Atlanta, GA - Comcast - Page 15

There is nothing wrong with OTA..myself and many of my neighbors are getting it..and we are 40 miles to the south...plus which I can't get all the channels I want on Comcast...and I am forced to buy more equipment...slapped an antenna in the attic and never had to look back..have had superbowl parties w/HD last 3 years

I can switch channels and get all the banging I want as you say...from CSI to Leno...so what am I missing..ESPN HD..big deal

As far as HBO or Showtime..I'll take my tweaked DVD any day..much rather rent the movie

Can't we all just get along?

Sorry for the interruption. Please let me know directly if this happens again.

Paul,

Good points about OTA. I think if I were in your situation and could pick up all of the HD stations by pointing an antenna in one direction I would do it in a heartbeat. Unfortunately, many of us in ATL live either downtown (in between all of the towers) or live in neighborhoods with very large trees (which prevents us from getting all three satellites). In my case, I have both of these issues and have opted for the Comcast route.

I completely agree with you on the HBO/Showtime deal. I will drop these as soon as they are not free anymore. A progressive scan DVD player gives a much better picture/sound combo in my opinion anyway.

FYI, here is my decision path for this.

DTV
Good: Nice digital pictures, HDNet looks really cool.
Bad: Have to use rotator or multiple antennas for OTA. Also have to chop down trees to see all of the satellites. Also, heavy rain or thunderstorm generally knocks out both.

Comcast
Good: No reception problems. Can watch ESPN HD even during a thunderstorm (like I did last week). Don't have to deal with an antenna/rotator setup.
Bad: No ABC as of yet (so no MNF). Having to deal with the idiots at Comcast customer support. Well, they are in Canada after all...

Regards,
Bryan

hi all.....been on the forum for a little while, but my first post in this board. i just had comcast upgrade my digital cable box about 2 weeks ago to the new silverish motorola HD box (i guess that's the 5100 model you guys are talking about?). i have a horror story to tell.....so i'm gonna vent....

i had a horrible experience getting it installed. just like most of you say, the tech's/installers aren't very up-to-date with this stuff.....as a matter of fact, i was surprised my installer could read. it took him about 1 1/2 hours to switch out the cable box.....something just about any of us could have done in about 2 minutes. plus, he hooked it up incorrectly......he used the composite coax cable to go from the box to the TV (doesn't that defeat the whole purpose???....i had an S-video cable to begin with!!!). when i noticed that he hadn't brought in any extra cables (which i've heard they were supposed to supply), i said something and he ran down to get the monster video component cables. the idiot plugged those in along WITH the composite cable.....so i had two video signals going to the TV.....guess the signals messed each other up, cause it looked horrible. not only that, but he took the RCA audio cables off my dvd player and hooked them up to the HD box as well....he stole my own cables! now i had 3 different cable connections going to the TV. when i noticed that he took my dvd cables, i said something and he ran down again and got some monster video audio cables. fine. during this entire time, he's trying to program the box or whatever, so he's calling back and forth to his supervisor saying, "ok, i plugged it up, now what do i do?" what the hell?! hasn't he ever hooked up a box before? apparently this was the 4th HD box he'd done that day too. no wonder he got to my house after 8pm.....it took him forever to even get a working picture on the screen. i finally just said that it looked fine and got him to leave so i could get back there and re-wire everything myself. needless to say i wasn't impressed at all.

well, now that that's off my chest.....i have some questions and concerns. i had been watching FOX, NBC, CBS, ESPND and SHOD up until a few days ago. the FOX channel (804) had always been very choppy....was this a common problem? the others were always fine. however, a few days ago, i lost FOX and ESPND! what happened? did comcast drop these two channels, or are they trying to reprogram something? when i turn to 804 or 846 it just says, "one moment please....this channel will be available shortly." and that's it. is there something wrong?

also....i just ordered a DVI cable....did i waste my money, or is the DVI output a definite possibility for the near future? thanks....

no idea whe DVI will be activated - if you are only buying it for the 5100, then I would wait if I were you.

