Raleigh, NC - HDTV - Page 490

I get all the Raleigh stations EXCEPT WTVD and its subchannels on my Roadrunner only subscription. However, I rarely watch them there, preferring either OTA or my Dish subscription. I MIGHT watch the cable provided if everything else went out completely - but that's not too likely to happen. One plus on the TWC - the extra channels available from WUNC that are not OTA !

Correct - ABC11/WTVD was moved behind the filter so you'd need to get an antenna for it.

2. Gray area I guess? I don't see what's wrong with getting channels that are available free OTA through the cable if it's there for you to receive.

I disagree with IamtheWolf in his statement "Maybe ask if it is moral. So you expect Cable channels you're not paying for if I understand you correctly.".

These aren't cable channels. They are the same channels you would get with an antenna that are broadcast over the air.

And it would cost you time and money to put up an antenna which could get the same reception as you'd get from cable. So when you receive cable w/o subscribing to it, there is a moral issue as you're receiving the value of the TWC antenna (or digital link to the station) for "free". Note that the original point of cable tv was to distribute the signal from a community antenna. In the beginning, there were no cable-only channels.

Of course, TWC's moral high ground goes away if they charge you as much or more for just RoadRunner than they would to bundle RoadRunner and basic cable service...

Drew

Thanks for the replies. I will probably just switch back to antenna...

As for the legality question, I was under the impression cable companies had to broadcast (were not allowed to block) the free (ie. local) digital channels over QAM as part of the mandate to switch to digital. So as long as you had any service with them and were connected to their network, they were required to make the local digital QAM channels available. I didn't mean to say I wanted to be able to receive "cable" channels. However when I googled I wasn't able to find any documentation - perhaps it was just wishful thinking.

Meh, we're far from "the beginning". The few channels I'm receiving via TWC's cable into my house is the same stuff I could get with a 20 dollar antenna from Radio Shack. Even those I still don't watch to be honest lol, but they're there. They still get 100 bucks a month from me, so yeah.

My understanding is they're not allowed to block them as long as you're paying them for TV of some sort. If you're only paying for internet, they don't have any obligations. I don't have chapter and verse on that, though.

My general feeling is that if TWC figured it was really a problem - they would find a way to economically block them. I'm not going to lose sleep over the morality of it, because I very rarely will watch them - it's nice to have the "backup" if it comes down to it. I put my Samsung DTB-H260F on the cable and scanned for cable just to see if there was anything.

This is a great point, and basically the only thing I ever use QAM for - UNC-MX. Does Dish have the guide info for UNC-MX? You can add it to your guide with Directv (with the AM21 OTA tuner) to see what's there but you can't actually watch it via Directv. For some reason, UNC TV is a mess on Directv:

22-1 WLFL CW (guide infro is correct)

22-2 WLFL TCN (guide data has never been correct, for some reason it's a repeat of a UNC channel)

26 UNC HD (correct)

26-2 UNC-EX (info is correct but should be ch 26-3)

26-2 WUNL-2 UNC-Kids (guide info is correct and 26-2 is also correct)

26-5 WUNL-5 UNC-MX (guide info is correct, but is only on QAM. It is QAM ch 4-4 even here in the Greensboro DMA. There is no option to add 4-4 to the guide on Directv, which would be annoying in the Raleigh DMA because you wouldn't be able to group all of the UNC channels together).

Exactly. Look, it's not like I'm stealing it. They're feeding it to my house. I didn't go splice the neighbor's cable and take something that didn't belong to me. If they don't want me to be able to get them, they would disable them in some manner.

You mean like they have done with WTVD?

If they bring the cable to your house and you subscribe to internet and you also get some free channels... cool beans... but you can't complain that they are "required" to give you the OTA channels.

That's what the moral debate really is here... if you get some free bonus channels because they can't block them, great... but you can't honestly complain that they don't give you more free things, right?

If you're subscribing only to the internet service, not to the TV service, I don't think that the cable company has to provide any kind of TV signals at all.

The tougher question is what about an analog cable subscription. In that case, does the cable company have to provide digital QAM signals for all of the local broadcast stations? From what I have seen, the QAM signals can sometimes be unreliable without the kind of cable box that the cable company provides.

Has anyone heard whether TWC plans to discontinue the analog package?

Well, it's funny to speak of anything from a cable company being free since they are notorious for raising their rates all the time. Their advertising for digital cable says that they offer "free HD" but another way of looking at that is to say that they don't give you the option of paying less and getting just a standard definition digital signal the way satellite does.

As for the morality thing, I think the cable company should be required to clearly tell its customers whether the internet subscription will also provide QAM signals for the local broadcast TV stations. The cable companies don't even want people to know about the existence of QAM, do they? But the cable company has a regulated monopoly within a certain service area, so the government should force the company to provide clear information to consumers about the availability or lack of availability of QAM signals.

You may be thinking of the "must carry" rules that require a cable system to carry all of the local broadcast stations unless a particular broadcast station wants to be paid retransmission fees and the cable company is not willing to pay those fees .

But I don't think that those "must carry" rules apply at all to cable internet service.

During the conversion to digital broadcasting, a lot of cable companies touted the fact that customers would not need to have a converter box to continue watching the local broadcast channels. But what they meant by that, I think, is that the cable company would continue to provide analog signals to analog cable subscribers. I don't think that the cable companies made any commitments regarding QAM.

