, indeed.

Comcast is not providing an innovative service. They're pushing DOCSIS 3, which squeezes some more speed out, but they're continually degrading quality, refuse to address their dated UI, and are unwilling to invest in a modern, packet-based delivery system. All of these could be done and could make cable providers a technologically competitive force.

You can poo-poo IPTV and transmission upgrades of satellite services all you want, but cable is simply wasting its potential, and the doom and gloom you rain on competitors--and quickfire defense of an aging, crumbling system is totally unwarranted. You're not in an ivory tower or leading any technological charge--you're in the same class as all the competitors, all of which have flaws and none of which is so much more deficient that cable will crush them.

In short, don't proclaim victory over all the land while riding on the back of a dinosaur.

Regardless of the issues a lot of people I know tend to play "provider roulette" so they will Comcast until the deal runs out. Then they switch to Dish Network or DirectTV until those deals run out and around here they'll have another kid on the block to switch to. And then (usually because the companies don't have real long term customer databases) they'll go through the cycle again. Bet you all know people like that? :D

I pay Comcast less than $20/month and sometimes record 4 HD channels at the same time. AT&T offers neither. I don't watch anything from SD channels.

How does that work out? Are you grandfathered into some old plan and only receiving the HD locals? I can't imagine how you could get HD for this price even if only using a QAM tuner.

It's very simple, Tom. Limited Basic is about $16/mo these days and it includes all the clear QAM channels. That's what I have also.

How does that work out? Are you grandfathered into some old plan and only receiving the HD locals? I can't imagine how you could get HD for this price even if only using a QAM tuner.

The local HD channels are officially part of Limited Basic, and I use CableCards with TiVos.

...and I use PC QAM tuners without cablecards. This works for all the locals, HD or SD.

Yes, lower prices. Alternative services have always been priced below cable TV. Price increases are inevitable, but the level of inflation at cable companies is currently the subject of numerous FCC complaints. Cable bills have more than doubled in the past ten years; satellite services have increased by much smaller margins.

A mathematical impossibility, sorry. Comcast SD bitrates are 1.5-2Mbps MPEG2--an inferior codec requiring substantially higher bitrates to maintain accuracy. DirecTV and U-verse, both on MPEG4 (same quality at roughly half the size), both offer 3Mbps SD channels.

Again, a technical impossibility. AT&T is delivered over an IP network. The content is national, and picture quality is the same all over, unlike the cable broadcast/headend system which does result in strong quality variation. Signal integrity is an issue, but that affects artifacting, macroblocking, and other signal problems, not the quality of the image data received.

MPEG4.

My point exactly!

The infrastructure in that case referring to the physical plant, not the central equipment, which was already discussed.

No, coaxial cable was always designed for a specific data bandwidth, hugely in excess of what the POTS system can provide. Copper pairs are absolutely at their limits. Coax is still a question of efficiency. You can run gigabit ethernet over coax--not physically possible with POTS. Just like fiber has a massive capacity benefit on coax, coax has on POTS.

For that reason alone, cable speeds should be at least an order of magnitude better than DSL at the same price--but they're not.

Tell it to Consumer Reports and JD Power. Your propensity for streams of question marks and an obvious lack of technological foundation speaks more to the issue than anything I've said.


That's the entire point--this "predicted demise" of non-cable systems reeks of fanboyism, and these responses just reinforce that view.

I didn't take a position to advocate either satellite or IPTV (Fios/U-verse) service--I simply rejected the claim that cable is so rah-rah superior that it doesn't have a thing or eighteen to learn from its competitors.

No. Clearly based on the inclusion of AT&T and DirecTV in my post (and by implication Verizon and Dish), not to mention my statement about AT&T's terrible customer service, that is not the case.

That doesn't have anything to do with content offerings. Just look at the channel lists. Comcast has the fewest number of HD channels--everyone else has more. Comcast just recently added such basics as SciFi and Food Network, for crying out loud. They rely on the number of titles available on demand, which is a pretty strange metric when you're talking about television service. If they want to claim being the biggest HD rental service, fine, but they are intentionally misleading customers into thinking that they're getting more HD channels than everyone else, when in fact that is simply not true.

The VDSL system is in a world of hurt? Get real. Every vendor has its share of supplier issues--it doesn't affect the

Coming from the land of the freezing, 80s-vintage UI, and super slow land of the DCT, I think just about anyone would take an HDMI bug.

The codec directly determines the quality.

That's bitrate, not codec choice. MPEG2 streams are starved of bits--just look at the obvious and significant decline in Comcast picture quality when they switched to triple-packing last year. It's horrible, because bitrate reduction is a much more significant issue with MPEG2 than MPEG4/H.264.

AT&T took the accessible route, with the minimum interruption of services, and can bring the service to areas faster, more inexpensively, and where laying fiber isn't an option. They're choosing different paths. Once the service is widely available, individual communities can make the upgrades and provide the fiber, which enhances capacity. Verizon is doing it all at once, and thus will be confined to particular geographic areas.

Cable has also taken the cheap way, resting on its own hardware, so the point you're trying to make is moot. They continue to push more and more of this wasteful broadcast technology when they were presented with the perfect opportunity to go IPTV, which would allow them to offer full-quality video by delivering only channels being viewed. But they recently invested in an incredibly expensive digital broadcast backend infrastructure and want to sit on it for as long as possible, just like the phone company.

TVs don't have IP tuners, so obviously a STB is required--just like with digital cable. You want to talk proprietary? I've got two words for you: Cable card. The whole thing has been botched by cable companies who don't want to give you a cheaper substitute to their own boxes. Two-way communication and full featuresets are still a myth, and forget about un-encrypted channels sticking around. Completely proprietary, indeed.

Comcast is not providing an innovative service. They're pushing DOCSIS 3, which squeezes some more speed out, but they're continually degrading quality, refuse to address their dated UI, and are unwilling to invest in a modern, packet-based delivery system. All of these could be done and could make cable providers a technologically competitive force.

You can poo-poo IPTV and transmission upgrades of satellite services all you want, but cable is simply wasting its potential, and the doom and gloom you rain on competitors--and quickfire defense of an aging, crumbling system is totally unwarranted. You're not in an ivory tower or leading any technological charge--you're in the same class as all the competitors, all of which have flaws and none of which is so much more deficient that cable will crush them.

In short, don't proclaim victory over all the land while riding on the back of a dinosaur.
matticus008,

Wow, where do I start..... You know what, I'm not going to.

If you have a problem with cable and what they provide then by all means go where you get the best deal for your money. You are not willing to listen to anything that I or anyone else will say, it's obvious to me that you have already made up your mind.

For myself, I still try to work with cable to try and get things fixed and I try and help people when they are having problems with Comcast, I've been doing this for over 5 years now. I don't pretend that cable is the greatest thing on earth nor is it the worse. You don't want or need help and it seems you don't want cable either so I will end this with one thought. Read what your responses were and tell me you are unbiased and don't have an agenda. I do have an agenda and that's to work with cable to get this done right, not lambaste other providers with total BS.

Laters,
Mikef5

matticus008,

What is the cheapest AT&T Internet plans that gives above 1Mbps upstream and minimum 6Mbps down, without requiring a phone line? Does bandwidth still depend on 'distance from the exchange' or is it guaranteed for all?

Patty, KFTY is an all digital channel on cable. It is located on channel 199 on Comcast.
Ah, so they do carry it, just not where I can see it. (Although that will be changing soon when my neighborhood gets migrated to digital cable.) Do they carry the Fort Bragg station, too? I guess they must, if they're required to carry all the full-power stations in their DMA.


Patty

Ah, so they do carry it, just not where I can see it. (Although that will be changing soon when my neighborhood gets migrated to digital cable.) Do they carry the Fort Bragg station, too? I guess they must, if they're required to carry all the full-power stations in their DMA.


Patty

No, they don't carry the Fort Bragg station, specifically. KUNO, the Fort Bragg station, is a repeater of KTNC, an Azteca station, and is available on Comcast on channel 42.

Basic cable is $16 but to "record 4 HD channels" you'd need 2 Tivos which adds significant up-front hardware costs as well as monthly subscription fees. You could avoid the monthly fees by building your own PC with tv-tuner(s) but that will cost even more in hardware and requires technical skills that are, let's be honest, well beyond the average mainstream consumer. I think that last point is important to remember too, most of us here probably do NOT fall into that category.

Personally I don't see AT&T Uverse as a real competitor, though again, I'm not a mainstream consumer. It's possible that one could look at their prices (which are lower than Comcast's) and their HD channel lineup (which is higher than Comcast's) and go for it.

Basic cable is $16 but to "record 4 HD channels" you'd need 2 Tivos which adds significant up-front hardware costs as well as monthly subscription fees. You could avoid the monthly fees by building your own PC with tv-tuner(s) but that will cost even more in hardware and requires technical skills that are, let's be honest, well beyond the average mainstream consumer. I think that last point is important to remember too, most of us here probably do NOT fall into that category.Agreed that HTPC skills are not in the mainstream (although that is how I do most of my own recording) and I suspect that many eschew TiVo because of its mandatory subscription hit (and more would do so if they fully appreciated its stupid kWh hit). However, those are not the only alternatives available. As one example of those, I've been beta testing a TViX R-3310 (http://www.digitalconnection.com/Products/Video/r3310.asp), which records clear QAM, plays it back in full HD, has no subscription fees, does TiVo-type timeshifting of live TV, and is about as easy to use as a VCR--i.e., it is fully qualified for Joe&Jane 6pak's use. Right now, it only comes in a 1-tuner version, but twin tuners (and maybe more) are coming down the pike. I suspect that the DTV conversion date will be the "tipping point" for a deluge of these into the market. :)

In terms of TiVo's subscription fee, I have owned various TiVos since 2001, all with lifetime service. Because of its resale value, the effective monthly subscription cost can be much lower. Or, if you consider the cost of hardware+lifetime as the cost of the equipment, the subscription is "free".

Agreed that HTPC skills are not in the mainstream (although that is how I do most of my own recording) and I suspect that many eschew TiVo because of its mandatory subscription hit (and more would do so if they fully appreciated its stupid kWh hit). However, those are not the only alternatives available. As one example of those, I've been beta testing a TViX R-3310 (http://www.digitalconnection.com/Products/Video/r3310.asp), which records clear QAM, plays it back in full HD, has no subscription fees, does TiVo-type timeshifting of live TV, and is about as easy to use as a VCR--i.e., it is fully qualified for Joe&Jane 6pak's use. Right now, it only comes in a 1-tuner version, but twin tuners (and maybe more) are coming down the pike. I suspect that the DTV conversion date will be the "tipping point" for a deluge of these into the market. :)

TP (if I may call you that;)),

I'm still struggling with how you get Comcast to less than $20, even if you are content with the HD locals in clear QAM. Do you really have four recording TV tuners without cablecards? Also, is there a resource about what channels are now clear QAM--I thought that unless you were grandfathered, even cable "basics" like ESPN required some kind of decryption for the HD channel?

I'm not tweaking you here--if I could really get the Comcast non-premium HD channels without need for a cablecard and the digital outlet fee, and the bottom line were really below $20/mo, I might bring Comcast back up to play around with HTPC and housewide distribution on my PC network. But since I don't think the HD locals alone are interesting enough, I completely pulled the plug on Comcast when I switched over to DirecTV. And what are you using to tune four streams at once? Four QAM tuners?

Tom, ESPN is not "Basic". The Basic Cable subscription includes only the locals, in principle. Rght now all of the Expanded Basic SD channels appear to be nonencrypted, but I expect that that's a transient effect of the changes to the lineup. (Once upon a time, about 3 years ago, all of the HD QAM channels were nonencrypted for at least 6 months in a similar situation) To get the non Basic channels reliably without Comcast's hardware, you do need a cablecard solution.

I have no cablecards or, indeed, any cablecard-capable tuners. I seldom find more than 2 programs of interest on at the same time, but I do have at least 4 QAM tuners here that can independently capture them. (I haven't counted them lately, but I think that the actual number is closer to 10--I do a lot of beta testing as a hobby. The testing is my hobby interest, not the TV watching. :D) If you want an idea of the current line up on your cable, try putting your zip code into the box at this URL (http://www.silicondust.com/wiki/hdhomerun/channels).

