Seattle, WA - Comcast - Page 507

I just noticed KVOS on channel 72 here as well. KVOS was deleted from King County lineups for Comcast (and its predecessor TCI) back in 1990. December 1990 Seattle Times story re KVOS deletion. June, 1990 Seattle Times article re KVOS deletion

So with access to the Seattle-area cable audience, will venerable KVOS (the second oldest TV station in Washington) finally invest in high-def technology?

Nice to have KVOS back. I remember liking it 20 years ago (has it really been that long since TCI?).

Did anyone else get surprised by a three year old CSI:Miami episode, instead of the scheduled "Reality Kills" last night?

I was surprised. I guess it was preempted because in some timezones the football game ran long.

Got it in one, good call. It took a while to find any mention of it on the web, but a search for "csi preempted" now confirms your speculation. Apparently 60 Minutes, Amazing Race and Undercover Boss all got pushed, leaving no time for CSI: Miami on the east coast. Needing filler for the west coast, CBS reached into the vault.

Are they just bumping it until next week?

Yes. http://www.cbs.com/info/schedule/index.php

Just downloaded & tried the free Xfinity iPad app - pretty slick. You can browse both channel guides and on-demand listings, then actually control your Comcast receivers directly. You can choose to watch the selected channel live, or schedule a recording.

It works with both DVR and non-DVR Comcast boxes - I tried it with my newer DCX-3425 DVR and older DCT-5200 non-DVR receiver. With the non-DVR box you can just change channels. If you try to schedule a recording while watching a non-DVR box, it schedules it on your DVR box instead - nice.

Free in the iTunes App store.

Agreed, this is pretty cool. Of course one of my first thoughts was how can I prank my wife with changing channels. It will tune to the channel selected in the listings when choosing watch now, not full remote functions like I was hoping for.

The tune to on demand was nice too, but a little hard to find programs. Just seemed to be a random order?

The search only seems to do by title and not in descriptions. The app did not have episode titles like on demand did. The descriptions are slightly different too. How many people write these things?

The dvr manager is not built in like the mobile app. It goes to the browser and does not automatically sign you in. If these two apps could be merged together then I think it woud be near perfect.

I do have two dvrs in the home and you can change which is the default one. You can even test which is which by pushing a button in the app and having the notice pop on the screen.

I think the "normal" on-demand menu on the set-top box is pretty randomly-organized already


Agreed - would be nice to have the DVR manager integrated, but at least on the iPad it's usable when launched in safari.

I also just read that the next release of this app (end of year?) will also let you watch On-Demand shows directly on the iPad - see Engadget article

Anyone else having problems with KING-HD ch 105 (15-2 clear QAM)? Used to work fine but started having signal problems last week. My HD Homeruns have a hard time locking onto it. In WMC7 it usually just gives up & says no signal. In the HDHR viewer app it works but has stuttering and pixelization.

Just tried the Xfinity iPad app! Sooo much easier to find stuff on OnDemand!

Fine up here in Snohomish Co. on 15-2.

I just checked yesterday's and today's recording of "Evening Magazine". No issues. Using two HDHomeRun's with MythTV here.

Cheers,
Kermee

Has anyone heard about the availability of BBC America HD and/or the Cooking Channel HD? Those are the last two channels I watch in SD. It would be great if we got BBC America HD before Christmas, so that I don't have to download Doctor Who.

Anyone here still NOT getting CBUT HD?

I have limited basic and still do not receive CBUT HD. I'm at NE Green Lake in Seattle. My TiVo series 3 with cable card shows "Searching for signal" on 619. I had a service call earlier this year in which the technician cleaned up my signals (including installing new inside splitter), fixed the connection to ground, and took off whatever filter/trap, if any, there was. She was puzzled why no signal and told me she'd check into it. Of course I never heard another thing.

Just recently I went through online chat with Comcast and did the card reset & TiVo reboot thingy, to no avail. They set up another service call, but nobody showed up. I called and was told the ticket indicated it had been serviced. So someone's lying.