The truth is that the cable companies have a lot of clout and are often able to persuade the government not to enact rules that benefit consumers.

I guess I missed when I complained. When they moved it yeah, I said bummer, but if you look back a few pages you'll also notice I mention buying an antenna when I feel I need to get WTVD.

Speaking of which, the FCC is considering allowing cable companies to encrypt even the locals: http://www.multichannel.com/article/...Basic_Tier.php

I think the time for comments has already passed..

Drew

I wasn't necessarily speaking to you specifically... but to anyone who thinks cable is "obligated" to provide those OTA via unencrypted QAM. There are a lot of complaints typically from people who can't get them, and it's one thing when you are paying for TV but another when you aren't.

I was making a more generic post in terms of the expectations of some people and it was just kickstarted by reading the recent discussions.

Sorry, I was little ornery this morning.

No worries... I looked back and realized my post was ambiguous as to whether I was speaking about the topic or responding directly. I meant it more generically than it came across.

The WTVD situation is ridiculous.

I have digital cable and on Sunday night at 11.30pm I was watching WTVD over ClearQAM on my Homerun. During prime time it's just a test card.

What the hell are they doing?

update: now it's on 117.1

How long for? Who knows?

Would you pay $12 a month to watch the local broadcast stations using a tiny remote antenna that sends the programming to you over the internet? What's going on with Aereo in NYC might be something to watch. I doubt that Aereo will be able to win in court, though, so the experiment could be short lived.

http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/editors/27624/

"The company says it will do this by embedding small broadcast antennas in data centers that can then pipe the programming over the Internet to its customers, who will pay $12 a month."

This is confusing. "Broadcast" it would seem they need receiver antennas not Broadcast antennas.

Plus I don't see why local broadcast stations would care as long as their commercials are included.

Didn't channel 17 tell us a few posts back that they were going to use part of the bandwidth that was the sports subchannel that got dropped to provide Portable Digital TV to folks? Maybe it was channel 5 I forget.

I remember about five years ago there was a company that was buying up or renting subchannel bandwidth from broadcaster to provide a few "Cable" stations OTA to folks for about $20/month. I think Weatherchannel was one of the channels that would go out on a SD subchannel. You had to own a receiver that descrambled these channels to receive them.

They actually sold the receivers at Walmart for awhile. The Digital rcvr could receive non scrambled ATSC as well as scrambled. Of course the RCVR did not get the Weather Channel here as it was not in this local market.

I think the biggest market was Las Vegas and North of NYC,.

I thought it was kind of interesting for folks on a fixed budget.

The down side is it sucked up some HD quality.

I think it failed as I have not seen it advertised in years.

The broadcast commercials are included on cable, Dish, Direct, Verizon, UVerse....etc....too.

Retransmission consent issue?
Someone is now making money on what can be picked up for free.
Aereo is repackaging a free product and selling it to customers........

What's wrong with CBS putting the Wolfpack game on TruTV? This is the best game I've seen yet.

DO you mean This TV as opposed to Truetv?

Question are Mentalist and Blue Bloods and other such prime time shows being prempted or are they all on hold across the country until March Madness is over?

I looked at early morning time slots and did not see them rescheduled so I am hoping they are just on hold.

Truth TV, the satellite/cable channel. Games are either on CBS, TruTV, TNT, or TBS. North Carolina is coming up now on TBS.

CBS isn't "putting" any specific game anywhere. This is a joint Turner/CBS venture as of last year... where CBS and the Turner family (TBS, TNT, TruTV) carry all of the games.

CBS gets the final four and championship game... but all the rounds leading up to that were negotiated before the tourney began. My guess is that they divvied up the regions before the selections were made so the networks didn't know what games they were going to get (thus no cherry picking for anyone) until after selection Sunday.

Yes, the issue is copyright law and retransmission consent. Aereo is claiming that it is just renting a TV antenna and DVR to customers, with the equipment being housed remotely at Aereo's facility rather than on the individual customer's property.

I think the courts will side with the broadcasters and shut Aereo down.

I discovered that there is a thread already devoted to the topic.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1394206

It still isn't a great system. The local CBS affiliates SHOULD be able to have first say in what games are shown on their station, even if it is duplicated on pay tv, so that people close to home who do not subscribe, or receive as part of their stupid PAY package, can see their teams play.

I know that the cable lovers and cable operators want to do away with local TV, but I DON't.

Why would Turner buy into that system, though? Imagine if you are Turner and the local CBS station got first pick of the feeds... then who would be watching the Turner channels?

If I didn't have satellite, I wouldn't like it either... but back in the olden days you only got one game via OTA and that was it and it might not be your local team anyway.

There's no way Turner would have bought into this deal if CBS got the first pick of all the games... I gather the NCAA wanted more money, and CBS didn't want to pay so that's where the marriage of Turner + CBS came from.

I remember lots of years (though it has been a while) where we couldn't see the NC State game if UNC or Duke was playing... and certainly not any of the non-triangle ACC teams... so I'm glad to be able to see the games.

Prior to this deal with Turner + CBS, even with satellite I didn't get all the games since WRAL provided extra feeds to Time Warner but not to satellite companies.

I have Directv, so I see all the games too. It just seems wrong that the local CBS isn't carrying the home teams, and not everyone can view it since not everyone has a dish or cable. I guess some can watch on their small screened phone from the internet, but to me that is not much fun. Bright side is like you say HDme, they are on some channel out there, like prior years ago when CBS would shift back and forth.