Seattle, WA - Comcast - Page 71

CoolCanuck, I think there's very little chance they can screw this up. It's downloaded in the box in the first 12 hours or so, whatever your box is.

One thing you'll probably see is that you'll get access to almost all the premium channels for a little while. So prepare your popcorn, you might be able to watch a movie or two on Stars/HBO/Showtime/CineMax etc..

DVI cables are cheap. Here's a 2M at TechDepot (Office Depot) for $13.95! http://www.techdepot.com/product.asp...808906&iid=939 and a 4M Monster for $89.95 http://www.techdepot.com/product.asp...51262&iid=939. Is DVI better than component? Depends on which device has the better digital to analog converter, the source or the destination. Only way to find out is try it. When I got my 6200 delivered, they called me at work 30 min before they arrived and they had it installed in 15 min. Sorry, 3 answers to 3 posts. Too much trouble to enter "quotes".

Well, if I have to schedule a truck roll, then I doubt I'm going to do it until they can bring out an HD PVR. Hopefully the On-Demand stuff will still work even though I won't have one of the new boxes. I still have an ancient DCT-2000, and I expect it will work on that.

KOMO News tonight says "Seattle and South King County" (whatever that entails) will have VOD by the end of this week, as will all of western WA by the first of April (there's that April Fool Day again). They'd better get hopping on the firmware updates, in that case.

I got the flyer last week about On-Demand coming soon. I expect it'll be here along with Starz HD and Cinemax HD by the end of the week. I expect I'll still be 50.00-1078 and 2.48, however. I don't think one has anything to do with the other.

There's also a PR at http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/st...2004,+02:09+PM

Jeremy said, "7.07 is a big update for VOD". If so, that doesn't sound too good for the 2.48 or 5.03 residual firmware.

He also said, "Some things being if you have a first gen 5100 which does not have DVI I would see 7.07 being a useless update. "

Well, I am in the area that is supposed to get On-Demand this week, so we'll see what happens.

Well they must be getting tired of these calls. Guy swore up and down I had the 6200 box already. I had to tell him three times I'm looking at the bottom of the box and it says 5100. He just kept saying that's what it says on the account. He finally put me on hold and then came back and said I was right. When I said I heard a new box would increase my quality on my non digital channels he got all discussed and said he's never heard of that. He *really* reluctantly scheduled me an appointment and quite frankly was very rude, but at least I got one. Hope they don't give me trouble about giving me a new box when they get here.

I don't think it's aprobloem, IMHO. I prefer SD to output at 480i and HD as "native" simply becuase the up conversion done by the box (in my case a 5100) SUCKS.

Unfortunatly this box does not support "native" for HD: IE: outputing 720p for 720p progams and 1080i for 1080i, etc.

Your SP7200 has a Faroudja FLI2300(I think) DCDi processor in it for handling 480i video. I'd be surprised if the box from Mot can touch it.

Anyway, I guess I'll find out myself becuase I have them coimming out on friday to swap out the 5100 for a 6200. Yay.

But not analogs right? That would require and MPEG2 encoder in the STB and I'd be surprised if they did that.

The run to my projector is 30ft. I tried a cable from Lindy. No joy at 768p (fine at 720p), but the "bend over special" from bettercables works perfectly. Once you go beyond the specced DVI length of 3 meters you need a good cable and much beyond 10m requires the expensive optical solution.

That cheap cable in TechDepot is DVI-D not DVI-A (or -I). I don't think it will work with cable box and HDTV. I'll go with PacificCable.

Be surprised. My JVC 30K over firewire records analog also. My apologies if I wasn't clear, if you can see it over firewire, which for me is ALL of the channels I am entitled to, you can record it over firewire onto a D-VHS deck.

scorpi0,

What you need is DVI-D only for a cable box. Pretty much the same thing for DVI DVD players too. DVI-I/A are basically used to connect an analog source (aka VGA or Component connector) to a multipurpose DVI connect on a display device (aka front projector). For example, some multimedia PJs come with only a DVI-I for you to connect either your DVI (using the D part) or a DVI->VGA cable to your computer VGA output (using the A part) or a DVI->Component cable (also using the A part). That's where you would use DVI-I.

In the case of a cable box and/or DVI DVD player, the signal outputed is only digital, there's really no need to get more than that.

DO NOT buy a DVI-A cable. In most cases, it will simply not work (I know for a fact that most TVs, LCDs and HT projectors will only support DVI-D). You will be wasting your money.

Also, there's very little need to get dual link DVI-D in this case.