Anyhoo, I'm gonna try and get to the bottom of this without wasting their and my time with another service call. I thought I'd see what other folks status was before speaking with them. I tried bypassing the splitter--no difference. Is there anything else I can do or look at inside my house?

Silicon dust had three listings for Comcast 98115: 62, 73, and 80 programs.
I don't know which is which, but the first list doesn't have
The first lists:
Type Channel Virtual Name Resolution
qam256 79-6 99 CBUT 528x480p

the other two list:
Type Channel Virtual Name Resolution
qam256 60-2 99 CBUT 1920x1080i
qam256 79-6 99 CBUT 528x480p

Addendum: I got those SiliconDust listings yesterday. Today I looked again and there were four listings: 62, 70, 76, and 80 programs. How are those lists generated? But, again, only the 62 list doesn't have CBUT HD.

So is it possible I'm in a "62 program" area because of some physical configuration? And if so, who at Comcast can tell me? And if so do I have any recourse, since they advertise that I should be getting that station?

The SiliconDust lists are auto-generated from users who have HD Homerun tuners in your zipcode (or a nearby one) - and who have checked the option to provide diagnostic information back to SiliconDust. They can vary a lot depending on how the user has their system configured, what channel tiers they subscribe to, what neighborhood cable plant they're on, etc - but they're a lot better than nothing.

I just looked at SiliconDust to see if I could make any sense of it. Today there's a "63 programs" and an "80 programs" listing for 98115. Here's what it looks like:

The "63 programs" listing is most likely an Internet-only customer whose line filter is wiping out everything from channels 2-70 or so. The 8VSB KSTW on 11.1 is ingress from OTA. (MUXes 79-X and higher, only, can be seen.)

The "80 programs" listing is an expanded-basic customer with no line filter. (All MUXes from 15-X to 117-X can be seen.)

A limited basic customer would look somewhat different; their line filter would whack everything between (roughly) channels 30 and 70. (All MUXes except 34-X, 36-X, 37-X, 38-X, 60-X, 67-X can be seen.)

My guesses are:

(1) there's still a limited basic filter on your line. The simple test for that - can you see the video MUXes on 34-X, 36-X, 37-X, 38-X, or hear the audio MUX on 67-X?

(2) there's ingress from an interference source on the line. Not sure what the source of that would be at 440MHz though.

(3) there's insufficient signal strength for your receiver to lock-on to that frequency. Could be anything from a kink/crimp in the wire to a plant issue.

Pastiche's post above reminded me - CBUT-HD is directly in the channel range blocked by a limited basic filter on your line. I'm not sure these filters are required any more, since the expanded basic channels are now all digital and all encrypted - but I bet lots of them are still in place. Still, it might be a challenge - since you only have limited basic - to convince Comcast to come out & remove the line filter.

See previous post on this same topic.

Yeah, it's probably a filter. I don't see any channels in its blocking range.

I *thought* the technician had addressed the filter problem initially, but apparently she did not. There is no filter at the house, either inside or outside. Could be up on the pole. Are filters typically installed at the pole or house? A pole mount provides a lot more security than a house mount. So I guess I'll have Comcast come back out.

Thanks guys!

I had to get to the Comcast Executive Team in order for them to remove that stupid filter that blocks CBUT-HD... Just an FYI. Just keep pushing them...

Cheers,
Kermee

Anyone have any update on this?

If you use kmttg or TiVo Desktop software, you can quickly identify which shows/channels have CP.

I finally had the chance to engage w/Frontier (company Verizon transitioned our FiOS) service to and the conversation wasn't very productive (posted about it at http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...3#post19536803).

If Comcast in Redmond has no or little CP, I'll probably drop FiOS if I can't get Frontier to get rid of their CP. It's unclear if it's on because of contractual obligations, incompetence, content providers are really asking for it, etc.

