San Francisco, CA - Comcast - Page 23  

Haddock - you will probably want NBC HD when (well... if) the Olympics come this summer. Comcast carries it.

You may also want Bravo HD if you want complete Olympics coverage. Currently, there are no local carriers for Bravo HD.

The D* 7s should be operational within the month. There will be more HD offered via this new bird. The only thing D* has said is they will broadcast is Fox HD. They have room for several more national HD channels - Starz, Cinemax and TNT-HD are good bets. There is also a vague possibility of them offering local channel HD (spot beamed) to larger markets.

Is that good solid info? The one major network I can't get up here in Santa Rosa is FOX. I get all the rest through Comcast, D*, or OTA. From what I've read that bird just went up, to have FOXHD would be great. Now I'll have to see if they will give a waiver as I think Santa Rosa is considered in the contour B broadcast area. Which is absolutely ridiculous!!

Jim

BTW, I just heard from a friend that has RCN HDTV that they not only have 6200's as well, but they also are carrying KTVU channel 2 in HD. Also that none of their HD Channels are encrypted. If you live in Redwood City, San Mateo or other parts of the area that have RCN, this may be a good option - they also sell a 5 Mmbps cable modem service with 800 kbps upload speeds...


Thanks,
Mike

Quite solid info. And it makes sense, as Fox owns D*.

It will be into O&O markets only, and since Fox does not own KTVU, the bay area will not automatically get it without a local waiver from channel 2.

Where/when/if KTVU allows waivers is anybody's guess. This will be the first time KTVU management has been presented with this option. Their corporate owners have been known to play hard ball regarding this sort of thing, so I don't hold out much hope that they will give anybody in San Rafael a waiver. You may have better luck in Santa Rosa.

KTVU is owned by Cox and the Bay Area marked controlled by Cox/KTVU will NOT fall under the agreement Directv has to broadcast a FoxHD signal. It will only apply to markets where Fox owns the local affiliate (O&O). It will be blacked out in the Bay Area if/when they do it...unless you can get a waiver from KTVU (which will not happen). Hopefully Cox will stop being such jerks and sign an agreement with Comcast so we can have it.


ps...I dont think 7S will actually carry any HD's...Instead it will mainly be used to offload locals from the other birds and freeing up bandwidth on them to add a couple more HD's (not local HD though)

D* has already said they will be adding more HD channels, both on the 101 deg. satellite (with newly free transponders) and the 7s. The estimate is that after all the LIL's are added, there will be at least seven transponders available for new programming, which hopefully will be all HD.

Local HD - nobody knows or is telling. D* certainly hasn't committed any bandwidth on the 7s. All they have said is that the re-tasked spaceway satellites (later this year) may carry local HD programming, and their future launches (8s, 9s) will carry local HD.

Good luck, and let me know how it turns out.

I have them on order. Would like to personally experience the install.

PM for more info.

From East Bay's announcement, the Video On Demand Channels

Showtime
The Movie Channel (TMC)
Home Box Office (HBO)
Cinemax
Starz
A&E
BBC America
Comedy Central
Court TV
E!
History Channel
Natl Geographic
Style
Sundance Channel
Outdoor Life
Atom Television
Do It Yourself: DIY
Food Network
HGTV
Fine Living
Tech TV
Book TV (from C-SPAN 2)
Wisdom TV
NBC
CNN
Bloomberg
Golf Channel
Adventure Sports
Cartoon Network
Classic Kids
Boomerang
Backyard Safari
PBS Kids
Varsity TV (VTV)
Studio 4 Learning
Anime
Bthere TV
G4
Nano TV
Heavy

DCT 1000 and DCT 1200 cannot support VOD.

Wow, that looks great DCT.

Any news as to when the rest of the bay area will get VOD?

The email I got from Rick Germano said Contra Costa now, San Francisco by mid Summer, and all of the Bay Area by the end of the year. I don't know if there will be any areas in between (i.e. North Bay, South Bay, Peninsula).

Is the party over? It seems comcast can finally filter out the HD channels that are not supposed be viewed for free.

Lost HBO, Showtime, Cinemax, and Starz.

russwong,

I guess you're getting the usual runaround of big corporations. Did you actually get to look at the work order at all and did you try calling the contact I gave you last time?

Yeah and the wherehouse is probably located at 2075 Folsom or something since that's where Viacom -> TCI -> AT&T was and that's where all their trucks parked.

kcrptv -

I was watching Letterman in Palo Alto last night when my set top box reset. When it finished reloading, I lost all premium HD feeds as well. I was on the HBO Silver package, so I was supposed to get HBO W HD, but was getting all four movie channels.

I called CS tonight and they immediately turned on HBO HD, but I decided to bite the bullet and get the Platinum package. It would be nice if there were a HD premium package since I never watch the SD premium channels.

we all would like an HD premium package, but that is how they sucker us into paying more money....same thing happened to me. They know,if you have the money for an HDTV and you want HD cable, you are most likely willing to pay and get the premium channels.

bclevelandva,

i considered the gamut of packages, but at $90+/mth for platinum, i just couldn't do it.

i was offered a 3 month special...1 premium movie channel for $1/mth. once the special ends, i'll probably go back to watching the non premium HD channels.

Hey vince,

Yes I did use the contact. We are going to try again this Saturday. Keeping my fingers crossed.