-eric

jameskollar/ianken,

If the signal is upconverted and then A/Dfied for Firewire/DVI, why wouldn't it work on analog channels?

-eric

Interesting article. Does anyone know if the mainstream shows will be offered this way? "The Practice," "24"?

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/busine...comcast24.html

I just swapped my 5100 without DVI for a 6200 with.

I've got both component and DVI connected to my Z2 projector, so I can A-B the picture.

The DVI is very noticeably superior. The cable guy said "Wow, what a difference!" He was right.

Oookay. I'm confused again. When I read in http://datapro.datapro.net/dvi.html that "DVI-A format is used to carry a DVI signal to an analog display, such as a CRT monitor or an HDTV. ", I got the impression that I'm supposed to use DVI-A with my HDTV RPTV. I guess I'll hold on the cable order till I receive the box and check out the DVI ports on both the box and TV to make sure.

Wow, I checked those switchers out and they are pricey. ($250+)

Is there a cheaper solution, or should I just swap cables?

My Sony 34XBR is connected to my 6200 via a DVD-D male to male single link cable.

I couldn't tell any difference in the picture quality but the colors were muted and reduced. If I increased the color the picture looked equivalent to the component connection but then the color was too saturated for DVD and SVHS watching. Right now, I'm sticking to the component inputs.

scorpi0,

What they forget to mention is that the DVI signal needs to be analog for DVI-A to work, and I'm pretty certain the DVI output on the 6200 is digital only. A DVI-A signal is pretty much the equivalent of component (you will not see any difference). From what I understand, the whole point of DVI is to transport the data digitally from your digital source to your display device (which should support direct digital data). The DVI-A is mostly for backward compatibility (somebody can correct me here if I'm wrong).

I don't know what kind of RPTV you have, but I'm very surprised it has a DVI input, since standard RPTV are all analog based. Is it DLP or LCD based? If not, there must be a D->A conversion going on in your TV, if your TV supports DVI-D at all, and if it's the case, you're just going to compare the D->A converter in your TV versus the one in the 6200. You probably will gain nothing in terms of quality.

-eric

artseattle,

Your XBR has a D->A conversion, since your screen is analog, right? If so, you're probably getting nothing out of your DVI connection, since the TV has to convert it to analog anyway.

As far as I know, only digital display technologies (LCD and DLP) will gain quality out of DVI (unless we're talking major good quality D->A converters).

-eric

Thanks for the clarification eric.

I have a Sony KP-46WT500 HD-ready RPTV set with DVI-HDTV port. I think most recent HD RPTVs have a DVI port.

Your comment about D->A conversion makes a lot of sense.

So can we say that all the people seeing noticable PQ improvement with the DVI upgrade have some kind of a digital display (LCD, DLP projection, plasma etc.)?

Yup. My Z2 is an LCD projector that is 1280 x 720.

So I've got my cable output at 720p, and because of the DVI connection I get 1:1 pixel mapping.

The result is striking!

Since I'm considering getting a Z2 myself, I'm curious if you are noticing any black crush issues with the 6200 and the DVI connection when watching the HDTV channels? I know at one point in the past black crush seemed to be an issue with the Motorola boxes and HD signals, but I'd love to hear that this is no longer the case, especially with the DVI connection. Any info is much appreciated!

Thanks,

Dan

C'mon over and see.

There is less black crush, and more shadow detail, using DVI than component. It looks like the gamma has been shifted up (which the Z2 needs!).

I'm scheduled for a 5100 to 6200 swap out on Friday. The CSR was clueless as to availability but very helpful as far as asking me exactly what I was swapping it out for. I explained I needed the unit with the digital connectors for my digital tv and he was on it.

I'll post a report on it with my SE20HD LCD projector next week assuming the service tech doesn't blow it and show up with a DCT 2200 and HDD-200. :-)

To be honest, dealing with Comcast is so much better than AT&T, and God forbid, DirecTV after they got real big. Every time I've dealt with this cable company since they bought out AT&T has just gotten better and better.

I do whish they'd stop their lame anti-dish ads with the 'tards who can figure out how to bolt down their dish. That's just sad; it makes Comcast look desparate.

OH NO!!! Don't scare me!! I'm scheduled to get a new DCT6200 with DVI & Firewire port enabled! Do you think that they would deploy me a labotomized DCT6200 with nothing enabled?!?

Thanks for the info. This is exactly what I was hoping to hear.

Just checked my firmware. I'm in a fairly new apt. bldg near the U-district in Seattle--I'm at 2.48. I have a 5100 with DVI port in the back. (Don't have a DVI cable, so I can't test it.)

Andy