--Terry

I recently noticed that all of the analog channels are now unencrypted digital on Comcast in Los Altos. That means that if you have Expanded Basic you can get all those channels (CNN, ESPN, TNT, E!, MTV, etc) on a HDhomerun or TV with clear QAM. I would expect that a Limited Basic customer would have a filter installed that would block these at the RF level just like they do for analog 32-72 (approximately). However, looking at how they have the channels allocated on my head end, it would appear likely that a Limited Basic sub could get channels like ESPN in clear QAM. For example, RF channel 84 has all of the following channels on it: KNTV, KICU, KSTS, KTEH, KKPX, CSNBA, TNTP, ESPN, ESPN2, TBSP. They could certainly filter RF 84 because, a Limited Basic sub would still have access to all those broadcast locals in analog. However, I thought that the filter didn't go that high. Also, RF 79 has the HD locals KPIXDT, KTVUDT, KTVUDT2 and they are not filtered.

I'm sure this is in preparation for the termination of analog transimission of Expanded Basic channels that Comcast is planning. The simple free STBs that they provide customers so they can receive these digital channels cannot decrypt anything. Therefore, if your Comcast feed has no filters, then you should get them all in clear QAM. Like Terry said, this is probably transient. After they shut off the analog channels, they'll probably move the Expanded Basic channels into the filtered band.

- Mike

Tom, ESPN is not "Basic". The Basic Cable subscription includes only the locals, in principle. Rght now all of the Expanded Basic SD channels appear to be nonencrypted, but I expect that that's a transient effect of the changes to the lineup. (Once upon a time, about 3 years ago, all of the HD QAM channels were nonencrypted for at least 6 months in a similar situation) To get the non Basic channels reliably without Comcast's hardware, you do need a cablecard solution.

I have no cablecards or, indeed, any cablecard-capable tuners. I seldom find more than 2 programs of interest on at the same time, but I do have at least 4 QAM tuners here that can independently capture them. (I haven't counted them lately, but I think that the actual number is closer to 10--I do a lot of beta testing as a hobby. The testing is my hobby interest, not the TV watching. :D) If you want an idea of the current line up on your cable, try putting your zip code into the box at this URL (http://www.silicondust.com/wiki/hdhomerun/channels).

--Terry

Yeah, I knew that ESPN wasn't "Basic" in the term of art that Comcast uses. But I think most people would consider receiving ESPN to be a pretty "basic" requirement of any television service. Apparently the transition away from analog cable transmissions (at least for the channels at 35 and above) has created a little window in the availability of ESPN (but not ESPN HD, I would guess?). But one does have to expect that they will find a way to close that window down. So the $15.43 (according to the Comcast site) per month in the long run will probably really only end up getting you 2 to 34 plus the HD locals.

I currently have an ancient Sony VAIO PC with an analog tuner capable of tuning analog cable transmissions. The old VAIOs used to come with apps called Gigapocket Server and Pico Player that would allow you to broadcast low def TV over your home network. I would use this so I could, for example, keep an eye on the Giants game on my wireless laptop while I was supervising my son's viewing habits as he enjoyed the real TV. Since Channel 35 plus are going away in analog cable (for Comcast's reasons that I fully understand and respect), this utility isn't available to me any more. Much as I share your love of tinkering, I'm not going to invest in a clear QAM tuner to attempt to recreate the old VAIO experience only to have Comcast pull the plug on me when they get themselves reorganized after removing the analog channels from 35 to 82. I'll probably wait to see if DirecTV expands the functionality of their DirecTV2PC app to include live broadcasts. (At present, it will only show recorded programming--but it does do it effectively, even over a wireless connection, and in HD.) I recognize I could probably get the same functionality by some kind of HomeTheaterPC with a cablecard. But then Comcast would be into me for AT LEAST $59.99/mo (once the six month promotional rate of $29.99/mo expires).

Come to think of it, I think I'm missing the easier solution. I guess I could hang some version of a Slingbox off on the of the D* receivers and then connect to the Slingbox from inside the home network . . . . But I wander far off topic.

I did poke around the Comcast website to see if there is any info that is helpful in determining what is in the clear vs. what is not. Nothing useful, of course. I did have to laugh at this, though, found when clicking through to the "print your channel lineup" for Marin:

Channel Lineup
PrintLocation: MARIN

Last updated: April, 2006

You laughed because of the ungrammatical comma, right? :D

Did you also look at the HDHomerun page that I referenced?

I did poke around the Comcast website to see if there is any info that is helpful in determining what is in the clear vs. what is not. Nothing useful, of course. I did have to laugh at this, though, found when clicking through to the "print your channel lineup" for Marin:

It's ridiculous, for being the nation's largest MSO and also the largest internet provider, the information at Comcast's websites is virtually worthless.

I'll say it again, I believe it's Comcast corporate policy to keep the consumer in the dark as this level of uselessness simply can't be by chance, the odds are way against it. :D

Terry, yeah, you got me: I'm a stickler for grammar. ;) I did look at the HDHomeRun page, thanks. The listings were pretty helpful, although they still left me with the question of whether Comcast in the future will pull the rug out from under the channels that are currently north of 34 on their system.

My post of the "April, 2006" thing is kind of a cheap shot, since the channel lineup itself seemed (at a quick glance) to be accurate to the most recent changes in my area (e.g., ScifiHD, National Geographic HD, etc.), although one wonders if Marin were actually graced with the latest upgrades available in other areas of the SF Bay they would've had the information up. They just forgot to change the "last updated" date. I do suspect that the description of what is available in what tier of service is wrong--and, as Keenan noted, a lot of the obfuscation seems to be deliberate rather than mere incompetence. Take this for example, from the bottom of the Marin channel listing:
Limited Basic + Expanded Basic = Standard Cable

*You must subscribe to a specific tier to receive certain channels. Premium Services: You must subscribe to the individual premium service and a digital receiver in order to receive the multiplex version of that same channel. High-Definition Programming: Only available to customers with an HDTV set (not provided by Comcast.) Digital receiver with HDTV compatibilities is required. Subscription to premium services is required to receive HDTV version of that premium, where available. HDTV Digital Classic: You must subscribe to the Digital Classic Tier to receive these channels. All Digital Services: Viewing of these channels requires a high-definition television set and may also require a Comcast High-Definition digital receiver or CableCard.

On the page that leads into this, there is a price quote for Basic Cable (that's the $15.43/mo), and for Digital Starter, but nothing for "Expanded Basic" or "Standard Cable." So who knows what all this means?

I do think there is some irony in Comcast's struggles with the limitations of both their technology and how they have chosen to implement it. They love to poke fun at the telcos about the technological limitations of DSL (e.g., the "Slowski" commercials). I presume that cable internet really now is much faster than DSL, even though at one point reliable, neutral reporters such as PC Magazine made it clear that the theoretical maximums for cable were never really achieved and that you could get more throughput on DSL. But similarly, with the satellite companies sucking up the difficulties with their customers in order to implement MPEG4 technology, and the ability to employ identical technology every where they have service, they have a real advantage over the way that Comcast has set itself up. Comcast has to cope with different bandwidths in different neighborhoods and then for whatever reason makes it worse by implementing different transmissions schemes even in those areas with the same bandwidth. And they do not seem to have the human resources structure to be able to communicate effectively to their customers about the effects of the different schemes, and they seem to have a culture of "hide the ball" or stonewall them. I dunno, maybe the other providers have the same approach. I haven't been with D* long enough to know. But D*, at least, doesn't have to struggle so much with the technology.

P.S. I see they are now charging $15.95/mo for the Motorola box these days. Which in Marin is still the DCT-3416 (not that the DCH line is said to be any great improvement other than in box styling). $15.95/mo? Wow.

Terry, yeah, you got me: I'm a stickler for grammar. ;) I did look at the HDHomeRun page, thanks. The listings were pretty helpful, although they still left me with the question of whether Comcast in the future will pull the rug out from under the channels that are currently north of 34 on their system.

My post of the "April, 2006" thing is kind of a cheap shot, since the channel lineup itself seemed (at a quick glance) to be accurate to the most recent changes in my area (e.g., ScifiHD, National Geographic HD, etc.), although one wonders if Marin were actually graced with the latest upgrades available in other areas of the SF Bay they would've had the information up. They just forgot to change the "last updated" date. I do suspect that the description of what is available in what tier of service is wrong--and, as Keenan noted, a lot of the obfuscation seems to be deliberate rather than mere incompetence. Take this for example, from the bottom of the Marin channel listing:


On the page that leads into this, there is a price quote for Basic Cable (that's the $15.43/mo), and for Digital Starter, but nothing for "Expanded Basic" or "Standard Cable." So who knows what all this means?

I do think there is some irony in Comcast's struggles with the limitations of both their technology and how they have chosen to implement it. They love to poke fun at the telcos about the technological limitations of DSL (e.g., the "Slowski" commercials). I presume that cable internet really now is much faster than DSL, even though at one point reliable, neutral reporters such as PC Magazine made it clear that the theoretical maximums for cable were never really achieved and that you could get more throughput on DSL. But similarly, with the satellite companies sucking up the difficulties with their customers in order to implement MPEG4 technology, and the ability to employ identical technology every where they have service, they have a real advantage over the way that Comcast has set itself up. Comcast has to cope with different bandwidths in different neighborhoods and then for whatever reason makes it worse by implementing different transmissions schemes even in those areas with the same bandwidth. And they do not seem to have the human resources structure to be able to communicate effectively to their customers about the effects of the different schemes, and they seem to have a culture of "hide the ball" or stonewall them. I dunno, maybe the other providers have the same approach. I haven't been with D* long enough to know. But D*, at least, doesn't have to struggle so much with the technology.

P.S. I see they are now charging $15.95/mo for the Motorola box these days. Which in Marin is still the DCT-3416 (not that the DCH line is said to be any great improvement other than in box styling). $15.95/mo? Wow.

Technically, it's $6/month for a normal STB, plus $10/month for the DVR. I assume somewhere else you are also paying for the HD channels too.

It's a lot of money, though if you are using SageTV with the HD homerun, you can remove $10/month for the DVR and get the normal non-DVR version of the HD box.

There is another option for recording digital cable, the R5000-HD, which I have a couple of and several others on the forum also have. It's more expensive than the HD homerun, but gives you the native digital recording that the cablecard does, minus the restrictions... It's only supported with SageTV and VMC though.

Yep, it's $15.95 for the DVR, but then if you want another HD box (non-DVR) it's $8 (HDTV) + $6.99 (add'l outlet) or $14.99... so I'm not sure which is worse.

I'm currently paying $0 for the D* DVR and $5 for a 2nd HD box...

In other news, internet was totally unusable almost all day on Sunday again. Called Comcast, went thru the usual backflips, the guy finally said it must be my modem and I should swap it. :rolleyes: This is after I already swapped it out once, and had the whole house re-wired and the signal adjusted.

anyone else?

i've been episodically losing KTVU and KPIX HD on both my QAM tuner on my TV (Sony Bravia) and my computer (Miglia HD on Mac) this past few days.

it comes in and out...the other channel in the 555 mhz (KTVU-2.2) band seems fine...

If you have a problem with cable and what they provide
It is this sort of ignorant and short-sighted reading that is precisely the problem. Nowhere did I suggest this was the case.

I have a problem with cable users not understanding fundamental technologies and with people predicting failure without any sort of coherent support for such a claim. It's ignorant, stupid, baseless FUD and propaganda.
You are not willing to listen to anything that I or anyone else will say, it's obvious to me that you have already made up your mind.
On the contrary, in your obvious zeal to knock yourself down defending cable, you simply failed to notice the content of the discussion and that no type of service, nor any single provider, was highlighted by myself as being superior to the others.

You claim that you perceive an obvious bias, but this is simply not the case. Responding to a claim with counterexamples does not mean that anyone is advocating the other side; saying "you're wrong" does not imply that the other side is "right".
Read what your responses were and tell me you are unbiased and don't have an agenda.
I do not. It's called equalization--no type of service is so clearly superior to the others that it can be defended above all others. It's your own bias you're responding to and nothing else. Cable providers are facing enormous problems, just as DSS and IPTV likewise have deficiencies. What cable advocates like you have, however, is a demonstrated lack of understanding of the technology behind the others and a bizarre tendency to get your feathers ruffled over nothing.

My original post on the subject quite simply and plainly suggested that predicting the doom of a relatively new service with unsubstantiated criticisms when the very cause of creation and the ongoing momentum behind them is deficiency in cable providers is mistaken. Then some high profile cable zealots decided to get all riled up and roll out the FUD machine.