The first workorder said swap out cable box. I still have it... nothing about HD mentioned in it at all.

Russ

I have to agree with not paying so much for cable.... I get most of my channels OTA, but I got the cable HD for NBC and ESPNHD, because for $5 it was worth it. On cable, I don't get kron, wb, upn, etc and that's all free right now. CBS, ABC, and PBS I get for free too, so there is no value from the cable side. And the content on NBC, ESPNHD just isn't enough true HD broadcasts for me to justify paying that much more for it.... And to jump up to $90+ for HBO, SHO, just isn't worth it for me IMHO. Just because I have HD TV, tuner, etc doesn't mean I'm stupid to pay out of the nose.

Hi all-
I just signed up for Comcast Silver package promo 30/mo + HD 5/mo. Ordered Monday, installer came today at the promised time. Had them put a note for a Moto 6200 in the work order. That came as promised also. He was impressed that I knew about the 6200. Said they change channels faster than the older boxes. Said the 6225 is coming end of summer. Asked me about channel lineup differences between SF and Philly. Guy was in and out of here in 20mins.
I'm 5 blocks from Transamerica on Telegraph Hill. I have a Zenith C27V36. I've only been here a month or more, and after watching a movie on VanNess, I walked into the CircuitCity there and paid 440 on clearance.
Reviewing my stations, they look present and accounted for. I see all premiums (normal+HD), InHD 1&2, ESPN-HD, local HDs.

My questions:
1) Is InDemand supposed to be working for my location and/or package? The button on the remote puts "00" on the screen and proceeds to do nothing. I presume there's a specific channel number where it will work, but can't tell from the paperwork I've received.
2) I noticed some HD broadcasts are 4:3, such that there is black all around (like 4-sided letterboxing). Is that normal here? Anyone with my TV know if it can fill/stretch this component signal? Other alternatives to get full screen?
3) My TV is PIP-capable. I'm a PIP newbie. Do I need 2 separate signals coming into the back of the TV, or is the single component in sufficient? Very confused on how to get this to work. I'm sure it won't work with HD, so ignore that entirely and just consider SD.

Thanks in advance, and sorry straying a bit out of topic.
-Frank

To try and answer your questions:

1.) InDemand isn't out yet in San Francisco. Supposedly Summer.
2.) Yes that's normal. Some HD tuners have a zoom function for when this happens. You can try looking at the setup menu in the 6200. To get to it, when the unit is off, press the Menu button.
3.) Most PIP has a seperate INPUT button, which lets you choose which input you want to display in the PIP. Or when you select the PIP screen you can change the inpus. I don't believe PIP can show the same Component in both pictures though. So you would need to split your cable and send it to the RF in and then view analog SD in your PIP.

Last night at about 8:55 my box went to "dl" or download mode. Good thing I wasn't wanting to watch something. That last for about 5 minutes. The box reset and when I brought up the menu there was a new pop-up with On Demand with one of the items. So VOD is now available in my area. I tried it for a while trying some of the "free" items and movie previews. There is no HD VOD yet of course but it is still pretty slick and maybe for one of those night when I don't want to wander out to a video rental I might use it. There are some of the new releases (on DVD) available too. If you have a subscription to some of the premium services like HBO you can watch some shows like the Sopranos when you want. And I didn't lose any of my premium services with the update. Pause, rewind and fast forward all work. Good work, Comcast.

One additional thought though most of us are waiting for HD VOD where widerscreen is available I'm wondering if Comcast has thought about anamorphic SD for some of the "Widescreen Selections." That would be more like DVD though of course the bit rate is less. Then I could set the 6200 for 480p for a movie and the resolution would be better and paticularly the color better.

Brian, can you describe how you initiate VOD? I.e go to channel X (551 HBO-W?) and hit the on demand button on the remote?

Russ,
Under Off-Menu as you described, I have the following options:
TV Type: 16:9, 4:3letterbox, 4:3panscan
YPbPr Output: 1080I, 720P, 480P/I
4:3 Override: 480I, 480P, None
Besides those 3, ClosedCaption, and RestoredDefaults, the rest are greyed out Options (PenSize, FontStyle, ForegroundColor/Opacity, BackgroundColor/Opacity, ServiceSelection, Settings).

Seeing no zoom then, the only way to get a screen fill-out is to downgrade the YPbPr? That would be a pain. My brothers Mitsu has a few stretch modes on the TV. I can't find anything similar on this Zenith.

Thanks for the tip on PIP, I'll get a splitter and try it. Make more sense now.

Good question. I'll check when I get home.

Going to channel 1 initiates the VOD menu. The 'OnDemand' button is just a "shortcut" to channel 1 -- it does nothing special.

Thanks fender. I don't have VOD then (downtown SF).

As a Digital Silver package subscriber, I can only view a few of the "digital premier" tier channels: 128-Bloomberg, 401-FoxSportsWorld, 476-Fuse I get, but most all the rest I don't (e.g. 294-TechTV, 408-Speed). They say "Not Authorized". Is that right?

As others have mentioned, I only had the premiums I didn't pay for, for a very short time only. The system caught up to my new box fast.

Perusing the cable box settings (6200), can anyone explain what these mean, to me:
"RF Bypass = OFF"
"Return = RF" (under review configuration)

S/W Ver = 51.42-2002, Firmware = 07.07
The only things plugged into my HDTV are a component in from 6200, and RCA from DVD.

Thanks.