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Las Vegas, NV - HDTV - Page 206

post #6151 of 8918
12/4/07 at 6:58am
http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6509147.html


"To free up space for high-definition channels, Cox deployed BigBand Networks' switched digital system in the 240,000-subscriber system(northern Virginia). The operator also planned to roll out switched digital video systems in its Phoenix and Orange County, Calif., systems this year"

SDV getting closer to Vegas.
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post #6152 of 8918
12/4/07 at 7:35am
Hopefully they mean Phoenix and OC in 2008. I don't want SDV here until the TiVo dongle is available.
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post #6153 of 8918
12/4/07 at 1:21pm
Let me know if anyone in Las Vegas needs a quote on audio or video products. I can get pretty decent prices through my work.
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post #6154 of 8918
12/6/07 at 6:01am
Thought this was kinda cool.

www.king5.com/dtv
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post #6155 of 8918
12/6/07 at 1:41pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by hdtvxpert View Post

Thought this was kinda cool.

www.king5.com/dtv

Yeah, it's cute. But totally unrealistic.

Do you REALLY believe that the US Congress will firmly hold to that deadline?
If you do, I think you have your head buried in the sand.
As in the past, (I believe) the Congress sill postpone and delay. without any very good reasons for doing so.
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post #6156 of 8918
12/6/07 at 2:23pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Word Maestro View Post

Yeah, it's cute. But totally unrealistic.

Do you REALLY believe that the US Congress will firmly hold to that deadline?
If you do, I think you have your head buried in the sand.
As in the past, (I believe) the Congress sill postpone and delay. without any very good reasons for doing so.

Yes. At the very least any TV station in channel 52-69. That spectrum is already sold and products using it are already available in areas where the channels are clear.
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post #6157 of 8918
12/6/07 at 6:51pm
Word,
I totally agree with you. I know it's a joke too. I just thought the clock was a novelty.
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post #6158 of 8918
12/9/07 at 9:52am
let me start by saying i'm not technical.
when february 2009 rolls around, does it mean anyone still owning an analog tv set will need two converter boxes if you choose to have more than the basic channels?
the way i interpret it is you will need a box from the cable company to decode higher tier channels and then a box to decode that signal from digital back to analog.
is this correct?
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post #6159 of 8918
12/9/07 at 12:09pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by laszlo5 View Post

let me start by saying i'm not technical.
when february 2009 rolls around, does it mean anyone still owning an analog tv set will need two converter boxes if you choose to have more than the basic channels?
the way i interpret it is you will need a box from the cable company to decode higher tier channels and then a box to decode that signal from digital back to analog.
is this correct?

The "analog shutoff" only affects people using an analog TV who are getting their signal OTA. If you have an "old school" TV and have cable or satellite, you are NOT affected. Your cable or sat box IS your converter box. Nothing else is necessary.
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post #6160 of 8918
12/9/07 at 12:10pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by laszlo5 View Post

let me start by saying i'm not technical.
when february 2009 rolls around, does it mean anyone still owning an analog tv set will need two converter boxes if you choose to have more than the basic channels?
the way i interpret it is you will need a box from the cable company to decode higher tier channels and then a box to decode that signal from digital back to analog.
is this correct?

I don't know if you're correct or not. But NOT to worry. If indeed the switch over takes place in Feb 2009 (or if it EVER happens), I'm confident the cable companies will provide a "one box fits all" solution. And as is usual with those devices, they will be so "bug" tormented that it will be at least three-five years before they can be depended upon.
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post #6161 of 8918
12/9/07 at 12:30pm
Anybody know why ABC-HD (732 on Cox) was off the system for almost 24 hrs on Sat, Dec 8th. Nothing but a blank screen. No video, no audio.
There really wasn't anything at all worth watching on ABC yesterday, so "no big loss".
Still, I called Cox "Customer Service" at 7 PM last night. (ABC had then been "out" all day).And I spoke to a representative who had NOT HEARD that the problem was in existence. More than 8 hrs of "outage" at the time, and they didn't know of the existence of the problem? The problem was valley wide,not just something wrong at my node.
You can call me whiny or picayune. But that's NOT my idea of "SERVICE".
It seems to me that ANY interruption of service for ANY reason should trigger an immediate alert from the engineering dept to the "Customer Service" representatives department, that something is amiss, so that the CS people can assure the public that Cox is aware of the problem and is working to repair it ASAP.
Whether Cox or ABC was the source of the "problem" is irrelevant. Some entity WAS at fault.
Maybe the engineers at both Cox and ABC were "off" on Saturday, and NOBODY was watching the store?
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post #6162 of 8918
12/9/07 at 1:28pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Word Maestro View Post