What is the cheapest AT&T Internet plans that gives above 1Mbps upstream and minimum 6Mbps down, without requiring a phone line?
You'll have to check with AT&T for that. None of the U-verse services requires a phone line. Visiting their website, it appears that they offer such a service for $35 in my area.
Does bandwidth still depend on 'distance from the exchange' or is it guaranteed for all?
Service depends on distance as with all systems (copper, cable, fiber), but Internet bandwidth without TV service is available to a minimum of 18Mbps wherever VDSL service is offered, since the absolute minimum sync rate offered by AT&T is 19Mbps, and up to ~90Mbps on copper single pair. FTTP installations, where available, including some AT&T and most Verizon service areas, offer at least an order of magnitude better capacity on the physical layer (but for now and the near future, no service provider is going past about 75Mbps sync rates, so the key benefit to fiber is not its available capacity per se, but rather the benefit of only having to upgrade once instead of incrementally as with AT&T).

Coax, in comparison, offers 38-150 Mbps for data (out of 1.2-1.8Gbps total on RG6) depending on whether DOCSIS 2 or 3 is deployed. Future capacity could be extended to 300+, at the expense of QAM and analog slots. But this all traces back to a hub shared by 200-1000 customers, so even with a 150Mbps DOCSIS 3.0 connection, if 150 users try to use their connections simultaneously, only 1Mbps is available to them, regardless of their account type (though obviously this is a rare occurrence). The only way to improve this performance is to reduce the number of customers sharing a single node. That's why cable companies want to squeeze out their analog channels--that way, they can reduce data load without spending money on replacing TV infrastructure and physical plant. This is also why they are so concerned about "campers"--using the service nearly 24/7, which effectively reduces total available bandwidth and makes congestion events much more common than they used to be.

The way the system is designed, if dedicated bandwidth were offered, it would sync up at 10Mbps on a light node--barely enough for broadband, let alone television. So while it's true that copper twisted pair is pretty limited, so is coax thanks to cable oversubscription and hence why cable companies can't simply switch to packet-based television delivery without running a huge amount of new wire. But they also can't allocate any additional space to television, so cable can't go all-HD. This is why all Comcast HD channel additions come at the expense of picture quality and why they have a bigger on demand selection than other delivery types--there's simply no more room for broadcast channels and they have no choice but to try to get people watching on demand programming (but not too many people at once, because there's a finite number of on demand slots in each node, too).

They're boxed in, in other words, by being a shared service. 30 years ago, it was a huge advantage for TV delivery because of signal quality. They could offer up to 600 analog channels. 15 years ago, they had a huge advantage in Internet delivery, since they had unused space to deliver a fat pipe when ADSL was a new technology. Both of those advantages are now limitations.

AT&T is boxed in, too, since it can only reach customers in a limited distance, but they have a more flexible infrastructure because they were forced to invest in one. U-verse in particular is quite flexible. Installed over fiber or copper to the home, it links up to a fiber backbone offering massive bandwidth (and typically fairly high percentages of "dark" fiber in the bundle for future expansion). Copper pair to the premises can be replaced by homeowners and communities with fiber, or they can employ pair bonding to extend some combination of range and sync rates (by using two sets of phone pairs, they can nearly double the service distance or nearly double the sync rates). Most current customers have 25Mbps dedicated lines with max possible rates from 40 to 75Mbps available for future expansion on POTS.

Verizon's approach is a little different. They take fiber all the way to the premises in nearly all cases, which means they don't have to worry about any incremental upgrades to the last segment. However, fiber is not currently necessary to carry their existing and planned services, so it imposes higher rollout costs and a different kind of range limiting compared to AT&T.

The simple fact remains, though, that it's cable's infrastructure that is least future-ready, because it is a community asset with limited bandwidth shared by too many users to deliver future increases in HD and high-bandwidth broadband applications without massive overhaul. DOCSIS 3.0 is a stopgap for the Internet side, and eliminating the analog tier is a stopgap for TV service, but that's the end of the line without something radical and truly innovative.

To say AT&T's cardinal sin was not investing in FTTP is to highlight cable's more egregious problem with its physical plant. To say AT&T will fail because of it necessarily implies that cable will, too--and neither is true.

anyone else?

i've been episodically losing KTVU and KPIX HD on both my QAM tuner on my TV (Sony Bravia) and my computer (Miglia HD on Mac) this past few days.

it comes in and out...the other channel in the 555 mhz (KTVU-2.2) band seems fine...

I've noticed it as well -- in Fremont (you don't say where you are). I don't see it go dark -- tends to freeze, lose audio or audio sync, stall, then resync itself after a 5-10 second pause. Last night I noticed it on House, as House was delivering the diagnosis to his team (IIRC).

Hasn't become annoying enough yet to precipitate a call, since my experience is that any call to Comcast turns into 3 -- the first to purportedly fix stuff, it'll fix the TV, but break the internet, then 2 more calls to get it totally working again. It's gotta get really bad to force a call :-(

I noticed that glitch on House as well, I doubt it had anything to do with Comcast though.

If you are pulling the plug on Comcast, CANCEL AUTOPAY FIRST. I terminated service on 2/11, paying the pro rated charge for the first part of the month. I just got a notice today of an intended autopayment for the month of March. This caused me to check my recent credit card transactions online and, sure enough, they billed me for the remainder of February through the online credit payment. I just spent 15 minutes on the phone with Comcast, most of which was on hold. They are taking the position that they won't ULTIMATELY charge me for the period from 2/12 through 2/28, but that they "are required" to charge me until a technician actually comes out to pull the plug (physically?) on service on the 26th (they are too busy to do it any more quickly than that, apparently), at which point they will rebate the charge back. Of course, if I had thought to end the autopayment mechanism, I just wouldn't have paid any bill at all and they never would've had my money.

Rather than go through the hassle of explaining all of this to the credit card company and challenging the charge, I'm just going to wait it out and see if the promised rebate arrives at end of this week. But words to the wise who are departing Comcast.

sorry: yeah. i'm having problems in Santa Clara (95054).

i don't every completely lose signal either on my Sony TV, but from time to time, i'll get "no signal" for a couple of minutes or frozen screen on my computer based tuner.

I've noticed it as well -- in Fremont (you don't say where you are). I don't see it go dark -- tends to freeze, lose audio or audio sync, stall, then resync itself after a 5-10 second pause. Last night I noticed it on House, as House was delivering the diagnosis to his team (IIRC).

Hasn't become annoying enough yet to precipitate a call, since my experience is that any call to Comcast turns into 3 -- the first to purportedly fix stuff, it'll fix the TV, but break the internet, then 2 more calls to get it totally working again. It's gotta get really bad to force a call :-(

I had a similar situation when I pulled the plug last year. My rebate did arrive but it was almost a month later. They got to hold on to my money a little longer than I would have liked but, in the end, it didn't matter much to me.

If you are pulling the plug on Comcast, CANCEL AUTOPAY FIRST. I terminated service on 2/11, paying the pro rated charge for the first part of the month. I just got a notice today of an intended autopayment for the month of March. This caused me to check my recent credit card transactions online and, sure enough, they billed me for the remainder of February through the online credit payment. I just spent 15 minutes on the phone with Comcast, most of which was on hold. They are taking the position that they won't ULTIMATELY charge me for the period from 2/12 through 2/28, but that they "are required" to charge me until a technician actually comes out to pull the plug (physically?) on service on the 26th (they are too busy to do it any more quickly than that, apparently), at which point they will rebate the charge back. Of course, if I had thought to end the autopayment mechanism, I just wouldn't have paid any bill at all and they never would've had my money.

Rather than go through the hassle of explaining all of this to the credit card company and challenging the charge, I'm just going to wait it out and see if the promised rebate arrives at end of this week. But words to the wise who are departing Comcast.

[blah blah blah]
... Internet bandwidth without TV service is available to a minimum of 18Mbps wherever VDSL service is offered, since the absolute minimum sync rate offered by AT&T is 19Mbps, and up to ~90Mbps on copper single pair. FTTP installations, where available, including some AT&T and most Verizon service areas, offer ...
[blah blah blah]



ok man you made your point. a *detailed* description of someone else's service (while educational and fairly interesting i have to admit) is off-topic. you really need to talk about comcast or start a new thread.

I read this somewhere. Is it true that if you get HSI you automatically also get basic cable for free because Comcast can't encrypt basic cable?

I noticed that glitch on House as well, I doubt it had anything to do with Comcast though.Same thing happened to me, at the same time. That's Benicia, Santa Rosa, and Fremont all having the same signal problem at the same moment. Besides the HD signal itself (from KTVU) and whatever Comcast uses to receive the signal (and is there one single reception point for the Bay Area Comcast stations, or do different areas have their own), is there anything else that could have caused it in three different cities?

-- Don

I read this somewhere. Is it true that if you get HSI you automatically also get basic cable for free because Comcast can't encrypt basic cable?

Comcast charges more for HSI without cable TV, so they cost about the same.

No, they put a trap on your line that filters everything out. If you're lucky you'll get a fuzzy channel 2, and 72, then maybe 73-83 or whatever is up there on your system. Actually might be something on 99 or 100 also. They charge you $14 for this (effectively). If you pay $16 you get "basic" cable which is 2-31 or so (and again fuzzy 72-73 and whatever is left above 73).

That's analog of course - as far as what digital channels you'll be able to tune, it's a crapshoot. If they are not encrypted you might get channels that are mapped to the higher frequencies (600-700mhz).

Same thing happened to me, at the same time. That's Benicia, Santa Rosa, and Fremont all having the same signal problem at the same moment. Besides the HD signal itself (from KTVU) and whatever Comcast uses to receive the signal (and is there one single reception point for the Bay Area Comcast stations, or do different areas have their own), is there anything else that could have caused it in three different cities?

-- Don

I just checked the recording on my DirecTV DVR and it's also there so the problem was from KTUV, or further up the line as they use that splicer system. The DirecTV signal is captured OTA.

I read this somewhere. Is it true that if you get HSI you automatically also get basic cable for free because Comcast can't encrypt basic cable?

For any HSI service above 4/384 it's about $15-$18 more than if you were to get Limited Basic cable TV as well.

For example, Limited Basic costs about $18 in Santa Rosa. The 16/2 HSI package costs about $68. If you have Limited Basic you can get 16/2 for $52. So, for both Limited Basic and 16/2 HSI the total is around $70 which is only a few dollars more than HSI by itself.

I like to look at it as getting Limited Basic for "free" as I want the HSI service anyway. Additionally, while Comcast completes it's ADS transition, all the Expanded Basic channels are un-encrypted and in clear-QAM, meaning I can view them with any QAM tuner. That's an additional $25 or so of value since Standard Cable(Limited + Expanded) runs about $42-$45 per month. Of course, this will only last until Comcast switches everything over and re-encrypts those channels. In my area, I expect that will be sometime late this year. In the meantime, I can't complain at all about what I'm getting for my dollar with Comcast. :)

When Comcast implements DOCSIS 3.0 in my area I'm hoping the $43 12/2 HSI package will be available as I can lower my bill down to about $63 per month. The additional 4mb/s DL speed of the 16/2 package is not worth the additional $10 to me as I can't think of any instance where I would need that much speed anyways. The fastest I've even seen anything come down the pipe has been around 4-5mb/s, and the PowerBoost feature is still there with the lower speed tier, so the ability of getting something DL'ed quickly is basically the same.

It's $16 extra for HSI if you don't have CATV. I'm now paying $58.95 for the 6mb tier.

They also added a $3.85 "internet mdm lse" fee which I guess I'm going to have to contest since I own my own modem (actually I own 2 of them). :(

It's $16 extra for HSI if you don't have CATV. I'm now paying $58.95 for the 6mb tier.

They also added a $3.85 "internet mdm lse" fee which I guess I'm going to have to contest since I own my own modem (actually I own 2 of them). :(

I've never paid a modem rental fee, purchased it and had it rebated 100% through Circuit City, in fact, the first 7 mos of the 6/1 service I had amounted to being free with the promo/rebates.

docsis 3.0 is available in San Jose !!!

docsis 3.0 is available in San Jose !!!

Huh? Hows that?:eek:

..... while Comcast completes it's ADS transition, all the Expanded Basic channels are un-encrypted and in clear-QAM, meaning I can view them with any QAM tuner. ... this will only last until Comcast switches everything over and re-encrypts those channels. In my area, I expect that will be sometime late this year. .....


So does this mean my Pace DTA box (which I just got from Comcast) will eventually not work for my second TV since it has no decryption capability?

Jim

docsis 3.0 is available in San Jose !!!

I believe as your name states, that is not true. The Web site is a little early on that announcement but I would think that an announcement might becoming soon.

Laters,
Mikef5

ok man you made your point. a *detailed* description of someone else's service (while educational and fairly interesting i have to admit) is off-topic. you really need to talk about comcast or start a new thread.
It was a direct response to a question asking for a comparison of service by a poster in this thread wanting to know about the difference in bandwidth allocation between cable and DSL-based systems. Otherwise, I would tend to agree that it is off-topic.

