Phoenix, AZ - HDTV - Page 343

That would be Cox Arizona. As they recently launched a Tier of MPEG4 H.264 channels called the "Plus Package". Cox has not been able to Authorize these new channels on the S4 Premiere hardware. Yet Ceton and SiliconDust have reports of channel Authorizations.

Wow!

I guess this means that Cox is definitely going ahead with a MPEG-4 rollout. Very cool.

TiVo's HD/Premiere store data the in the format they receive. There is no transcoding done.

I mean't I think they have the hardware to support them cox just won't authorize them.

I'm still not sure if its a won't or a can't. I spoke to 5 people at Cox before I found someone that agreed to do it. She tried but it hasn't worked. I have received two emails from her that she it working on the issue with team and department leaders. I have also given her the name of the tech that Bryan has been dealing with on same issue.

I did have someone call me on Sunday from Cox with regards to my poor customer service review of my recent calls. Of course she is in the customer relations department and didn't have any clue at to what I was talking about, nor would I expect her to with such a new product. Hopefully with enough complaints from customers we can see a resolution to this situation.

Hopefully a change for every one cox customers who have 1Ghz Motorola boxes and customer owned 1GHz equipment.

Since hd is free shouldn't matter what hardware is used

I can't see them not preserving clear QAM; I think they are mandated to provide it legally. I also don't see them changing the coding of CQ channels to MPEG-4; they will gain enough bandwidth by doing just the encrypted channels. That would also pretty much violate the spirit of providing CQ (even though it would technically still be CQ only with different coding) if low-income subscribers were expected to buy newly-capable hardware to receive it. I think they are probably stuck with CQ MPEG-2 for the foreseeable future.

I don't think they have to provide clear QAM if they did satellite would have too also wouldn't they?

I have not heard anything to indicate that Cox will drop analog anytime soon, or CQ for that matter.

I have been told by Cox employees that analog will be around for a while.
Evidence to support that would be Cox's rapid deployment of SDV across most of its markets, and the current test deployments of MPEG4, in Arizona and NoVA markets.

Different rules for DBS.

Comcast, TWC, Cablevision, RCN, and the NCTA have all filed comments in support of the FCC's proposal to remove the clear QAM requirement for all-digital cable systems. Those bastions (or something that starts with bast anyway) of consumer rights known as the MPAA are of course also in favor of locking up everything. Naturally, everyone who actually uses clear QAM is opposed to it, as are companies like Hauppauge and Boxee that make clear QAM tuners. I think we all know which way this one is going given the parties involved and the history of high-ranking FCC members finding cushy jobs with the companies they used to regulate once they leave the commission.

Regarding the Cox "Plus Package" channels ... I'm getting the non-premium ones fine with a CableCARD (InfiniTV 4 tuner). I subscribe to STARZ too ... just got off the phone with them trying to authorize the new STARZ HD from the "Plus" package without success. They were willing to add it to my account and send the refresh, but it still wouldn't work. She went to her supervisor and said they are still working on an issue with authorizing the premium channels from the "Plus" package for CableCARD users ... so for now I guess us CableCARDers just have to wait a little longer ...

Are you using WMC7? I vaguely recall reading (someone correct me if I'm wrong) that only Windows 7 Media Center can show channels flagged as Copy Once or higher because it's the only program that currently handles DRM to CableLab's satisfaction. Premium channels are normally flagged Copy Once but non-premium channels might not be. It depends on cable company policy (and maybe mistakes at the local head end).

Other than a brief period where someone convinced Cox to start flagging things copy freely, almost everything has been marked copy once since like 2006.

One of the ways DBS is muddying the waters is that they have added locals "at no extra cost" to their packages. We know that there actually is an "extra cost", but that has been spread over the package cost by raising the package cost to everyone to pay for that. Previously, it was an extra $3 or so for locals.