I had mine installed about 2 weeks ago and had no problems. the Comcast tech took about 5 minutes to hook up and another 15 minutes to call it in to activate the HD. I see so many post about un train techs from Comcast I figure I would post a positive experience.

By the way what do you need the s-video for? HD set top box will only work with components or DVI for HDTV reception.

Have had no problems with any of my channels , all works prefectly.

just saying that my old standard digital cable box was hooked up with s-video.....it had a better picture than the new HD box on HD channels when the tech was done installing it. that was a problem

as far as buying the box now instead of waiting.....it's only $5 more per month. i think the box looks better than the old digital cable box (it matches my dvd player). i at least get a few HD shows in prime time, even if my FOX and ESPND aren't working right now. and the quality of cable hookup increased from s-video to component, and eventually DVI. i think the picture looks slightly better right now because of that, but it's hard to tell.

anyone else having trouble with HD channels right now?

My box got firmware 51.22 the other night. Does any1 know whats new in this update? Any chance of DVI? I have no cable to test with. Thanks.

S/W Ver: 51.22 - 2002
Firmware: 02

dogongt,

I would call comcast if i were u, those 2 channels should be working.

Has anyone else in Atlanta had a firware upgrade? Mine still shows as

SW 50.00 1078
FW 08

Channel 876 inHD, but no signal. It says "Not Authorized in HD". Everybody else also getting this?

Same here

Showed up on the guide last night with no audio or video. However, I just checked and it has both! No programming on at present time, however, just random images, but that is a start!

There was a movie at 7 tonight

I just received my Sony KDP-51WS550 a few days ago and am now going through the long process of deciding to spend the money to install OTA antenna or go with (yuck) Comcast.

One of the features of the TV is that it has a QAM6 Digital Cable Tuner built-in. According to Sony, if the cable company uses this standard for digital cable distribution, I don't need a digital cable box, except if I want to receive HBO or other premium channels.

Does anyone know what Comcast uses?

And WHAT IS UP with Comcast not carrying ABC? I'm sure it's got something to do with somebody trying to make more money than their entitled to.

Also, why doesn't comast carry HDNet or Discovery Channel HD-Theatre?

I guess what I'm asking is WHY DOES CABLE SEEM TO BE STUCK IN THE 1980's ????

Here's to hoping I can see SOMETHING in HD someday soon!

I think it's more of a question of whether or not Comcast is encrypting the signals. If Comcast is broadcasting any of the signal in the clear (un-encrypted) your TV should be able to get those signals without a seperate cable STB. I thought I read something about local channels having to be unencrypted, but I'm not sure how accurate that is. However, for the premium channels those I'm betting are encrypted and you'll need the Motorola 5100.

I didn't realize there was a list of how much people/companies are entitled to make.

Anyway, whatever your past experience with cable companies, and I've had a bad one too, I find Comcast much better than DirecTV/OTA for HD. I switched at the beginning of the year and won't go back. I guess if your in the right place and get a big enough antenna, it's OK. But even then, you have to pay hundreds of dollars for a receiver. Only +$5 a month for one from Comcast.

No ABC is my only gripe. Rarely watched HDNET anyway.

I don't think you will be able to see HD with that tuner. The old Moto DCT-2200 I used to have also had a QAM6 Digital cable tuner and it couldn't do HD. Does your TV have a DD 5.1 optical or coaxial output? You'll need one to "hear" HD.

The integrated tuner you want is not in TVs yet as they (the cable and manufacturers) are still discussing the finer points of the integrated tuner agreement. Perhaps this time next year we'll the first TVs with the integrated cable tuners that will be able to decode digital and HD content from cable companies (using new technology available today from CableLabs).

My HD signal is unbelievable.

However for non-hd local channels, especially CBS my picture quality is lousy. As anyone else noticed this problem.

