Pittsburgh, PA - Comcast - Page 79

Are you stupid?

Your own post said "any answers appreciated." Why are you pissed off?

Chuck, I am not pissed off. In case you are new to English, "no idea" and "try a google search" are not an answers to a question. If I wanted to hear a bunch of "I don't knows" I would have asked the 90 year old lady who lives next door. Instead, I posted on a forum where people with actual knowledge might be likely to respond with specific and detailed answers.

I do realize that technically any response can be considered an answer, however in the context of specific questions on a forum like this the answers I am looking for are responses with information that would be useful. For instance a resonse to my 4th question that would be useful might read something like this; "yes, but you need to change these settings on your cable box..." or "no, you can not do that with motorola dvrs". I know that sometimes this sort of distinction can be hard for people who are new to English to understand.

If you are not new to English you are likely an imbecile if you think those were answers were at all helpful.

Maybe you should learn to qualify your statements.

If he doesn't know the answers to your questions, did you think to actually contact Comcast or Verizon directly for the information you seek?

If you didn't find what you were looking for here, don't grumble. Pick up a phone.

Chuck, It is common sense that an answer to a question should provide some semblance of a solution. The vast majority of English speaking adults understand this. Hence it being common sense.

Have you spent any time on the phone with comcast? I am guessing not or you would not have made such a foolish suggestion.

As you evidently need me to qualify the above beyond what is common knowledge for most people, here it is; I do not need a reply to this unless you can actually provide an answer to any or all of my original questions. Thanks.

Damn, if only i spoke Spanish, I would now be in TV heaven.

Disclaimer: This post is not a response to anyones question.

Comcast added Smithsonian HD ... Wooo Hooo !!!

I recently subscribed to limited basic and the installer installed a DTA box. I explained that I (perhaps wrongly) assumed that I could just plug the cable from the wall into my QAM/Digital receiver on the TV and he said that "No, that ended about 7 months ago". So I was a little irked at myself for not thoroughly investigating what I was signing-up for. So after he left, I unhooked the DTA and was pleasantly surprised to see that I am able to get everything I was hoping for in far-superior-quality without the DTA. The quality without the DTA rivals that of OTA but with the DTA it was worse than OTA SD.

I plan on leaving the DTA disconnected ... unless there is a reason not to. Why would the installer insist that it wouldn't work unless i use the DTA? Anything I should keep in mind?

Thanks!

p.s. if it matters i'm in a formerly Adelphia section of Allegheny county.

Not sure if the former Adelphia is exactly the same as the rest of Comcast, but if so, here is the answer.

With the DTA you should be able to get about 100 channels, all standard definition.

Without the DTA you should get 20-22 channels in standard definition as well as all of the locals in high definition, ie. 2-1, 4-1, 11-1, 13-1, 16-1, 19-1, 22-1 and 53-1, as well as a few other subchannels such as 11-2, etc.

Thanks, JRM01. Since I'm subscribing to limited basic, I was only getting the 20-22 channels with the DTA. That's why I didn't understand the way the installer was insisting that I had to use it. I'm wondering if using the DTA is the only sanctioned installation so that they don't receive tech calls about why some of the QAM channels are in 'weird' locations, like 33.1 for WPGH (53-1). ???

Seems we got 805 and 807 HD channels. WCPBD and IonnHD.

Ok, here we go again with the clear-QAM channels with Comcast in the North Hills. As you may remember several years ago Comcast was hiding the local HD channels on numbers like 73-2304 instead of 2-1. I filed a complaint with the FCC and with the Local Franchise Authority (in Ross). Following a meeting with Comcast they agreed to move them to their proper channel numbers, and did so. It was all fine for several years.

Recently I started having problems, so I ran another channel scan and find many now missing.

The channels that are OK are 4-1, 4-2, 13-1, 13-2, 13-3, 16-1 and 22-1.

The missing channels are 2-1, 11-1, 11-21, 19-1, 22-1 and 53-1.

I did find that 19-1 (CW) was coming in on channel 17-1. I looked for the other missing channels but gave up at channel 100 (maybe they are higher).

Anyone else find the same situation?

Also several of my friends received a notice from Comcast that after 12/6/2011 they would be 100% digital and the DTA would be required even for the lower channel numbers. I checked today and we still have channels 2-19 in analog form. Anyone else?

Comcast may not be too worried about enforcement at this time. Unfortunately on Oct. 13th the FCC issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) considering allowing cable companies to encrypt all channels. "We tentatively conclude that allowing cable operators to encrypt the basic service tier in all-digital systems will not substantially affect compatibility between cable service and consumer electronics equipment for most subscribers."

Right now that is only a proposal which still has a way to go before it could be adopted (although the FCC has already granted an exemption to CableVision to implement it).

Also, I'm not sure that Comcast is encrypting them (maybe) but only hiding them with phony channel numbers.

FWIW - I did find the missing channels. 2-1 comes in on 107-11, 11-1 comes in on 107-2201, 22-1 is on 108-2302 and 53-1 is on 108-2301.

They're playing games again.