The general rule is that only the premiums like hbo, showtime, starz etc are set to copy once and everything else is set to copy freely. I don't have tivo but have not heard of any problems lately. There was an issue with Bio (not the hd one) last year but has been cleared up but that was just for tivo2go if I got the name right. I can look into particular channels tomorrow but hopefully this helps some. You will of course need the cablecard to unlock the channels over limited cable.

(Note: I'm assuming all eastside Comcast nodes are configured the same. Also I use Windows Media Center with ATI Cablecard tuner - not a Tivo - but I believe WMC uses the same CCI flag).

Here in North Bend the copy-protection seems to behave as expected - only set for premium channels. Shows recorded from premium channels are locked to the PC that recorded it - if you try to view them from other rooms, you get a copy-protection error.

Shows from non-premium channels can be viewed from any WMC PC in any room, copied to other machines, etc. This includes locals and non-premium cable channels (eg, Disc-HD, FOOD-HD, Disney, etc).

Cool. Thanks for the info, so far. http://www.tivo.com/copyprotection/ lists some of the various CCI byte values and their meanings.

On ~6/7/10, a month before us Verizon FiOS people in WA and OR were transitioned to Frontier, w/o warning they threw the switch and turned on CP (CCI byte = 0x02) on most non-premiums other than locals but VZ has never anyone's paired cards (didn't need to), resulting in an outage for us.

We didn't know what was going on. VZ didn't know how to solve it for >24 hours and finally they had us go thru a process that we found out paired our cards. IIRC, wasted ~2 hours on the phone w/them to get this issue solved.

Then, someone discovered that we went from ALL our channels being 0x00 (copy freely) to most non-locals being 0x02, w/some weird choices as to what they left open (e.g. SD Game Show Network and CNN Headline News "need" CP while SD and HD Science Channel and NGC have no CP, one or two ESPNs are missing CP).

In the past month or so, it seems they closed those CP holes, leaving most (all?) non-local w/0x02. Of course, VZ/Frontier don't understand the issue, can't be bothered to tell us why (if anything at all), claim it's the content providers and not them, couldn't explain the weird gaps in what they didn't apply CP to, can't explain why other VZ FiOS areas are still in the clear, etc.

As I said, I'm ok w/premiums like HBO or Showtime having CP since I don't subscribe to them anyway.

619 CBUT-HD now coming in loud and clear! There was indeed a filter on the utility pole end. Comcast tech was very knowledgeable...he's familiar with the AVS forum even.
Thanks again guys.

KBTC now appears on Comcast boxes (in Skagit county anyway) on channels 71 (KBTC SD), 102 (Mhz Worldview 28-2), and 108 (KBTC HD)

Here in South King County, I'm not seeing Mhz Worldview on 102 yet. Is anyone else seeing anything on 102 or 108?

Was at the comcast store returning a cable modem which had been sitting unused in a drawer for 2 years. Apparently a recent audit picked up that I had it so they just started charging it. Anyway, I decided to ask about the cost of upgrading our SD DVR to a HD DVR. We are a 4 TV family, and have been hesitant to change over the last tube, a 36" that is heavily used, in part becuase I just didn't want to pay another extra $10-15 a month to upgrade the DVR. According to comcast, the HD DVR is CHEAPER than the SD DVR - $15.95 v 17.95, as they are trying to phase out SD equipment. So if I swap it out, I can save a little, and get a larger hard drive to boot. Could I be missing something here?

Now if we can just find a 40" LCD that fits in the entertainment armoire where the 36" tube is, we'd be all set!

No, KVOS is still mapped to channel 12 (but requires a digital cable box) in places north of Marysville. There is no service on analog channel 12 anymore, apparently replaced by a QAM carrier with the KBTC channels.

Somethings happened where now when I scan for channels on my mythtv box I don't get the cable channels in the basic package that I Pay for. In particular I'd like to locate The Discovery channel. I know I should get it as other tv's in the house hooked up directly to the cable (no cable box) scan it and pull it in just fine. With my myth box I can't seem to find it as one of the scanned channels on QAM256. Any help or explanation would be appreciated. If I can't pick it up on my myth box I can't record. (I'm in Area code 98115

Thanks