Houston, TX - Comcast / DBS - Page 277

So if I've got an HDTV hooked directly to the wall, what "extra" channels does this little box give me? The reason why I asked is that because I went ahead and ordered one (because they are free).

Now they have sent me an email wanting me to "Activate" it.

I understand what the advantage is if you use a standard def TV but what about if you already have an HDTV but no cable box hooked up to it?

You will get access to a set of digital basic channels that is more extensive than the set of clear QAM channels you'd get by plugging the cable straight into the TV.

Drawback is that all channels through the DTA will be SD--none will be HD.

The following posts are from Comcast's Ted Hodgins, Sr. Director, Video Product Development - Navigation, in Media & Entertainment, "New Guide for Scientific Atlanta Cable Boxes" blog:

http://blog.comcast.com/2010/05/new-...ble-boxes.html

Note: Last month, Ted said that Comcast had plans to have the Xfinity iPad application compatible with Scientific Atlanta and Cisco cable boxes, this year for Houston, see first underlined section. Last November, Ted said that Comcast had plans to have the Xfinity iPad application compatible with Scientific Atlanta and Cisco cable boxes, in early 2011 for Houston, see second underlined section. This shows how Comcast's schedule is slipping.

Is Houston Comcast a SARA or a PASSPORT software town?

I am asking because I am a new Comcast customer and got a SA8300HD and want to add an external eSata drive to it for increased storage. Also, does Houston Comcast also use the Cisco RNG200 DVR?

RussB has some good links in his sig in the post just before yours:
Links: SARA Passport Nav Houston HOTP

I live in Bellaire and I have an RNG200. It uses SARA.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...52#post4682052

How To Determine Software Being Used. Look at the A-B-C button labels at the bottom of the IPG (Interactive Program Guide) to determine which software is being used:

Code:
A B C
SARA Browse By Date [curved backarrow]
Passport Echo Time Theme Search
Passport (non-DVR) Time Theme Title
Navigator Access Menu Find Shows [no label]

There's probably no way really to say this without sounding something like a jerk, but in the interests of "teaching a man to fish", this is a 277 page thread. There's lots of good info here. I wouldn't ever expect you to slog through all those 277 pages for answers to your questions, but AVSForum has fantastic search features. If you "searched this thread" (at the top right of every thread page) for "RNG200" and "RNG 200", you'd find dozens and dozens of Houston customers talking about their RNG200 experience. So yes, Houston has RNG200s. (The most recent reference was just 4 posts before yours.)

Similarly, an AVS-wide search (using the 3rd tab from the right near the top of every AVS page) for "8300hd hard drive" would quickly lead you to this important thread on the subject: "8300HD and External SATA - It Works!!"

The first seven lines of the first post in that thread would help you figure out if Houston is a SARA market (it is) and provide you with info about which specific drives and enclosures have been demonstrated to work well (and poorly) with the 8300HD.

Hope that helps.

The following post is from Comcast's Ted Hodgins, Sr. Director, Video Product Development - Navigation, in Media & Entertainment, "New Guide for Scientific Atlanta Cable Boxes" blog:

All iPad customers with the XFINITY TV app can access Play Now as well as search for their favorite shows in the TV listings including customers in Houston.

http://blog.comcast.com/2010/05/new-...ble-boxes.html

The following post is from Comcast's Ted Hodgins, Sr. Director, Video Product Development - Navigation, in Media & Entertainment, "New Guide for Scientific Atlanta Cable Boxes" blog:

http://blog.comcast.com/2010/05/new-...ble-boxes.html

Note: Houston is not in the schedule for this month.

Searching thru forums is a pain in the yang sometimes and the amount of time and space you used to sound like a jerk could have easily been used to answer a simple question.

There is a lot of good information and tips about SARA in the first post of the SARA thread, click on the SARA link in my signature. When Houston gets the new guide, which should be in March, I will replace the SARA, Passport and NAV links with a link to Comcast's Ted Hodgins, Sr. Director, Video Product Development - Navigation, in Media & Entertainment, "New Guide for Scientific Atlanta Cable Boxes" blog:

http://blog.comcast.com/2010/05/new-...ble-boxes.html

I hope you noticed I did answer your questions, and even gave you a pointer to drive/enclosure data that you didn't ask about, so you're welcome.