I have the Motorola 5100 and i only have the component cables hooked up.
So both my HD and non-HD channels are viewed using the component cables.

My TV has optical digital output. I'm having comcast installed a week from Friday. I'll be sure to let everyone know if a built-in digital cable tuner will work.

Regards,

my local channels aren't LOUSY, but they could definitely improve. i have the same setup, and i agree, the HD channels are awesome (although FOX could improve a bit).

I just took a quick look at that TV, it's pretty cool. It has an integrated ATSC tuner. If they say it does QAM in addition to 8VSB, then I expect it to decode anything that comes in the clear. In theory, you should be able to see at least channels 804, 806, and 809 if the tuner goes that high. You can get those OTA too if use an antenna.

Let us know what you can see.

off the current topic.....but.....i hadn't been receiving channels 804 or 846 for the past few days, so i finally called comcast. what was their solution? jiggle the coax cable! wouldn't you know it....it worked! what the hell is that? wouldn't you think that with the technology of the current cable boxes (or anything else for that matter) that to fix the HD reception by jiggling the cable is ridiculous? just thought i'd share.....kind of makes me mad, but at least i'm getting what i'm paying for now.

Fox is not HD. It could improve a bit - like from 480 to 720.

Check this link for an article about Panasonic's new digital cable HDTV-ready TVs.

http://www.cablelabs.com/news/newsle...003/index.html

I had my 5100 installed a couple weeks ago. The installer seemed adequately trained. He brought up the box and the cables (not monster but seem decent enough) but I hooked them up myself. It did take him a little while on the phone to get them to activate the box and start the download, but not too bad. He did insist on turning the sharpness all the way down which might be good for the basic cable channels, but not what I want for HD... I have the Hitachi 51F500 and after much reading in the RPTV forum and experimenting with the tweaks I was able to greatly improve the picture quality. I should be getting my Avia disk in the mail from Amazon tomorrow (which I realize may not make the same improvements on my TV input, but some should help). My very unscientific ratings would say that basic cable is "Fair-Good", digital cable is "Very Good" and true HD programming is "Great". I've caught a couple of NFL preseason HD broadcasts as well as the new ESPN show "Playmakers", some U.S. open tennis, Jay Leno, and the movie channels which have all been a real joy to watch.

And now for my complaints...
1) No ABC! I've been looking through this thread and haven't seen anything that might even be a rumored date for ABC, but I really REALLY want my MNF (and Alias in a few weeks).
2) The non-HD content on Fox and ESPN is stretched and my TV doesn't have any way to correct that. I have to go into the Motorola setup menu and change the signal to 480p if I want to be able to watch it in 4:3 or 4:3 expanded modes.
3) My Showtime channel has almost constant dropouts of video and sometimes audio. Does anyone else get this? I suppose that could be a signal strength issue but all of the other channels are fine.

I'm excited about the addition of INHD. Too bad the U.S. Open has been almost entirely rained out, but when INHD first showed up on my listings this weekend I sat and watched the preview loop about 10 times in a row because the images were so awesome.

WSB & Comcast - please make a deal soon. Anyone out there work for WSB or Comcast? Please give give us an update. 5 Days to MNF opener and counting.

I've started a thread which encompasses the issue of Comcast and WSB:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...postid=2626506

I have been doing some more research into my problems with Showtime dropouts. I know that you can see some signal strength measurements in the setup menu so I checked out all of my HD stations.

804, 806, 809, 846, 880, 881 are all measuring SNR ~ 32.5 and AGC ~55%.

However, my Showtime (890) and the newly added InHD (876) are measuring SNR 26.4 and AGC 99%!

What exactly do these numbers mean? There is an obvious difference here but the strange thing is that I haven't noticed any dropouts on InHD... Showtime has video pixelation every few seconds and the audio drops out every so often too. What's the deal? Should I call Comcast out here or should I try out the Motorola signal booster?