So does this mean my Pace DTA box (which I just got from Comcast) will eventually not work for my second TV since it has no decryption capability?I think the current theory is that they will move the "expanded" digital channels into the spectrum that the traps filter out so they won't need to encrypt them and don't have to go around and remove a few million traps.

So does this mean my Pace DTA box (which I just got from Comcast) will eventually not work for my second TV since it has no decryption capability?

Jim

Comcast can't encrypt them and have the DTA's function. So that won't happen. What they will do is move them into the notch part of spectrum so limited basic users can't see them.

:)Comcast charges more for HSI without cable TV, so they cost about the same.

I recently switched to DirecTV from Comcast and they wanted to bump up my HSI from $42 to $59. When I balked the rep said if I keep Basic Cable the combined charge is $54.

The rep also said the speed would go from 6MB to 12 MB at the end of this month.

AT&T is offering 6MB DSL for $35 @ month. I will check it out, but switching email domains is a pain.

Just to clear up some confusion here. The DTA's function is to take the digital signals and convert them to analog signals so that people with analog tv's can still use those analog tv's without being forced to buy a new digital set and that's their only function.

For those people, the analog channels you are now receiving, without a box, are the same that you will get when they shift some of those analog channels to digital but because they will be digital you will need the DTA to view them on your analog tv, you lose nothing.

Laters,
Mikef5

:)

I recently switched to DirecTV from Comcast and they wanted to bump up my HSI from $42 to $59. When I balked the rep said if I keep Basic Cable the combined charge is $54.

The rep also said the speed would go from 6MB to 12 MB at the end of this month.

AT&T is offering 6MB DSL for $35 @ month. I will check it out, but switching email domains is a pain.It's 42.95 with CATV and $16 more without or $58.95.
So it depends on what you pay for basic cable in your area, here it's $16.25, BUT there's a $2 "public access fee" for Petaluma which you can opt out of, though most people probably don't so they pay $18.25.

(Add $3 to all those figures if you lease a modem instead of own.)

If they said your 6mb speed is going up to 12mb that probably means your area is getting Docsis 3.0. No word here on that yet.

I'm not really concerned about the money but I'm temped to go DSL (ie Sonic.net) for $35 if they don't get this **** fixed soon. Ever since early Jan. my internet goes out for hours at a time, 3-4 times a week. :mad:

Just to clear up some confusion here. The DTA's function is to take the digital signals and convert them to analog signals so that people with analog tv's can still use those analog tv's without being forced to buy a new digital set and that's their only function. ....
Laters,
Mikef5

Please excuse my ignorance.....I must be missing something here....
How about those of us that have digital TVs currently connected directly to digital cable without any STB. Comcast told me I need DTAs for every TV. Why would I want a digital to analog converter for a digital TV?

So does this mean my Pace DTA box (which I just got from Comcast) will eventually not work for my second TV since it has no decryption capability?

Jim


Walk and MkieSM are correct, I misused the term "encrypt", they'll put the channels in the trapped RF range where Limited subs can't receive. They'll be there, and un-encrypted, but blocked by the trap.

Please excuse my ignorance.....I must be missing something here....
How about those of us that have digital TVs currently connected directly to digital cable without any STB. Comcast told me I need DTAs for every TV. Why would I want a digital to analog converter for a digital TV?

You shouldn't need one if they have QAM tuners, although, I'm a little unsure on channel mappings, the DTA may map the channels to the numbering system Comcast uses, your QAM tuner may not.

I don't have any need for such a device, and haven't kept pace on exactly how it works, so one of the "clear-QAM experts" here can probably answer your question better.

^^^^^
Thanks Keenan.
I doubt that this digital TV has a QAM tuner.
Anyone else know why I would need a DTA?

I will check it out, but switching email domains is a pain.

If you want to have the flexibility of changing ISP, do not use your ISP for email, website, etc. I switch between DSL and cable modem 1-2 times a year.

If you have a QAM tuner, no need. If you don't, you'll need a STB to get the digital channels. You alluded to having a direct connection today. Are you getting the HD channels today with that set up? If so, nothing changes because you do, indeed have a QAM tuner.

^^^^
No, this is just a secondary TV in a bedroom, which currently gets only straight cable channels (1-100?), which is all I want.
It is a digital TV without a QAM tuner. Will I still need a DTA for Comcast's encryption?

I think the current theory is that they will move the "expanded" digital channels into the spectrum that the traps filter out so they won't need to encrypt them and don't have to go around and remove a few million traps.

The unencrypted Expanded Basic channels would take up only a few (probably 3) analog channels. Right now they stash 10 SD channels to one analog. So what else would they put in the trap filter range? Hopefully the HD versions unencrypted. Technically SD is passe so people would want the HD versions.

^^^^
No, this is just a secondary TV in a bedroom, which currently gets only straight cable channels (1-100?), which is all I want.
It is a digital TV without a QAM tuner. Will I still need a DTA for Comcast's encryption?

What is the make and model of your Tv ? That'll give me an idea of the capabilities of your set.

From what I can tell with the limited information of your set. It sounds like you have an NTSC analog tuner with an ATSC digital tuner with no support for QAM. If that is correct then yes you will need a DTA. What your tv is using is the NTSC analog tuner for the analog channels ( 1-100 ) and since it doesn't support QAM you will need the box to give you those channels in analog so you can view those on your set. Let me know if this is correct for your tv.

Laters,
Mikef5

^^^^
No, this is just a secondary TV in a bedroom, which currently gets only straight cable channels (1-100?), which is all I want.

Lets not bring lifestyle choices into the matter :rolleyes:

Yes, you'll need a DTA to get expanded basic (37+)

What is the make and model of your Tv ? That'll give me an idea of the capabilities of your set......
Mikef5


Thanks Mikef5!

Here is a CNET link describing the TV in question:
http://reviews.cnet.com/flat-panel-tvs/funai-f20lcte-20-lcd/1707-6482_7-31280453.html?tag=mncol;lst#manDesc

Lets not bring lifestyle choices into the matter :rolleyes:


:eek:

Thanks Mikef5!

Here is a CNET link describing the TV in question:
http://reviews.cnet.com/flat-panel-tvs/funai-f20lcte-20-lcd/1707-6482_7-31280453.html?tag=mncol;lst#manDesc

From what I see from that manual, you have an NTSC analog tuner and also has an OTA ( over the air ) tuner for digital signals, so yes you will need a DTA so that your analog tuner will see those analog channels that are moving to digital ( channels 34 and above ). You will still get all the channels you are now getting but the cable signals will have to go through the DTA to your set. Hope this helps you.

Laters,
Mikef5

:)

I recently switched to DirecTV from Comcast and they wanted to bump up my HSI from $42 to $59. When I balked the rep said if I keep Basic Cable the combined charge is $54.

The rep also said the speed would go from 6MB to 12 MB at the end of this month.

AT&T is offering 6MB DSL for $35 @ month. I will check it out, but switching email domains is a pain.

If you want to have the flexibility of changing ISP, do not use your ISP for email, website, etc. I switch between DSL and cable modem 1-2 times a year.

I use Gmail(Google), and also have a domain(Go Daddy, NameCheap, etc) that I forward mail through so if in the future I decide I don't want to use Gmail anymore I can still retain the same address. I don't see that happening though, I'm very happy with Gmail and have been using that address directly more and more as opposed to forwarding through the domain address. I think the domain costs me about $7 a year.

The switch over from ISP-based email is a bit of a pain, but long term it's the only way to go in my opinion, I'll never use an ISP email again.

From what I see from that manual, you have an NTSC analog tuner and also has an OTA ( over the air ) tuner for digital signals, so yes you will need a DTA so that your analog tuner will see those analog channels that are moving to digital ( channels 34 and above ). You will still get all the channels you are now getting but the cable signals will have to go through the DTA to your set. Hope this helps you.
Laters,
Mikef5

Thanks Mikef5. I appreciate that!
I've already ordered the DTAs, so I will now attach one to this TV also.

docsis 3.0 is available in San Jose !!!

There is a lot of discussion on the dsl reports forums that it's in SJ, but I think as MikeF says, it's just an early announcement. But it's obviously coming soon, although the haters that lurk here and keep thinking that everything comes late to Silicon Valley will still try to convince you it won't be here for 2-3 years.

Does Comcast bill ahead or bill for the past month?

If you have automatic payments set up with a credit card, when they charge you, are they charging for the previous month or for the upcoming month?

I just canceled service and about 2 weeks later, they billed me. And just got an email that they will bill me again in March.

I turned in my modem on 2/5.

Am I going to have to go to my credit card company? Maybe I should at least remove my credit card number from my profile on comcast.com.

It's funny, one of the reasons I canceled was that my speeds were declining, down to 4 Mbps and uploads of only 300 kbps. It had been higher for a long time, regardless of what I was suppose to be getting.

Now they send me a letter, weeks after I cancel, saying good news, they're going to upgrade my service for free to 6 Mbps and 1 Mbps up.

Too little too late.

And the price is almost double what I'm paying for Uverse Elite.

DOCSIS 3? Whoppee doo, faster speeds so you can hit that download cap sooner.

I did a speed test in Milpitas on Tuesday night and my internet speed was between 11 MB and 13 MB using Speedtest.Net.

I did a speed test in Milpitas on Tuesday night and my internet speed was between 11 MB and 13 MB using Speedtest.Net.

Rshaw,

Long time no see :)

There has been some testing going on in different parts of the Bay Area, some of it in the South Bay, and you might of been on line during that time. But it might be a sign of things to come ;)

Nice to see another Milpitian still in the forum.

Laters,
Mikef5

snip....

DOCSIS 3? Whoppee doo, faster speeds so you can hit that download cap sooner.

Sorry, you've had problems with your experience with cable, billing problems happen no matter who the provider is. I hope you get that resolved.

As far as download caps, read this link, it's coming to an area near you soon ( I've seen postings that it's already hit in Southern California )...
http://bellsouth.com/consumer/inetsrvcs/promo_trial.html

They all want to do this, not just cable but at least Comcast has a somewhat larger cap limit than most of the other providers.

Like I've said before, there are pluses and minuses for all providers, go with what is good for you.

Laters,
Mikef5

Mikef5, I have no illusions about one type of provider being more consumer-friendly than others. They all are in it to extract money from us.

It wasn't an easy decision to drop Comcast. I've been with them since '98, starting with TCI, ATTBI, etc.

I've been happy for the most part and really tried to delay the day. But I think they hurt themselves with an uncompetitive video offering.

The one advantage they had, with data, they've been chipping away the value proposition gradually, at the same time pricing it uncompetitively.

I don't mean to sour anyone else's experience with Comcast. Maybe once they figure out I'm gone, they'll offer me promos to come back. :D

Mikef5, I have no illusions about one type of provider being more consumer-friendly than others. They all are in it to extract money from us.

It wasn't an easy decision to drop Comcast. I've been with them since '98, starting with TCI, ATTBI, etc.

I've been happy for the most part and really tried to delay the day. But I think they hurt themselves with an uncompetitive video offering.

The one advantage they had, with data, they've been chipping away the value proposition gradually, at the same time pricing it uncompetitively.

I don't mean to sour anyone else's experience with Comcast. Maybe once they figure out I'm gone, they'll offer me promos to come back. :D

Didn't think you where souring anything and I do understand your frustration, it's just that you will find that there are frustrations with every provider, you just have to decide which frustrations you can put up with and those you can't. If AT&T fits your bill, then by all means go with them and I hope your frustrations with them are less than you had here. Personally, I have been here since the days of TCI also ( my brother worked for TCI and AT&T ) and I have a few minor problems with cable but I've tried to work with them to get these problems fixed or at least addressed. My only bitch is pricing and the slowness of making changes, but then again I don't like waiting of anything but at least they are taking their time to get things added with the least amount of trouble for the customer. Of course you can always come back if you miss the frustrations here.....:p

Laters,
Mikef5

Does Comcast bill ahead or bill for the past month?

If you have automatic payments set up with a credit card, when they charge you, are they charging for the previous month or for the upcoming month?

I just canceled service and about 2 weeks later, they billed me. And just got an email that they will bill me again in March.

I turned in my modem on 2/5.


They bill ahead. Comcast is notorious about billing and unnecessarily complicates it. I would just take the bills to local Comcast office and they can override and fix pretty easily. Explaining billing problem on phone could be tough to impossible depending on the rep that handles it. Comcast has no notion of consistency... for them pretty much every case is special case.

Only clever thing is that 99% of their billing errors end costing customers more :).