Actually JB wasn't the one you answered the question for, that was Comcastardly. And while at first I thought your response was out of line, you did answer the question and even provided information on how to find that info in the future I liked your "teaching a man to fish" analogy.
Worse than a response like yours is someone who totally ignores a question that they might know, at least IMO.
BTW searching becomes hard when a large thread like this one gets filled with the same question getting asked over and over again, in that vein your response was totally appropriate
Now if Comcastardly could just get a response to his couple posts about TVGOS availability..... maybe no one posting in this thread is really using TVGOS
BTW I did try searching for TVGOS in this thread and besides Comcastardly's two questions I only found a similar unanswered post from boilermaker23 from 2/'09

JJeff,
Here is what I have been able to find out about TVGOS and Comcast through almost two weeks of trial and error and monitoring my 753 service menu screens and performing too many G* tests to count.
When I started, I could place blame in 5 potential places.
1. Rovicorp - the TV Guide On Screen People
2. KHOU/CBS - the local affiliate responsible for transmitting TVGOS
3. Houston Comcast's retransmission of KHOU signal
4. Houston Comcast's Cablecard blocking TVGOS
5. Sony - Their latest firmware is incompatable with Comcast digital signal

Being that most of the rest of the country is not having a problem with TVGOS reception by their Sony DHG on Comcast systems, I eliminated choices 1 and 5(w/ v.21 firmware). Rovicorp told me that their contract in my area was with KHOU, the local CBS affiliate and as far as they know, they are transmitting TVGOS according to contract.
So,
>I spoke with Jeff Laird, the TVGOS guru at KHOU, and he said that they are transmitting the TVGOS as required by their contract on OTA channel 11.1.
>I spoke with a saavy tech woman at Comcast(I went through 4 others before being transferred to someone who knew about TVGOS and VBI data) who said they are simply transmitting the signal they get from KHOU as they received it and if I am not getting TVGOS it isn't their fault. She swore they are not stripping the signal before retransmitting it.

Next, here is the process I followed to determine our reality with regard to Houston Comcast TVGOS data.

- Removed the cablecard and did a "reset to manufacturer specs" on my Sony DVR.
- Hooked up cable, did a TVGOS setup and scanned for channels.
- Over the next two days, periodically checked for incoming TVGOS data. There was none and no channel was found with any data on it.
- Updated Sony DHG firmware to v.21, which is specifically tweaked for digital channel receipt of TVGOS data.
- Over two more days, no data received and no clock set channel found. Basically, there was no available TVGOS data(or for some reason, the Sony DVR couldn't find it) on Comcast
- Ran a 50 ft RG6 lead from my attic OTA antenna to the Sony and setup the Sony's TVGOS for Cable + Antenna.
- Within 40 minutes, the Sony's time was set and the TVGOS OTA channel was found by the unit.
- After a few days of not seeing a grid, I re-inserted the Cablecard. The unit continued to utilize OTA CBS 11.1 for its TVGOS data and the Cablecard did not prevent it from doing so.
- It has now been almost 5 days since then and I still don't have a grid or program listings. The Sony is receiving VBI data, but that data is mostly ADs for the Guide pages and software updates and patches.
- I've been told that I need to wait till my 753 menu shows a NumSearch of 2 before I start to give up on getting guide info(mine is at 1)... so I wait.
- Another Houstonian with the same situation has been able to get a guide but he had to use a Artec D to A signal converter to jump start his program guide. I am not ready to spend another $60 to get what I have already paid for.... argh.

So, what conclusions can I draw from my two weeks of work?
1. KHOU is no longer broadcasting any "legacy" TVGOS signal.
2. KHOU IS broadcasting a digital TVGOS signal via OTA.
3. The Comcast Cablecard is not blocking TVGOS.
4. My Comcast headend is apparently stripping TVGOS from the original KHOU signal.

That's where it stands right now. I will report back with updates as they occur.

If anyone has any more information or help, it would be greatly appreciated.

I don't know anything about TVGOS, but from reading your post, it sounds like your conclusion 4 is incorrect. If the other Houstonian was able to get TVGOS to work with Comcast then the TVGOS signal must be in the Comcast signal. Maybe your Sony DVR is not converting the TVGOS portion of Comcast's digital signal to an analog signal and that is why he had to use a D to A converter.

It sounds like when you were using OTA CBS 11.1 without Comcast that it didn't fully work since you never saw a grid.

No one that I know of has been able to get a TVGOS time or grid from just being hooked to Comcast. The last reported date we have of Comcast sending TVGOS data is Jan 26, 2011.
The guy who used the Artec to jump start his grid did so using an OTA signal and not a data stream from Comcast. He continues to get his listings from OTA but needed to use the Artec to jump start that process.

I have escalated this issue to Rick G and hope to hear something back soon.

In the meantime, did anyone else have a zillion audio drop outs and pixelations during the Super Bowl on channel 609 yesterday?

