AntAltMike
04-10-07, 03:59 PM
A Washington, DC Comcast Cable customer just called me to report that his new Sceptre 32" model X-32 GV-KOMODO TV cannot reliably decode closed captions. He has already exchanged it for another unit, but the symptom persists.
He has two TVs and two identical Comcast digital cable boxes. The other, older TV decaptions just fine, and I think he has already tried swapping the two boxes.
He tells me that when he connects his cable directly to his TV and tunes to the actual channels, he experiences severe caption break-ups, and when he connects his TV though the box on its channel 3 output, he gets more severe breakups. As far as he can tell, when he is going through the Comcast Digital cable box, the cable box is not doing the decaptioning. He believes his TV is still functioning as the decaptioner, even when the cable box is channel converting.
He also said the symptoms stay the same whether he uses the Comcast box to tune digital or analog channels.
He said he called Comcast but they insist that this box does NOT have its own decaptioning capability. That strikes me as odd. Does anyone know if Comcast's STD digital cable box has its own decaptioning function?
One other thing he is wiling to try. He says his Comcast Digital Cable box also has an A/V output. He was wondering if his TV can decaption from the composite video. I told him I had never been called upon to try to do that, but I was skeptical. Does anyone know if closed captions are imbedded somehow in a composite video signal, and if they are, can any TVs process it to produce captions?
He has two TVs and two identical Comcast digital cable boxes. The other, older TV decaptions just fine, and I think he has already tried swapping the two boxes.
He tells me that when he connects his cable directly to his TV and tunes to the actual channels, he experiences severe caption break-ups, and when he connects his TV though the box on its channel 3 output, he gets more severe breakups. As far as he can tell, when he is going through the Comcast Digital cable box, the cable box is not doing the decaptioning. He believes his TV is still functioning as the decaptioner, even when the cable box is channel converting.
He also said the symptoms stay the same whether he uses the Comcast box to tune digital or analog channels.
He said he called Comcast but they insist that this box does NOT have its own decaptioning capability. That strikes me as odd. Does anyone know if Comcast's STD digital cable box has its own decaptioning function?
One other thing he is wiling to try. He says his Comcast Digital Cable box also has an A/V output. He was wondering if his TV can decaption from the composite video. I told him I had never been called upon to try to do that, but I was skeptical. Does anyone know if closed captions are imbedded somehow in a composite video signal, and if they are, can any TVs process it to produce captions?