Rshaw,

Long time no see :)

There has been some testing going on in different parts of the Bay Area, some of it in the South Bay, and you might of been on line during that time. But it might be a sign of things to come ;)

Nice to see another Milpitian still in the forum.

Laters,
Mikef5

I've been following this forum to get more information about the DTA. As I understand it we will make the switch in Milpitas at the end of May.

Also, I checked again on Thursday evening and my internet speed tested out to be 14 MB Up, 1 MB Down; mybe I'm in an area that has already been upgraded.

Regards

San Jose goes digital for the expanded basic service April 1st, channels 35 to 82. I received the letter today. Looks like it includes Campbell and Santa Clara County, according to the line up insert included with the letter, also notes service not available in all areas.

The one advantage they had, with data, they've been chipping away the value proposition gradually, at the same time pricing it uncompetitively.
I get up to 26Mbps down/3Mbps up with comcast for $53/month. Is there some other provider offering higher speeds in northern ca at residential prices?

Surely not at&t uverse. AT&T hasn't even yet offered the service in my neighborhood and when they do it'll be more $$ and lower bandwidth unless they have some undisclosed new technology they are about to unleash.

we will get michael's HD DVR Box in his room, and 2 digital adapters for the kitchen, and ashley's room.

I get up to 26Mbps down/3Mbps up with comcast for $53/month. Is there some other provider offering higher speeds in northern ca at residential prices?

Surely not at&t uverse. AT&T hasn't even yet offered the service in my neighborhood and when they do it'll be more $$ and lower bandwidth unless they have some undisclosed new technology they are about to unleash.

Those speeds are PowerBoost'ed though aren't they? I'm guessing you're on the 16/2 plan? I doubt you'll get those speeds all the time, only at the beginning of a transfer.

Hello everyone,
I'm new to the HD world and hoping that I can get some help/education since I recently bought a Sony KD-30XS955 TV. I'm currently paying for a Digital preferrred plan but can't see the HD channels. From my understanding, I have 2 options:
1. Get an HD receiver from Comcast and pay $7/mo.
2. Get 1 cable card from Comcast for free

Question 1:
According to the CSR, getting an HD receiver would allow me to see all the HD channels offered. Would I see all the HD channels if I got a cable card or only the local channels?

Question 2:
With a cable card, would I be able to access channels over 80, such as Starz or Encore which are in the 500s? I ask because I connected my cable to the TV directly but I couldn't see any channels over 111.10 after I performed an auto-program.

Question 3:
Am I missing anything?

Seems like getting a cable card would be best since it would be free. However, I wasn't sure if having a cable card would preclude me from seeing Starz or other channels. I appreciate any input/advice! Thanks so much!

Other than VOD and PPV, CableCard and the HD box should give you the same channels, unless your TV cannot handle the higher frequencies.

here are the channel lineup for your digital adapter:
2 KTVU-FOX
3 KNTV-NBC
4 KRON-MyNetworkTV
5 KPIX-CBS
6 KICU-IND
7 KGO-ABC
8 KTSF-IND
9 KQED-PBS
10 KTEH-PBS
12 KBCW-CW
13 KOFY-IND
14 KDTV-UNI
15 Municipal Access (MCTV 15)
16 KKPX-ION
17 KCSM-PBS
18 KSTS-TEL
19 KTNC-IND
20 KFSF-TFT
21 KCNS-IND
22 C-SPAN
25 KTLN-IND
26 Santa Clara Unified School District
27 CCN1
28 Government Access/RTPi
29 Discovery Channel
30 Leased Access
31 HSN
32 KMTP-IND
33 WGN America
34 QVC
35 Food Network
36 FX
37 TNT
38 ESPN
39 ESPN2
40 Comcast SportsNet Bay Area
41 TBS
42 USA Network
43 MTV
44 VH-1
45 Spike TV
46 Lifetime
47 A&E
48 Bravo
49 AMC
50 TLC
51 Animal Planet
52 ABC Family
53 Nickelodeon
54 Cartoon Network
55 Disney Channel
56 CNN
57 Headline News
58 CNBC
59 Fox News Channel
60 MSNBC
61 The Weather Channel
62 The History Channel
63 Comedy Central
64 E!
65 Tru TV
66 Hallmark Channel
67 Galavision
70 BET
71 Travel Channel
72 TV Land
73 Oxygen
75 Home & Garden Television
76 CMT
77 Gems TV
81 Versus
82 Golf Channel
89 Comcast SportsNet California
110 C-SPAN 3
119 PBS Kids Sprout
128 Bloomberg Television
136 G4
164 Shop NBC
229 EWTN
230 Trinity Broadcasting Network
504 Lifetime Movie Network

here are the channel lineup for your digital adapter:

That's the channel lineup for YOUR area only. As long as the channel is not encrypted, there shouldn't be any difference between the DTA and a regular SD box.

Other than VOD and PPV, CableCard and the HD box should give you the same channels, unless your TV cannot handle the higher frequencies.

I checked the manual on my tv and this is what I found in the specifications:
Channel coverage:
Terrestrial (analog) 2-69
Cable TV (analog) 1-125
Terestrial (digital) 2-69
Cable TV (digital) 1-135

Does that mean that I will not be able to see channels past 135 on my TV when using a cable card? Thanks again!

RF channel 135 corresponds to approximately 860MHz. Comcast has upgrade some communities to 1GHz, but the higher frequencies are probably not in use yet. The TV should be fine.

To add to what C3 said, nota bene that your TV set's "channels" (i.e., the rf channel numbers) do not correspond to Comcast's "channels" in most cases. The latter are what you'll see only when using a Comcast STB or the CableCard. Lacking STB or CableCard you'll still see the unencrypted of those "channels", but they'll be tuned using the TV set's numbering system rather than Comcast's.

To add to what C3 said, nota bene that your TV set's "channels" (i.e., the rf channel numbers) do not correspond to Comcast's "channels" in most cases. The latter are what you'll see only when using a Comcast STB or the CableCard. Lacking STB or CableCard you'll still see the unencrypted of those "channels", but they'll be tuned using the TV set's numbering system rather than Comcast's.

Okay, I think I understand. So, channel 500 on the Comcast STB might be equivalent to 110.4 (random number) on the tv using a cable card, right? So, I would have to flip through each rf channel number to associate it to a particular Comcast channel. Wow, seems like a lot of work to do. Has there been a list compiled for something like this? Thanks for the input.

So, channel 500 on the Comcast STB might be equivalent to 110.4 (random number) on the tv using a cable card, right?Not quite. Comcast's "500" might be equivalent to "110.4" on the TV not using the CableCard. AIUI, when you use the CableCard, you also get to use Comcast's numbering scheme. (I've not used a CableCard myself, so this is an inference from reading others posts here)

Regarding pre-existing channel maps, try entering your ZIP code on this web page (http://www.silicondust.com/wiki/hdhomerun/channels).

Okay, I think I understand. So, channel 500 on the Comcast STB might be equivalent to 110.4 (random number) on the tv using a cable card, right? So, I would have to flip through each rf channel number to associate it to a particular Comcast channel. Wow, seems like a lot of work to do. Has there been a list compiled for something like this? Thanks for the input.

CableCard maps the logical channel 500 to the RF channel 110.4 for you. If Comcast changes channel 500 to RF 123.45 later, the CableCard will be updated automatically, just like a Comcast set top box.

Those speeds are PowerBoost'ed though aren't they? I'm guessing you're on the 16/2 plan? I doubt you'll get those speeds all the time, only at the beginning of a transfer.Those speeds are with blast! (16Mbps) with the cable modem provisioned without any caps. I bet it's normal that comcast doesn't bother capping the cable modem if you've bought their highest level of service.
And no, my speed doesn't drop down after the first 10-20MB. It used to when I had basic service that was capped at 6Mbps.
But yes, my speed is often just 8-12Mbit/sec, and of course if you're surfing a web site in Asia it's still as slow as usual (limited by the WAN).

All that doesn't change my original conjecture. That is, I can't buy a higher throughput residential internet service from anybody else. So I still call BS on wco81's statement suggesting otherwise.

San Jose goes digital for the expanded basic service April 1st, channels 35 to 82. I received the letter today. Looks like it includes Campbell and Santa Clara County, according to the line up insert included with the letter, also notes service not available in all areas.

I heard from a friend in San Mateo they drop the analog for Expanded Basic on March 16 (the digital is already up in the clear). I sense a lot of QAM channel shuffling in my future...

Jim

Okay, I think I understand. So, channel 500 on the Comcast STB might be equivalent to 110.4 (random number) on the tv using a cable card, right? So, I would have to flip through each rf channel number to associate it to a particular Comcast channel. Wow, seems like a lot of work to do. Has there been a list compiled for something like this? Thanks for the input.

I had a Cablecard for a couple of years before I recently switched to DirecTV. To put what other people have said here into "how it works" . . . Comcast has its own channel lineup. With a Cablecard in your set KTVU-HD, the Fox affiliate, is accessed on the TV by selecting 702, the same Comcast channel as you would select if you had a digital cable box. KPIX-HD (CBS Local) is 705, ESPN-HD is 724, HBO-HD is 770, etc. etc. The Cablecard does all this automatically for you--no need for any programming of any kind. Traditionally, Comcast has required a home visit to set up the card, since (trying to put this non-judgmentally here) the card technology and the local Comcast network require some tweaking. Some people report being able to install the cards themselves (after talking Comcast into it) with nothing more than telephone assistance from Comcast. YMMV.

The advantage of a Cablecard is you can jettison a box. For a wall-mounted TV that's a real aesthetic advantage. What you lose with a Cablecard is OnDemand programming, including Pay-Per-View. My TV, at least, had no way to access guide data as well. Not sure if that is universally true. And of course you don't get the recording capabilities of a HD-DVR box. I have both a Cablecard TV and a Motorola HD DVR for three years and had far fewer problems with the Cablecard. Every once in a while Comcast would change the frequencies in the neighborhood in a way that would require me to call customer support to get them to send a signal to the card to reset it. And once they did that and it fried the card. But overall it was a much more reliable experience than the Motorola HD-DVR.

Does Comcast bill ahead or bill for the past month?

If you have automatic payments set up with a credit card, when they charge you, are they charging for the previous month or for the upcoming month?

I just canceled service and about 2 weeks later, they billed me. And just got an email that they will bill me again in March.

I turned in my modem on 2/5.

Am I going to have to go to my credit card company? Maybe I should at least remove my credit card number from my profile on comcast.com.

This is precisely what I posted about a few pages back. A number of respondents indicated that Comcast will eventually refund you back what they charged you. But you will definitely want to log into your account, while it still is accessible to you, and remove the AUTOPAY.

On my account, at least, Comcast would hit the credit card in the third week of the month for which you are paying for service. I canceled on the 12th and paid my pro rated balance at that time. When the normal AUTOPAY cycle hit about 10 days later, they charged me for the rest of the month. The telephonic CSR refused to give me a credit--said they had to unplug my service first.

It's clear that Comcast has terminated my service--the old analog tuner in my PC no longer shows a signal--but they have not refunded me the charge they made to my credit card after I cancelled the account. I haven't bothered to start the CC dispute process yet but have made a note to myself to check for the refund again in a week or so.

I had a Cablecard for a couple of years before I recently switched to DirecTV. To put what other people have said here into "how it works" . . . Comcast has its own channel lineup. With a Cablecard in your set KTVU-HD, the Fox affiliate, is accessed on the TV by selecting 702, the same Comcast channel as you would select if you had a digital cable box. KPIX-HD (CBS Local) is 705, ESPN-HD is 724, HBO-HD is 770, etc. etc. The Cablecard does all this automatically for you--no need for any programming of any kind. Traditionally, Comcast has required a home visit to set up the card, since (trying to put this non-judgmentally here) the card technology and the local Comcast network require some tweaking. Some people report being able to install the cards themselves (after talking Comcast into it) with nothing more than telephone assistance from Comcast. YMMV.

The advantage of a Cablecard is you can jettison a box. For a wall-mounted TV that's a real aesthetic advantage. What you lose with a Cablecard is OnDemand programming, including Pay-Per-View. My TV, at least, had no way to access guide data as well. Not sure if that is universally true. And of course you don't get the recording capabilities of a HD-DVR box. I have both a Cablecard TV and a Motorola HD DVR for three years and had far fewer problems with the Cablecard. Every once in a while Comcast would change the frequencies in the neighborhood in a way that would require me to call customer support to get them to send a signal to the card to reset it. And once they did that and it fried the card. But overall it was a much more reliable experience than the Motorola HD-DVR.