Comcastardly, not sure if you caught HoustonUserSue's post in the TVGOS thread, but I put it here for you in case you didn't. Sounds like you're not alone in your loss

Thanks Jeff. Sue and I have been in contact via PM discussing the TVGOS Comcast Problem.

Regardless of the TVGOS problem... did anyone else have more than a hundred audio dropouts and pixelations during yesterdays SuperBowl on 609, Fox HD?
Not only did it drop out frequently but once in every 4 glitches it also gave a cartoon "nose blow honk" to further get our attention. What is that noise anyway?

I had some folks over to watch the game and by the 4th quarter one of my friends started rubbing it in by coughing a "Direct TV" everytime it glitched. We finally had to beat him up and bury him in a shallow grave in the back yard.

Seriously though, it seems like Comcast needs to get the basics right before they screw with this Xfinity marketing gimmick?

This kind of thing isn't limited to Comcast. Last night I went to a friend's Super Bowl party off of 249/Louetta and their Uverse was out until the start of the fourth Qtr! It was also out for several of their neighbors as well. My friend's wife spent pretty much the whole game on the phone with Uverse techs trying to get them to come out and fix it.

Luckally the game is still on one of the four major broadcast networks (for now) so we were able to see it with OTA rabitt-ears...but still!

Agree that OTA 11.1 looked great. It was obvious that the problem was Comcast and not the network CBS or KHOU signal feed.

Yes. We taped the game and the golf tournament. When watching either channel there were audio drops and pixelization. I thought it might be because our dvr is fairly full but, in a sense, glad to know it was just the signal. In the same vein, I have noticed a general increase in pixelization over the last several months. At times, putting a playback (news or whatever) on pause shows a horribly corrupted image. And this is on a fairly static image. An image with motion is much, much worse. Not as easy to see during regular playback but it is there. Me thinks we are losing a lot of detail.

Recently, 633 and 634 dropped out so bad, I couldn't watch either. That was the live feed, not something I saw with my DVR. Comcast came ouit and replaced an amplifier and that solved the problem. The tech told me I had a real old amplifer that was good for analog but not good enough for digital. I have 8 drops in the attic. He also said it would help if I replaced the RG59 drops with RG6 cable. As long as I don't have any pixelation, I'm not going to do that.

I also noticed that HBO-HD has frequent drop outs and some pixelation too. The STB says my signal is at 88%, which it lists as good and all cable is quad shielded RG6. The distribution amp being used was checked out by Comcast and is designed for digital cable distribution with bandwidth of 5MHz to 1GHz.

The problem right now just seems to be an old one - GIGO - garbage in from Comcast, garbage out to our eyes and ears.

Heck, forget about HD... I am watching ESPN 33 right now and they are showing highlights of the Super Bowl and there is a bad pixelation on almost every single play they show. This is absolutely unacceptable.
Heck, this is the kind of problem we used to see back when they used to cram too much stuff into a single channel. I remember how the Winter Olympics were unwatchable when NBC decided to add .2 to their channel 12 bandwidth.

I can't help but wonder how much of this lousy quality is due to stuff they are trying to cram in order to move to this Xfinity gimmick?

I just tuned in to 33 and 633 and watched for several minutes, and the picture and audio on both are rock-solid and crystal clear (as are all my channels). I'm in the Clear Lake area.

I have been watching 33 since before I posted above to now, and the part of the show at the desk and interviewing #50 is fine... but the part of the show which showed plays from the SuperBowl was pixelated beyond watchability. Maybe it has something to do with the tape/broadcast of the SuperBowl itself... or, maybe it is a data overload problem and only occurs with fast action like sports? When NBC overfilled their bandwidth the pixelations only occurred during fast action too.
The Direct TV commercial just looked fine. And so did the Disney commercial which featured some fast action replays from the Super Bowl?

Maybe my Comcast headend is working on the problem since they had a few channels including USA and ESPN off the air for almost an hour earlier today.

All I can say is it's not a Houston-wide problem, so it's unlikely that Comcast is doing anything to intentionally degrade the signal (overcompress, etc.). I saw at least three or four game clips while I was watching, and they were rock-solid and clear. (Unfortunately, I had to work during the game last night, so I can't tell you what my signal was like then. Still, I hardly ever notice pixellization on any of the channels I watch. It almost never happens.)

Regarding TVGOS and clock updates - I have NEVER been able to get my clocks on my devices updated over Comcast cable.

Ya if you had DirecTV and it was pouring down rain your friend would have been coughing "rain-fade".

Or slightly overcast. An my friends UVerse goes out all the time, and he has to reboot whatever device he has in his closet. We were watching the playoffs, and missed about 1/4 of it.