I don't know if you're correct or not. But NOT to worry. If indeed the switch over takes place in Feb 2009 (or if it EVER happens), I'm confident the cable companies will provide a "one box fits all" solution. And as is usual with those devices, they will be so "bug" tormented that it will be at least three-five years before they can be depended upon.

As I stated in my post above yours, the analog shutoff has nothing to do with cable or satellite. And yes Word, the shutoff WILL happen. The spectrum is being auctioned off next month.
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post #6163 of 8918
12/9/07 at 1:45pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by bruin95 View Post

The "analog shutoff" only affects people using an analog TV who are getting their signal OTA. If you have an "old school" TV and have cable or satellite, you are NOT affected. Your cable or sat box IS your converter box. Nothing else is necessary.

I was certainly aware of all that, and do not dispute your explanations in any way. However there is another (I think rather large) category that you are ignoring.
Many users have fairly new TVs but have chosen to eschew all cable boxes of any kind, and have their TVs connected DIRECTLY to the WALL outlet. These people ARE receiving cable TV, but without a cable box of any kind, won't they require a "converter" for their TVs to continue to function? I believe they would. I myself have a two year old TV in my bedroom which is connected to the wall outlet (without box) in this manner, and I believe I will need a converter for it, in Feb 2009. I have no intention of spending additional money for a "cable box" for that TV, as its time of use is ONLY in the early AM or late night, and then only for newscasts, weather or an old movie on TCM or AMC.
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post #6164 of 8918
12/9/07 at 8:13pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Word Maestro View Post

I was certainly aware of all that, and do not dispute your explanations in any way. However there is another (I think rather large) category that you are ignoring.
Many users have fairly new TVs but have chosen to eschew all cable boxes of any kind, and have their TVs connected DIRECTLY to the WALL outlet. These people ARE receiving cable TV, but without a cable box of any kind, won't they require a "converter" for their TVs to continue to function? I believe they would. I myself have a two year old TV in my bedroom which is connected to the wall outlet (without box) in this manner, and I believe I will need a converter for it, in Feb 2009. I have no intention of spending additional money for a "cable box" for that TV, as its time of use is ONLY in the early AM or late night, and then only for newscasts, weather or an old movie on TCM or AMC.

No. Cable companies will keep some sort of analog lineup around until it is no longer profitable to do so. Many will probably trim it to the limited basic lineup to make room for more HD channels and faster Internet, but there will be something available in analog on most providers for at least a few years past 2009.
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post #6165 of 8918
12/9/07 at 9:27pm
Yeah for some reason cable companies are required to keep analog around for a while. I'm not really sure why? I would rather them switch the same time OTA does. Then they could make one box that does OTA and QAM that would meet the requirements for the rebate from the government for buying the box.
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post #6166 of 8918
12/10/07 at 8:17am
Quote:
Originally Posted by lvthunder View Post

Yeah for some reason cable companies are required to keep analog around for a while. I'm not really sure why? I would rather them switch the same time OTA does. Then they could make one box that does OTA and QAM that would meet the requirements for the rebate from the government for buying the box.