Thanks for your input Tom. It sounds like you recommend getting a Cablecard over an HD box, is that the general consensus here? I won't be using an HD-DVR box in my setup.

Thanks for your input Tom. It sounds like you recommend getting a Cablecard over an HD box, is that the general consensus here? I won't be using an HD-DVR box in my setup.

So long as you can live without the InDemand, PPV, and Programming Guide, cablecard seems like a no brainer to me. I would sure pick cablecard over a non-DVR Motorola HD box, which is what you'll get from Comcast. Of course, I ultimately gave up the convenience of cablecard and talked my wife into having another box so I could get DirecTV. ;)

Come to think of it, I think you can even get conventional Pay Per View (where you watch on a set schedule, like for those wrestling matches) on a cablecard by calling Comcast and ordering. But not being a fan of Wrestlemania 57 or whatever, I can't say I ever tried.

Those speeds are with blast! (16Mbps) with the cable modem provisioned without any caps. I bet it's normal that comcast doesn't bother capping the cable modem if you've bought their highest level of service.
And no, my speed doesn't drop down after the first 10-20MB. It used to when I had basic service that was capped at 6Mbps.
But yes, my speed is often just 8-12Mbit/sec, and of course if you're surfing a web site in Asia it's still as slow as usual (limited by the WAN).

All that doesn't change my original conjecture. That is, I can't buy a higher throughput residential internet service from anybody else. So I still call BS on wco81's statement suggesting otherwise.

If it wasn't capped you'd get 30mbps upload too (actually about 27mbps with a docsis 2.0 modem, or about 9 mbps with a docsis 1.1 modem). I'm sure those speeds are Powerboost, you just need to test it with a larger file, at least 250MB. I have only the 6/1 basic tier but I get 30/3 during Powerboost.

Thanks C3, TPeterson, and Tom for all your help/input, I installed my Cablecard today and all the HD channels look really good. I will be watching all my college bball games in HD now! Thanks again!

BTW, I was just over at Fry's (in Concord) and I see they now stock the Silicon Dust "HD HomeRun" boxes. This is what I (and some others here) use on my home network so that I can watch HD on any of my computers and use any of them as a DVR. They have two ATSC and QAM tuners.

If it wasn't capped you'd get 30mbps upload too (actually about 27mbps with a docsis 2.0 modem, or about 9 mbps with a docsis 1.1 modem). I'm sure those speeds are Powerboost, you just need to test it with a larger file, at least 250MB. I have only the 6/1 basic tier but I get 30/3 during Powerboost.No, like I said, my cable modem is not capped and my reported rates are not simply powerboost. You don't have to believe me, I suppose, but here's some evidence from my CM:Downstream Channel


Lock Status Operational
Modulation 256QAM
Channel ID 35
Provisioned Rate Unlimited
Symbol Rate 41879.195 Ksym/sec
Downstream Power 1.0 dBmV
SNR 38.0 dB


Upstream Channel


Lock Status Operational
Modulation 16QAM
Channel ID 3
Provisioned Rate Unlimited
Symbol Rate 2560 Ksym/sec
Upstream Power 42.0 dBmV

"Provisioned Rate Unlimited" means the cable modem isn't using dynamic QOS to limit flows which is what powerboost depends upon.

And, no, you wouldn't get 30Mbps upload speeds without caps - the available bandwidth of the underlying pipe is not symmetric. Just like with ADSL.

They bill ahead. Comcast is notorious about billing and unnecessarily complicates it. I would just take the bills to local Comcast office and they can override and fix pretty easily. Explaining billing problem on phone could be tough to impossible depending on the rep that handles it. Comcast has no notion of consistency... for them pretty much every case is special case.

Only clever thing is that 99% of their billing errors end costing customers more :).
I have cancelled my Comcast HSI service 11/04 last year.
I had the payment on auto-pay. They charged my credit card for the Dec, so I went into the local office to really cancel. They assured me that the account had been cancelled; I should be getting a refund.

They kept charging my credit card for Jan as well. So I stopped the auto-payment. I just checked my account (I can still login) They are continuing to bill me for Feb & Mar. I hope this wont mess up my credit record for delinquency.

Ok this is getting ridiculous. Every Sunday now my internet completely tanks.

Last Result:
Download Speed: 519 kbps (64.9 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 2252 kbps (281.5 KB/sec transfer rate) :confused:


Downstream Value
Frequency 723000000 Hz
Signal to Noise Ratio 33 dB
QAM QAM256
Network Access Control Object ON
Power Level 8 dBmV


Upstream Value
Channel ID 4
Frequency 22100000 Hz
Ranging Service ID 594
Symbol Rate 2.560 Msym/s
Power Level 33 dBmV

2009-03-01 09:54:09 3-Critical R02.0 No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out
2009-03-01 09:25:25 3-Critical R02.0 No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out


Target Name: www.comcast.net (http://www.comcast.net)
IP: 96.17.70.19
Date/Time: 3/1/2009 10:05:11 AM to 3/1/2009 10:06:46 AM

Hop Sent Err PL% Min Max Avg Host Name / [IP]
3 19 2 10.5 7 70 17 ge-1-5-ur01.petaluma.ca.sfba.comcast.net [68.86.142.89]
4 20 5 25.0 7 35 13 te-7-1-ur01.rohnertpr.ca.sfba.comcast.net [68.87.192.158]
5 20 3 15.0 8 52 14 te-0-5-0-0-ar01.sfsutro.ca.sfba.comcast.net [68.87.192.137]
6 19 3 15.8 15 47 24 pos-1-7-0-0-cr01.sanjose.ca.ibone.comcast.net [68.86.90.153]
7 20 5 25.0 20 71 30 pos-0-9-0-0-cr01.losangeles.ca.ibone.comcast.net [68.86.85.186]
8 20 2 10.0 21 68 29 a96-17-70-19.deploy.akamaitechnologies.com [96.17.70.19]

As you can see, signal level is fine - superb actually, and upload speed is not affected, only download.

I live in Marin and just ordered 2 digital transport adapters (DTAs) so I can watch the channels that are about to be converted to digital (channels 35+). My main TV is fine as I have a DCT3416 so no need to use it there. I do have some questions for my other setups though:

Office TV: 2008 Sharp 32" HDTV with QAM, NTSC, ATSC tuners. I dont have a box for this TV as I really only use it rarely but when I do I typically am watching an HD network broadcast or something on ESPN (when the family kicks me out of the main room).

QUESTION #1: With this new DTA, will I still be able to get my HD shows? If yes, how will I tune them in (presuming they are going to leave channel 7 as SD, what will the HD channel be)?

Bedroom TV: Ok, this setup is going to get embarrassing:o...today I have cable connected to a Tivo Series 2 (single tuner) then to a VCR and an RF modulator before connecting to an ancient 15" Goldstar TV. My wife uses the TV a fair amount and loves the Tivo player which has a lifetime subscription. So...

QUESTION #2: Can I set up my Tivo to change the channels on the DTA? Do I need to use the old IR device? Any chance I could use some sort of cross-connect cable from the IR out on Tivo to the IR in on the DTA?

QUESTION #3: Can I program my universal remotes for the DTA? Any idea which codes to use? I think the box is made by Pace?

Any help is appreciated!

tex94,
1. Should work ok. If your Sharp is like my older one there are 2 cable inputs, one for analog and one for digital. Probably use the analog for DTA and another direct cable to digital. I don't know how you are receiving ESPN-HD on that TV since here it's encrypted. You could also use the TV's QAM tuner for the channels and skip the DTA, but it's a hassle to find the channel numbers without a cablecard.
2. Try TiVo forum here (http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=375578)
3. Try the AVS remote forum or remotecentral.com

tex94,
1. Should work ok. If your Sharp is like my older one there are 2 cable inputs, one for analog and one for digital. Probably use the analog for DTA and another direct cable to digital. I don't know how you are receiving ESPN-HD on that TV since here it's encrypted. You could also use the TV's QAM tuner for the channels and skip the DTA, but it's a hassle to find the channel numbers without a cablecard.
2. Try TiVo forum here (http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=375578)
3. Try the AVS remote forum or remotecentral.com

I only have a single RF input on the TV so I can't do that. Perhaps I need to get an HD box instead? How much would the non-DVR version cost/month?

thanks

Downstream Value
Frequency 723000000 Hz
Signal to Noise Ratio 23 dB
QAM QAM256
Network Access Control Object ON
Power Level 9 dBmV The Downstream Power Level reading is a snapshot taken at the time this page was requested. Please Reload/Refresh this Page for a new reading


Upstream Value
Channel ID 2
Frequency 18900000 Hz
Ranging Service ID 282
Symbol Rate 2.560 Msym/s
Power Level 34 dBmV

I only have a single RF input on the TV so I can't do that. Perhaps I need to get an HD box instead? How much would the non-DVR version cost/month?

thanksI think it would be $6.99 for add'l digital outlet fee + $7 for HD equipment (HD STB). If your TV can take cablecard like mine, it would be only $6.99 but you would not get guide or VOD.

Has anyone seen bad and varying internet speeds last 2-3 days? Many times I am getting around 1.5Mbps download. This evening got 800Kbps down and 500kbps up on speednet.net. This is pretty bad.

I am attaching "signal" page of my Motorola cable modem. Is there anything suspicious? I called Comcast couple of days back and they said they don't have any maintenance in the area.

down stream : S/N is 34 and "Power Level" is -10dBmV
Up stream : "Power Level" : 54 dBmV

This is North San Jose between 237 and 880.

Yes I have since early Jan.

Your power levels are terrible. Have a tech come out and fix it.
Your downstream levels (power your modem is getting from the cableco) is too low and SNR is too low.
Downstream power should be closer to 0 as possible. SNR should be 33 MIN, ideally more like 37-38.
Upstream power (power required for your modem to put out in order to connect) should be around 35 ideally, 54 is getting close to not being able to connect.

http://www.dslreports.com/faq/16085

Mine are usually okay though I saw the downstream SNR drop to 32db and even 23db(!) a couple of times yesterday. Having a tech out tonight to check the wiring (again) and replace the modem.

>> Hi all,
>> Since about last week, I suddenly was unable to received KTSF digital channel 26.1 on my computer with a fusionhd tuner card (it's all blank, like no-signal) , I can see it's multiplex >> channel 26.2 fine (MBC America) and I don't see any problems on any other digital channels that I watch. I can watch KTSF on it's normal analog channel but the reception is pretty >> bad. Has anybody seen this problem?

oops never mind was trying to post on the OTA thread....

Yes I have since early Jan.
Your power levels are terrible. Have a tech come out and fix it.


Thanks walk. I am wondering what to describe this to Comcast rep on phone so that they send a tech. Will tech actually look at these numbers? This is a pretty standard modem, but not a Comcast provided one.

Did you also experience the variations in speed? I checked again this morning, and couple of times it was around 14Mbps and a couple of times around 8Mbps.

Those kind of variations are normal. I'm talking about sub-1mb speeds, slow web pages and timeouts, and packet loss.

Just tell them you want a tech out to fix your signal which is low and your internet has been very slow or totally out lately.

Yup. This is varying a lot. this evening it was 850kbps down and 1300kbps (no typos).

Thanks for your input Tom. It sounds like you recommend getting a Cablecard over an HD box, is that the general consensus here? I won't be using an HD-DVR box in my setup.

My own $0.02... (and my name is also Tom): PQ with a CableCARD is much better than with the Moto boxen (of course this depends on the quality of the decoder in your TV, so YMMV), but if you've got a quality TV you may very well be impressed. A neighbor of mine just got a Moto HD-DVR box, and the HD PQ is craptastic. He had been getting the non-encrypted HD channels straight off the wire for a few days right after getting the TV, and the PQ degradation was quite noticeable once he hooked up the Moto.

Personally, I recall the time when I ditched the box for a CC (it was then a 550 area with no VOD, so I really wasn't missing anything), and was nothing less than shocked at the improvement in PQ, particularly on the digital SD channels. Sadly, most (all?) of those SD channels are now horribly over-compressed, and I can only imagine how bad they look on the Moto boxen.

Speaking of which, with the upcoming conversion of extended basic channels to all-digital, are there any plans to compress things less (ditch 3-packing on HD, and improved SD)? I really haven't been around here in awhile, and looking through the semi-recent posts, wasn't able to glean what benefits the freeing up of that 30-some channels is going to bring us (although I would imagine more HD channels). Mikef5? :)

I suppose the real improvements won't be seen until they can fully deploy set tops which can handle frequencies upward of 860MHz into the 1GHz areas.