They have been that way in the Morgantown system for over a year now. I have complained numerous times to them, and they keep saying I need to get a DTA, even though the DTA doesn't do HD. We did have the two local channels out of clarksburg for a while on 5.1, 5.2 and 10.1, but those have recently changed as well. The interesting thing is on the Waynesburg Comcast system, all the channels are still on the proper PSIP numbers. They also still have analog basic cable channels as well.

I really wish they would fix it, as it is annoying to constantly try and figure out where the channels are moved to.

In the Franklin Park area, they moved ABC and WQED channels to 106-1 through 106-4. Its pretty annoying. All the others were unchanged though. I didn't know they were moved as I rarely go that high even after a channel scan, and had called Comcast to question my loss of ABC. They told me I needed a digital box....annoying.

I called them last week about WTAE and WQED missing. After not hearing back I called them again today. The first guy actually got argumenttive with me saying they're encrypted and I need a box. Even after I told him they're not and I can get them with an antenna over the air. As I was talking to the second level (they're all clueless) I found WTAE HD on 106-2101 and WQED HD on 106-2103. The Comcast rep said he wasn't sure why they were moved there but it probably had to do with making more space for HD programming. Clueless... I'm just going to use an antenna and hope that the Apple TV I ordered might be enough reason to drop Comcast cable completely in my sole room with a cable card & Tivo. IP TV can't mature quick enough for me, they just need to figure out live programming and local and I'm there.

BTW, Ross township here.

Jim

what kind of indoor antenna will it take to receive wpgh in weirton,wv?
I can get wpmy but not wpgh for some reason.

According to a poster at DSLReports, the Indiana system is going to be seeing the first new HD launch in Western Pennsylvania.

On 5/22, Comcast will add Bloomberg HD, BBC America HD, Oxygen HD, PBS Kids Sprout HD, NatGeo Wild HD, GSN HD, Hub HD, Fox Soccer HD, GolTV HD and the missing NBA TV HD for some odd reason (It was skipped on some Pittsburgh-area systems). TBN HD will be dropped.

I hadn't heard of any Western PA systems with locals converting to digital yet, it's odd they're seeing new HD channels before the MD systems that did convert all locals to digital as long as 6 months ago.

I don't know if any other systems will see these additions, but I believe the Indiana system is a Cisco system and was formerly Adelphia.

Comcast announced in January here (Canonsburg virtual headend) that the remaining analog channels would be eliminated.

Is anyone else having a problem with terrible jagged edges on WPCW-HD (Ch 808)? I usually only watch this channel for the 10PM news, but the video quality on every TV in my house is terrible.

I entered a comcast online technician "chat" and explained the problem to the person on the other end insisted that the problem was on my end and had me power cycle the 2 HD boxes and all 3 HD DVR's.

Of course, there was no improvement.

So, he wanted to schedule a technician to come out to my house to check my signal levels. Seriously.

I declined.

It's been this was for a couple of months now...and I don't notice the issue when I use OTA to receive.

This problem has been going on for some time now. I can't believe they're not fixing it. It even look like that over the air. Completely unacceptable and JAGGED!!!

Sunday Night Football

Got a new Samsung LED 60 inch last month, same as my old Samsung LCD! Can't stand all the artifacts (I guess that is what they are) on WPXI. It does't have to be SNF, any football game will do. It just has all that microblacking and blurring during transitions and close up action. Do I not know how to adjust my TV's or is this true for all of you too?

This is the only station that does it. That speaks volumes to me. Is is how Xfinity deals with the feed or the poor quality of what NBC is producing?

How about yours?

quote]
I am 100% in agreement with your observation regarding the artifacts (macro blocking and pixelization) on Comcat/Xfinity in the Pittsburgh market. WPXI DT is particularly bad on fast motion scenes, but even solid backgrounds appear uneven, almost like small blocks within the background are flashing. This seems to be a relatively new problem, and it’s hard to know whether it is a Comcast or WPXI issue. Like many others, WPXI is “stealing” some of their own bandwidth for use on one or more sub-channels, and the more of this finite resource they dedicate to subs, the worse the picture will be. The problem definitely exists on other channels too, but WPXI has been really painful to watch at times lately.

Shed

No help here, Bill.

I have the same issues with WPXI on Cable AND OTA. So, I'm assuming that its a QC problem (or lack of bandwidth availability) at WPXI.

Additionally, my CW STILL has the "jagged edge" problems that I've noted above.

Thanks for the confirmation. Misery loves company. BTW, I have 6 months of Redzone on Sunday, and wow, it looks like FIOS, none of that nonsense noted above.

New HD Channels on Jan 29th, 2013

Comcast Ross Twp. headend (HD equivalents of existing channels):

1225 - BBC America
1325 - GSN
1262 - Nat. Geo Wild
1334 - Oxygen
1505 - Sprout
1511 - Hub

If only we could get WBGN back

The same information is in my bill (Greensburg system). Currently our channels only go to 999, so I guess they'll be expanding to 4 digits now.

Speaking of the Greensburg system, I am guessing that they finally completed reclamation of the analog spectrum as the ClearQAM HD locals, and their subchannels, were removed with the last scan I ran on my HDHomeRun. Their encryption was confirmed when I ran a scan with my old Samsung ATSC/QAM STB.