I don't think that it's so much a requirement for cable companies to provide analog...but not a necessity to shut it off either. The new rules only pertain to OTA signals. Any closed cable system can run as much analog as long as they please. But as CoyoteAZ mentioned, cable will slowly turn off the analog channels, moving them to digital-only tiers because digital channels are much more efficient on bandwidth. For cable to compete with satellite (and fiber in some places) is to convert channels to digital. But cable companies do not want to alienate all of their basic cable customers since they still provide a very sizable percentage of their income.
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post #6167 of 8918
12/10/07 at 8:49am
i have one more question about february 2009.
i have 4 television sets. 2 are high def and both have a dvr. does this mean i won't need anything extra and will automatically continue with uninterrupted service?
i also have 2 analog televisions that do not have a converter box and see all basic and expanded basic straight from the wall outlet through coaxial cables. does this mean i will be able to continue watching these sets without any added equipment after february 2009?
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post #6168 of 8918
12/10/07 at 2:17pm
Laszlo5,

Your two hi-def TV sets will receive the analog channels, as well as the local Las Vegas channels (both SD and HD) that are transmitted digitally if your TV tuners have QAM capability. Most newer sets now do. And Cox provides the local OTA channels "in the clear", and they always will. But all other digital cable channels require a subscription. You will either need a TV with a Cable Card slot or a converter box from Cox to receive the digital channels beyond the locals, which is pretty much the entire line-up digitally.

Your two older analog sets (as well as your two high-def sets) will always be able to receive Cox's analog programming, which will continue past February 2009. But purely for bandwidth purposes, Cox will slowly move more and more of the channels that are on analog to digital. I'm sure that Cox will continue to provide the big cable networks such as TBS, TNT, CNN, USA, ESPN, etc in analog for several years to come. But the less-watched networks such as Food, Hallmark, Court TV, Versus, etc. will eventually make the move to digital only.
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post #6169 of 8918
12/10/07 at 2:18pm
All your sets should be fine. The only sets that will need the converter box are analog sets that use OTA antenna broadcasts. If you have a Digital TV getting OTA broadcasts, you will not need a converter box. Most DTV sets have wider, more rectangular screens than current analog TVs. Besides my two HDTVs, I have four analogs. Two analogs are hooked directly to cable from the wall outlet; they won't need a converter. The other two are getting OTA with an antenna, they will need converter boxes.
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post #6170 of 8918
12/11/07 at 8:30pm
I thought I it was OTA in Feb 09 and Cable was required to keep most (or at least certain channels) analog until Feb 2012? I thought I had read this in some news article a short while ago.
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post #6171 of 8918
12/12/07 at 10:46am
Quote:
Originally Posted by gvc View Post

According to the "whats new" section on the newest Cox invoice, effective Dec 13, Cox will be adding the following HD channels:

722 TLC
723 HGTV
724 Food Network
727 Discovery
734 CW

ONE more day (assuming Cox sticks to their schedule) until we see Giada De Laurentiis (food network) in glorious HD !
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post #6172 of 8918
12/12/07 at 10:53am
Actually you'll have to wait until Friday to see Giada in HD. The Food Network HD channel is not a simulcast of the SD channel. Here's the schedule.
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post #6173 of 8918
12/12/07 at 12:35pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rick89114 View Post

I thought I it was OTA in Feb 09 and Cable was required to keep most (or at least certain channels) analog until Feb 2012? I thought I had read this in some news article a short while ago.

The 2012 deadline is for cable to keep must-carry channels (local channels essentially) on analog as long as they have at least one analog channel on their system.
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post #6174 of 8918
12/13/07 at 11:09am
So did Cox actually launch any of the new channels?
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post #6175 of 8918
12/13/07 at 11:19am
Las Vegas HD Channel Guide December 13, 2007
Code:
Broadcast Networks   OTA    Cox   DirecTV   Dish  CMA (Pahrump)
------------------  -----  ----- --------- ------ -------------
ABC  (KTNV)          13-1   732      13
CBS  (KLAS)           8-1   730       8
Fox  (KVVU)           5-1   735       5
NBC  (KVBC)           3-1   733       3
PBS  (KLVX)          10-1   731
CW   (KVCW)          33-1   734
MyTV (KVMY)          21-1 