For the DOCSIS 3.0 freaks here:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/detail?blogid=19&entry_id=36455

Sounds nice if you really need that much speed (maybe for a business application). But it just means you'll reach that 250 GB cap faster. And in today's economy most people are looking at cutting their bills not raising them.

For the DOCSIS 3.0 freaks here:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/detail?blogid=19&entry_id=36455

Sounds nice if you really need that much speed (maybe for a business application). But it just means you'll reach that 250 GB cap faster. And in today's economy most people are looking at cutting their bills not raising them.
Editor must have been asleep to leave that title as is; "now offering" and "soon" in the same sentence/title? :p

Well I had a tech out last night and he put a little dongle on the end of the cable that fixed the signal levels. At least for now.
It had been varying between 5 and 10-11 dbmv (8 is the max recc'd) now it's at 0, so in theory... if it varies it should only go up to 5-6.. Then the upload power went from 32-33 (marginal) to 40 (good). The upload never varies much, but we'll see if this fixes my issues.

He also said he'd have people check all the local nodes since he agreed with me that everything inside the house and outside up to the drop looks perfect...

For the DOCSIS 3.0 freaks here:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/detail?blogid=19&entry_id=36455

Sounds nice if you really need that much speed (maybe for a business application). But it just means you'll reach that 250 GB cap faster. And in today's economy most people are looking at cutting their bills not raising them.

The pricing seems kinda odd for the lower tiers. $10 for an increase of 4 mbps down?

I have Blast! right now, paying extra $10 for that, but with that prices and speed difference I should be able to downgrade and save $10.

Comcast is also providing more speed to its existing tiers.

*Performance Plus - 16 mbps down/2mbps up for $68.95/month standalone and $52.95/month when bundled with another service.

*Performance - 12 mbps down/ 2 mbps up for $58.95/month standalone and $42.95/month when bundled with another service.

Also, can I go and exchange my modem for a DOCSIS 3.0 now?

Well I had a tech out last night and he put a little dongle on the end of the cable that fixed the signal levels. At least for now. [...]
Good to hear that. tech is coming to my place on wednesday. Did he/she know about the signal numbers? Did you have to show them any info on the internet?

When you say "little dongle on the end", which end is that? Is it outside the house?

thanks,

Here is the Official Comcast Announcement on the availability of DOCSIS 3.0

Sorry this is late but better late than never.
The reason for the attachment is so there is no question on what was said or how it was said and since I'm late posting this it's much faster this way.

Time to say goodbye to Sonic Net :p
135496

Laters,
Mikef5

The pricing seems kinda odd for the lower tiers. $10 for an increase of 4 mbps down?

I have Blast! right now, paying extra $10 for that, but with that prices and speed difference I should be able to downgrade and save $10.

You have "Performance Plus"(Blast!) now at $52.95 right? I plan to drop to the new "Performance" at $42.95 myself as that extra 4mb/s DL is really of no consequence to me and $10 is $10. :p

I only have a single RF input on the TV so I can't do that. Perhaps I need to get an HD box instead? How much would the non-DVR version cost/month?
May be taking cable out from DTA and regular cable into one side of a Y splitter and connecting the other end to TV will get you all these? This is essentially a reverse Y split.

Good to hear that. tech is coming to my place on wednesday. Did he/she know about the signal numbers? Did you have to show them any info on the internet?

When you say "little dongle on the end", which end is that? Is it outside the house?

thanks,Yes they should know about signal levels. He tested it with the web interface to the modem on my pc, and with his own tester box thing screwed right into the cable. My experience with these guys is that they know what they need to know to do their job, but not much else... For example he had no idea what "docsis 3.0" is... not their department lol..

The dongle is just a little plug screwed right on to the back of the modem. It's an attenuator since my signal was too high. Yours is too low though, so that may require re-wiring, using fewer splitters, or possibly an amplifier.

Here is the Official Comcast Announcement on the availability of DOCSIS 3.0

They gave us cake!!

Hardware by the way at this time is a Motorola SB6120. For those that let C* handle home networking there is a Netgear N router along with that modem.

Anyone see the faster speeds yet?

They gave us cake!!

.

Did they give you coffee also?...I think you might be the over-caffeinated fighter pilot in their new Commercial (pretty funny for a C* video)

;)

http://www.comcast.com/fastestfast/

Did they give you coffee also?...I think you might be the over-caffeinated fighter pilot in their new Commercial (pretty funny for a C* video)

;)

http://www.comcast.com/fastestfast/

Now that's really funny and well done :p
You know the guy riding the naked rabbit does look a lot like Barovelli :eek::p !!!
So Dave, have you been moonlighting by doing Comcast commercials ;) ?

Laters,
Mikef5

Anyone see the faster speeds yet?

You'll need a new modem (DOCSIS 3.0 compatible) to see the faster speeds.

As mentioned above Comcast is using the Motorola SB6120. I guess you should be able to go to your local office and exchange, if you are renting a modem from Comcast, your old one.

I'm not sure if they are selling DOCSIS 3.0 modem at retail (or online) stores right now, but if I remember correctly they were pretty expensive. Of course, worst of the cases, you can just rent one Motorola from Comcast.

You'll need a new modem (DOCSIS 3.0 compatible) to see the faster speeds.

As mentioned above Comcast is using the Motorola SB6120. I guess you should be able to go to your local office and exchange, if you are renting a modem from Comcast, your old one.

I'm not sure if they are selling DOCSIS 3.0 modem at retail (or online) stores right now, but if I remember correctly they were pretty expensive. Of course, worst of the cases, you can just rent one Motorola from Comcast.

You will need a new D3 modem for the 2 upper tiers not for the new lower speeds ( I believe it's Ultra and above ). Also for the D3 modems, there is, at this time, no self install, I've heard they are going to do a separate drop to the D3 modems ( that was the last I heard, but that might of changed ).

I too looked online to see if these new modems where being sold but no luck. Since these modems just came out I doubt if they will be available for retail for sometime. Heck, I had a hard time finding the user manual online for the SB6120. From what I read the hook up is pretty simple. The hookup they show doesn't take into account a router but I've got my DSL through the router so that should be an easy switch out.

I just want to know, since there is no self install for the D3 modem, are they still going to charge about $100 for them to do the install ? Can't get a clear answer from the CSR's ( according to them it's not available in Milpitas..... really ? ). I guess I'll have to ask someone higher up the food chain.

I'm looking forward to the new speeds. ;)

Laters,
Mikef5

I just bought a new TV and installed HDMI 1.3a cabling in the walls of my house. I need a comcast DVR box that I can just plug in one HDMI plug and get HD audio/video to my TV. Do all comcast offices stock up on cable boxes with this? The last several times I got boxes, they had these old, used 6200's with DVI out. DVI-->HDMI cable or convert is not an option since I need audio as well. Is there a particular model I need to ask for? How readily available are they?

The new speeds are great - but when will more HD channels start appearing?????

I just bought a new TV and installed HDMI 1.3a cabling in the walls of my house. I need a comcast DVR box that I can just plug in one HDMI plug and get HD audio/video to my TV. Do all comcast offices stock up on cable boxes with this? The last several times I got boxes, they had these old, used 6200's with DVI out. DVI-->HDMI cable or convert is not an option since I need audio as well. Is there a particular model I need to ask for? How readily available are they?

You need a 6400 series or a 3400 series if you're in a digital/analog simulcast area. You shouldn't have any problem getting those boxes at your local Comcast office.

Laters,
Mikef5

Thanks.

You need a 6400 series or a 3400 series if you're in a digital/analog simulcast area. You shouldn't have any problem getting those boxes at your local Comcast office.

Laters,
Mikef5

The new speeds are great - but when will more HD channels start appearing?????
One of the reasons for shifting some of the analog channels to digital is to allow for DOCSIS 3.0 and giving more room for the addition of new HD channels. One channel that is coming is CSNCA-HD which will be on channel 721, that should be available in April sometime, that's when the channel will launch. I'm hoping for MLB-HD but haven't heard much about this lately. HDNET would be nice also, there was an article a while back that said Comcast and HDNET had come to an agreement on carriage but I haven't seen much on that either. Other than that I can't think of any HD channel that I really would like to see. Maybe others would like to input what channels they would like to see next ;)

Laters,
Mikef5

You will need a new D3 modem for the 2 upper tiers not for the new lower speeds ( I believe it's Ultra and above ).
Laters,
Mikef5

Are you sure about that? I can keep my modem, rented from Comcast, and still have the new speeds?

As mentioned before I have Blast, and I really like having 16 down/2 up, but with the new speeds the normal service is going to be 12 down/2 up, so I think I can survive without those 4 mbps. It would be really great if I don't have to switch modems since I have a lot of devices networked and don't want to risk it. :D

Are you sure about that? I can keep my modem, rented from Comcast, and still have the new speeds?

As mentioned before I have Blast, and I really like having 16 down/2 up, but with the new speeds the normal service is going to be 12 down/2 up, so I think I can survive without those 4 mbps. It would be really great if I don't have to switch modems since I have a lot of devices networked and don't want to risk it. :D

The last I heard the 2 tiers, Ultra and Extreme, would require the new D3 modems, the lower tiers would not and existing customers, on the lower tiers, would have their speeds bumped up automatically. That is my understanding and I'm sure if I'm wrong someone will correct me ;)

Laters,
Mikef5

OK.

I guess we should see reports in the following days from the people that have standard service (not Blast) and have the old modems.

OK.

I guess we should see reports in the following days from the people that have standard service (not Blast) and have the old modems.

RSRA13,

Read the pdf file that I just uploaded the other day, it will explain it much better and that is the official announcement from Comcast. It addresses some of your concerns in it.

Laters,
Mikef5

You will need a new D3 modem for the 2 upper tiers not for the new lower speeds ( I believe it's Ultra and above ). Also for the D3 modems, there is, at this time, no self install, I've heard they are going to do a separate drop to the D3 modems ( that was the last I heard, but that might of changed ).



Laters,
Mikef5

That's curious, I wonder what they mean by that, a separate line from the street, or just another split off the point of entry, neither really makes much sense.

The 50mb speed is $140/mo (plus $3 modem rental since they don't sell them).. I doubt they will get very many takers at that price.

Shame really, other areas of the country where Verizon has done FTTH get superior speeds for under $90/mo.

What a drag it is to live in the technological backwater that is the SF Bay Area huh? :rolleyes:

One of the reasons for shifting some of the analog channels to digital is to allow for DOCSIS 3.0 and giving more room for the addition of new HD channels. One channel that is coming is CSNCA-HD which will be on channel 721, that should be available in April sometime, that's when the channel will launch. I'm hoping for MLB-HD but haven't heard much about this lately. HDNET would be nice also, there was an article a while back that said Comcast and HDNET had come to an agreement on carriage but I haven't seen much on that either. Other than that I can't think of any HD channel that I really would like to see. Maybe others would like to input what channels they would like to see next ;)

Laters,
Mikef5
Docsis 3.0 has nothing to do with HD channels. Moving analog channels to digital could allow them to add more channels, but I wouldn't hold my breath (actually, I didn't - I switched to D*).

CSN-California is not a new channel, it's the home of the Sacramento Kings (others?) and is available on D* already. It's part of the $10 sports-pack (along with about 40 other regional sports channels, most in HD) but I hope that if the A's and Sharks are moving there they will unlock it for Bay Area sub'ers.

By the way, I noticed you people in the formerly-2%-club (Saramilgatos) are getting the new speeds first. :eek: :D

That's curious, I wonder what they mean by that, a separate line from the street, or just another split off the point of entry, neither really makes much sense.

I was told a line drop for the 2 upper tiers. I'm sure that's just for the initial roll out, I'm sure it's a " better safe than sorry " situation and once they get the roll out to more people and see what's really required this may change. Just like there is no self install right now for the 2 upper tiers, that will change in time just like when the first dvr's rolled out it required them to install them and later you could just pick them up at the local Comcast office.

Laters,
Mikef5

Docsis 3.0 has nothing to do with HD channels. Moving analog channels to digital could allow them to add more channels, but I wouldn't hold my breath (actually, I didn't - I switched to D*).

CSN-California is not a new channel, it's the home of the Sacramento Kings (others?) and is available on D* already. It's part of the $10 sports-pack (along with about 40 other regional sports channels, most in HD) but I hope that if the A's and Sharks are moving there they will unlock it for Bay Area sub'ers.

By the way, I noticed you people in the formerly-2%-club (Saramilgatos) are getting the new speeds first. :eek: :D

Walk,

CSNCA-HD is not available on D* or any other provider, it wouldn't be available until some time in April when the station goes active. CSNCA-SD on the other hand is available to just about anyone. I was talking about the HD version of it.

As far as the movement of some of the analog channels to digital, read what I said. One of the reasons was to add DOCSIS 3.0, to make space available for it ( it uses channel bonding and thus requires more bandwidth usage ) and to add more HD channels. Those are the reasons for the analog channels being shifted to digital, and that's what they are doing.

I don't know why you insist that Comcast is not going to add any more HD channels. Like I said,they are adding channel 721 sometime in April, MLB-HD should be coming soon and there are the 11 or 12 HD channels that some of the Bay Area didn't get in the initial roll out of those HD channels. I would rather have them spend more time and money getting channels that actually have HD content and not just add channels just to say " mines's bigger than yours" and all the providers seem to be saying that lately:rolleyes:.

The reason that we, the SaraMilgatos area, are getting the new speeds now is because we were upgraded ( my favorite word ) to 1 GHz and have the bandwidth to do it now and not have to wait until the analog channels are moved to digital and yes, it's nice not being the red-headed stepchild anymore ;)

Laters,
Mikef5

My wife went to go pick up a 6400 at a local store. She said they told her it will be $27 a month for that box. I told her that cant be right. What's the real monthly price? I have 3 cable boxes already and only pay $7 each. I guessing they are still the same price since no network/backend services have been added.

My wife went to go pick up a 6400 at a local store. She said they told her it will be $27 a month for that box. I told her that cant be right. What's the real monthly price? I have 3 cable boxes already and only pay $7 each. I guessing they are still the same price since no network/backend services have been added.

I checked my cable bill and my two 6412's costs me $15.95 each and there is a Digital Additional Outlet charge of $6.99. I don't know where they get that one HD box would be $27 since you only would have one HD box and no other additional outlet fees should be charged. Have them give you a brochure with their pricing, that should be available at the local Comcast office.

Laters,
Mikef5

I know, congrats. :)

CSN-CA HD is listed on D* channel 698 according to the web page lineup. I don't have it, so I can't check for sure. It may be dark until April for all I know. Of course like all the other CSN/FSN channels they are dark unless there is actually a game in HD (like 720 on Comcast).

As for being skeptical... this is Comcast we're talking about. We still don't have the last round of HD channels they added in other areas, and still no ETA on getting them.. if ever. Even if they do add them, they will probably 3-pack or 4-pack or 29-pack them, using their wonderful patented Block-O-Vision process... :p

As for "real" HD channels, MLB-HD is pretty nice, so is HDNet/HDNet Movies, MGM-HD, and of course the 19-20 channels of HBO, Showtime, Cinemax and Starz that are availble, these all broadcast real honest to god HD content nearly 24/7/365.

Maybe others would like to input what channels they would like to see next ;)
Laters,
Mikef5

Biography channel HD
Big Ten Network HD
Smithsonian channel HD

I know, congrats. :)

CSN-CA HD is listed on D* channel 698 according to the web page lineup. I don't have it, so I can't check for sure. It may be dark until April for all I know. Of course like all the other CSN/FSN channels they are dark unless there is actually a game in HD (like 720 on Comcast).

As for being skeptical... this is Comcast we're talking about. We still don't have the last round of HD channels they added in other areas, and still no ETA on getting them.. if ever. Even if they do add them, they will probably 3-pack or 4-pack or 29-pack them, using their wonderful patented Block-O-Vision process... :p

As for "real" HD channels, MLB-HD is pretty nice, so is HDNet/HDNet Movies, MGM-HD, and of course the 19-20 channels of HBO, Showtime, Cinemax and Starz that are availble, these all broadcast real honest to god HD content nearly 24/7/365.

Walk,

If you check one of my posts, a couple of days ago, I posted about CSNCA-HD and it's launch date which will be in April, so even though it maybe listed in your guide it's not even active yet. Heck, my Tivo says I have MLB-HD available and we all know that's not real.... yet ;)

I don't know about Petaluma, but once the analog channels are moved to digital in your area you will get those HD channels...... if you were still with Comcast that is :(

Well, 3 packing or 4 packing, at least in my area, it has been fixed and is much better as far as picture quality, your mileage may vary but they are trying to address this and for the most part it is working.

Wow 19 or 20 channels of HBO, Showtime etc.... nice but I don't have the time to view them all nor the space on my dvrs and they just repeat what the others show, you just get to view them more often.

I'm glad D* does the trick for you but all providers suck in one way or the other, you just decide on what you can put up with or not.

Laters,
Mikef5

I'm not sure about you guys, but I could never figure out why there aren't Playboy HD and Spice HD channels. I'm sure its not because there isn't a demand for it.

Biography channel HD
Big Ten Network HD
Smithsonian channel HD

Biography channel HD
Big Ten Network HD
Smithsonian channel HD

Smithsonian a great channel, lots of good content there, I watch it quite a bit, significantly more than any of the others, NGC, Disc, Science, etc.

Walk,

CSNCA-HD is not available on D* or any other provider, it wouldn't be available until some time in April when the station goes active. CSNCA-SD on the other hand is available to just about anyone. I was talking about the HD version of it.

As far as the movement of some of the analog channels to digital, read what I said. One of the reasons was to add DOCSIS 3.0, to make space available for it ( it uses channel bonding and thus requires more bandwidth usage ) and to add more HD channels. Those are the reasons for the analog channels being shifted to digital, and that's what they are doing.

I don't know why you insist that Comcast is not going to add any more HD channels. Like I said,they are adding channel 721 sometime in April, MLB-HD should be coming soon and there are the 11 or 12 HD channels that some of the Bay Area didn't get in the initial roll out of those HD channels. I would rather have them spend more time and money getting channels that actually have HD content and not just add channels just to say " mines's bigger than yours" and all the providers seem to be saying that lately:rolleyes:.

The reason that we, the SaraMilgatos area, are getting the new speeds now is because we were upgraded ( my favorite word ) to 1 GHz and have the bandwidth to do it now and not have to wait until the analog channels are moved to digital and yes, it's nice not being the red-headed stepchild anymore ;)

Laters,
Mikef5

Mike, CSNCA-HD is alive and well on DishNetwork, Channel 5409 (409). There is a Kings-Thunder game scheduled on March 10 at 7PM. Dish does not have this channel on full time, just for games. The following URL will show you that what I say is correct. While it shows CSN West, that was changed a while back when CSN changed from West to CA.

http://dishnetwork.com/sports/regional/default.aspx

http://bayarea.comcastsportsnet.com/programming/daily-schedule-csn-california/?preview=true

Mike, CSNCA-HD is alive and well on DishNetwork, Channel 5409 (409). There is a Kings-Thunder game scheduled on March 10 at 7PM. Dish does not have this channel on full time, just for games. The following URL will show you that what I say is correct. While it shows CSN West, that was changed a while back when CSN changed from West to CA.

http://dishnetwork.com/sports/regional/default.aspx

http://bayarea.comcastsportsnet.com/programming/daily-schedule-csn-california/?preview=true

It's on DirecTV as well, channel 698-1 for HD games only.

It's on DirecTV as well, channel 698-1 for HD games only.

Yep, my bad. I read it wrong. It's an announcement that CSNCA-HD will now be available on Comcast in the Bay Area. Since most of the stuff on CSNCA is out of the local market it wasn't a big deal to show the HD stuff here but now that some of the local Bay Area teams have moved to CSNCA it has become important to show the games in HD for those Bay Area teams. I've got to get some new glasses and stop eating those mushrooms. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction ;)

Laters,
Mikef5

Yep, my bad. I read it wrong. It's an announcement that CSNCA-HD will now be available on Comcast in the Bay Area. Since most of the stuff on CSNCA is out of the local market it wasn't a big deal to show the HD stuff here but now that some of the local Bay Area teams have moved to CSNCA it has become important to show the games in HD for those Bay Area teams. I've got to get some new glasses and stop eating those mushrooms. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction ;)

Laters,
Mikef5

Well, I think you were correct in principle, I've never watched the channel so I don't if it's blacked out in the bay area, but the actual channel itself is up and running and has been for awhile.

Well, I think you were correct in principle, I've never watched the channel so I don't if it's blacked out in the bay area, but the actual channel itself is up and running and has been for awhile.

and I don't watch unless it's in HD :D

Laters,
Mikef5

Yes they should know about signal levels.

[...]
Yours is too low though, so that may require re-wiring, using fewer splitters, or possibly an amplifier.

You are right. The signal was too week. The tech came and checked the values. At the junction box, there were two 4-way splitters involved.. effectively giving my connection 1/16. Here removed one of them and the modem signals are normal (s/n : 36, down power level : -1, and up power level 44). Hopefully it stays that way.

Strangely the internet speeds are still fluctuating.. over minutes now. It's been around couple hours since the signal was fixed, but speedtest.net test vary a lot between 15Mbps to 2-3Mbps down... a few minutes high and a few minutes low. Hopefully it does not stay this way for long.

In addition to the new speed tiers, Comcast will soon be increasing speeds for its existing customers.

Read to fast and didn't see the soon part. I guess need to wait a little longer before I see double the speed for my current connection.

It's not HD but you can subscribe to the more expensive spanish package, (total, not selecto, I think?) and get free unlimited Playboy en espanol. :D

I'm not sure about you guys, but I could never figure out why there aren't Playboy HD and Spice HD channels. I'm sure its not because there isn't a demand for it.

Read to fast and didn't see the soon part. I guess need to wait a little longer before I see double the speed for my current connection.

speed doubled here in south bay !

powerboost up to 4 MB/s :eek:

constant downloadspeed: 1,6 - 2MB/s

I was told a line drop for the 2 upper tiers. I'm sure that's just for the initial roll out, I'm sure it's a " better safe than sorry " situation and once they get the roll out to more people and see what's really required this may change. Just like there is no self install right now for the 2 upper tiers, that will change in time just like when the first dvr's rolled out it required them to install them and later you could just pick them up at the local Comcast office.

Separate wire to the splitter point.

I wonder if you can purchase a 6120 (or other D3 modem) at retail? That would be a self install.

Strangely the internet speeds are still fluctuating.. over minutes now. It's been around couple hours since the signal was fixed, but speedtest.net test vary a lot between 15Mbps to 2-3Mbps down... a few minutes high and a few minutes low. Hopefully it does not stay this way for long.

There is something very wrong with the upstream traffic that is also affecting bandwidth as well. I am trying a voip phone over last couple weeks and the voice to receiver also gets very choppy. Checking the quality of connection with http://www.whichvoip.com/voip/speed_test/ppspeed.html shows very high jitter (fluctuations in delays) for upstream traffic. Has anyone seen this? Could some around San Jose / Milpitas confirm the above site gives good results?

For me the results summary as text : is :

Speed test statistics
---------------------
Download speed: 2590840 bps
Upload speed: 1153800 bps
Quality of service: 36 %
Download test type: socket
Upload test type: socket
Maximum download pause: 1311 ms
Average download pause: 9 ms
Minimum round trip time to server: 86 ms
Average round trip time to server: 236 ms


VoIP test statistics
--------------------
Jitter: you --> server: 218.2 ms
Jitter: server --> you: 0.3 ms
Packet loss: you --> server: 0.0 %
Packet loss: server --> you: 0.0 %
Packet discards: 0.0 %
Packets out of order: 0.0 %
Number of supported VoIP lines: 19
Estimated MOS score: 3.5

So the quality is very asymmetric.

This is mostly starting to feel like too off topic... If some did the same test from the above url, please send your results to my pm. Thanks.

Separate wire to the splitter point.

I wonder if you can purchase a 6120 (or other D3 modem) at retail? That would be a self install.

That's the way my setup is, it's the first thing I did when I had HSI problems. Turns out the problem was local load balancing(tilt), but I've left it wired that way for simplicity and reliability.

Separate wire to the splitter point.

I wonder if you can purchase a 6120 (or other D3 modem) at retail? That would be a self install.

I've tried searching the internet for the 6120 and no luck. Do you know of any other manufacturers of the D3 modems ? It's not that I don't want them to do the install, I just don't like the idea of paying someone to do something that I can do myself and especially if it saves me $100 .. ;)

Laters,
Mikef5

I've tried searching the internet for the 6120 and no luck. Do you know of any other manufacturers of the D3 modems ? It's not that I don't want them to do the install, I just don't like the idea of paying someone to do something that I can do myself and especially if it saves me $100 .. ;)

Laters,
Mikef5

It's $100 for the install? Whoa!! 12/2 is going to be just fine for me. :)

It's $100 for the install? Whoa!! 12/2 is going to be just fine for me. :)

Actually, it says $99 on the web site for them to do the install, but what's a dollar between friends :D

Laters,
Mikef5