Cable Networks
------------------ 
A&E                         707     265     9419
Animal Planet                       282     9489
Biography                           266
Bravo                               273
Cartoon Network                     296
CMT                                 327
CNBC                                355
CNN                                 202
Discovery                   727     278     9487
Food Network HD             724     231-1   9462
Fox Business                        359
FX                                  248
HGTV HD                     723     229-1   9461
History                     703     269     9491
MTV                                 331
National Geographic         702     276     9429   562
Nickelodeon                         299
Science Channel                     284     9490
Sci-Fi                              244      
Spike                               325
TBS                         726     247     9499
TLC                         722     280     9488
TNT                         709     245     9420   565
USA                                 242
VH1                                 335
Weather Channel                     362

HD Only Networks
------------------
HD Theater                  700      76     9421   555
HDNet                                79     9422
HDNet Movies                         78     9423
MGM                                 255
MHD                         725     332     9492
Mojo                        706
Smithsonian                         267
Universal HD                708      74     9427   560
Voom - Animania                             9474
Voom - Equator                              9471
Voom - Family Room                          9486
Voom - Film Fest                            9480
Voom - Gallery                              9472
Voom - GamePlay                             9485
Voom - HDNews                               9482
Voom - Kung Fu                              9479
Voom - Monsters                             9481
Voom - Rave                                 9470
Voom - Rush                                 9476
Voom - Treasure                             9477
Voom - Ultra                                9478
Voom - World Cinema                         9475
Voom - WorldSport                           9473

Premium Networks
------------------
HBO East                            501     9456
HBO West                    710     504            510
Cinemax East                        512     9458
Cinemax West                711     514            530
The Movie Channel                   544
Showtime East                       537     9460
Showtime West               720     540            520
Sho Too                             538
Starz East                          520     9435
Starz West                  721     521    
Starz Comedy                        519
Starz Edge                          522
Starz Kids & Family                 518 

Sports (* games only)
------------------
Big Ten Network                     220     9500
ESPN                        704     206     9424   550
ESPN2                       705     209     9425
FSN West                            652      367*
FSN Prime Ticket                    653      361*
FSN Arizona [1,2]                   649-1*   365*
FSN Bay Area [3]                    654-1*
Fuel                                612
Golf/Versus HD                      604     9468
NBA TV                              601     9508
NFL Network                 729*    212     9464
NHL Network                         215      403
Speed                               607

1 - MLB D'backs only. Other pro teams blacked out.
2 - NHL Coyotes in Pahrump and some other outlying zip codes, blacked out in Las Vegas valley.
3 - MLB Giants and A's. Other pro teams blacked out.

Sports Subscriptions
------------------
MLB Extra Innings HD       soon     yes       no
NBA League Pass HD         soon     yes      yes
NHL Center Ice HD          soon     yes      yes
NFL Sunday Ticket HD         no     yes       no
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post #6176 of 8918
12/13/07 at 12:01pm
Cox promised 50 HD channels by year end, but time is running out to accomplish that goal. I will be very surprised if any more get added this month.
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post #6177 of 8918
12/13/07 at 12:16pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by gvc View Post

Cox promised 50 HD channels by year end, but time is running out to accomplish that goal. I will be very surprised if any more get added this month.

Maybe they're using the new Comcast math and counting VOD selections as channels.

But seriously, the major HD channels you're missing are pretty much down to CNN, FX, USA, and Sci-Fi after the latest additions. And, of course, Cox continues to job sports fans by not adding FSN HD.
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post #6178 of 8918
12/13/07 at 1:53pm
There's a lot more then that. Just look at the list. Granted a lot of those channels don't show a lot of HD, but they are there none the less. I wish Cox would get HDNet Movies. I think my dad would really like that channel except when Mark Cuban plays his propaganda movies.
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post #6179 of 8918
12/13/07 at 4:26pm
Speaking of HD channels that don't show HD programming, the new TLCHD channel has NO "HD" logos on ANY programming. Why the channel then??
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post #6180 of 8918
12/13/07 at 4:58pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by gvc View Post

Speaking of HD channels that don't show HD programming, the new TLCHD channel has NO "HD" logos on ANY programming. Why the channel then??

I assure you that several TLC shows like American Chopper and LA Ink are HD.

You can probably blame Tribune Media Services for the missing HD indicators in your guide (probably, they seem to be the guide data provider for just about everyone). It's the same folks that mark everything on TBS as HD.
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