Before they had the infrastructure for this they handled it by "looking the other way" and selling CONUS surrogates from the east and west coast for the big nets. This was kind of nice because in our time zone you then had 2 or 3 chances in each day to view or record prime time shows rather than just one; it was actually something that drove people to DBS from cable. But those days are gone forever.

Providing locals is in the interest of DBS, so that they can more equitably compete with cable. It's actually kind of "cable-like" in that there is specific infrastructure involved for each served market.

But what sort of makes this a different kind of ball game is that nothing is "clear" on DBS; you need a STB and authorization for any channel, not just locals. And there are no built-in DVB tuners in TVs and recorders that could be seen as the counterpoint to QAM reception in a TV. On the other hand, for a time recordings made OTA to a DBS box were unencrypted while the DBS version was encrypted similarly to the other channels available (and the encryption makes it impossible to make the recordings portable). But this may have had nothing to do with requirements and everything to do with it being a different record path.

As to "copy once" the only show I ever saw with this on DBS was one particular episode of Rescue Me from 2010, and that was widely believed to be nothing more than a mistake. There have been other reports, but they are few and far between. Of course unless you are trying to make copies on a DVDR from your DVR or DVDR you probably won't run into it anyway; it's pretty unusual for users to want to make a copy of their copy, especially in SD (HD copies are much more difficult thanks to the folks coyoteaz was telling us about).

ABC actually had some fun Wednesday night and flagged some of their primetime shows as either copy never or no more copies (effectively the same thing in preventing recordings), pissing off people using CableCard tuners nationwide. In a maddening display of idiocy, the CableCard standards require that copy protection be enforced on unencrypted channels. Those using ATSC and clear QAM tuners gave ABC the finger and recorded the shows anyway.

I have watched recordings of 3 of the 5 the primetime shows already on my Tivo with no issues. Haven't watched Modern Family yet, and I don't watch Revenge.

PC CableCard tuners, sorry.

Shouldn't all CableLabs certified devices follow the same Copy Protection rules?

Why is there a difference between a TiVo and a Ceton of SiliconDust?

EDIT: there is a fairly good explanation here regarding UDCP and OCUR CableCARD devices.
http://www.cablelabs.com/opencable/p...rd_primer.html

Called Cox today for the heck of it to see about getting the plus channels authorized. Called tech support, told him I needed to get the plus package channels authorized on my TiVo. After telling him "No, I don't want the Sports & Info Package" he transfers me to sales. Sales tells me that the +'s (HBO, Showtime, Starz, etc) are already added to my account, I should be seeing them fine. Pass me back to support and this time I get "the Trio channels are available only if you have the Trio package added to your account, and you don't. They are not available for TiVo" After I explain yes they are supposed to be available with a TiVo, she tells me she is transferring me to Trio support. No thanks, I'll try again another day.

If you look at page 37 of the OCUR spec, #41 and 42, it requires that OCUR devices (i.e. PC tuners) follow SCTE 21 flags for APS, CGMS, and RC when CCI is not present, whether or not the channel is encrypted. Since cable providers normally don't send CCI for clear QAM channels, if the network screws up and marks something as copy never, Ceton, Silicondust, and Hauppauge users are boned, even those of us on Verizon who can do whatever we want with literally every other channel on the lineup with no restrictions. Pretty much everything else in existence either completely ignores those flags, or at most uses them to turn on Macrovision on the analog outputs.

Was given a new Cisco 8642HDC box to replace an 8240. The old box had HDMI as one of three Audio ouputs. The new 8642 only has two outputs (two channel & dolby) My connection is HDMI to HDMI. Cox tech says on the 8642 box HDMI output is automatic when using HDMI cable. Can anyone confirm this?

Does anyone know what is going on with channel 10? Looks like everything from the network is SD upconvert but some of the local ads looked HD.

First noticed it with Fringe

There was something wrong yesterday evening. My family guy recording looks terrible. I hope house doesn't look this bad tonight.

I think I probably would have heard something if there had been a problem. Possibly not. Folks on duty at the time know of nothing. The signal is currently leaving KSAZ just fine, and reception on Cox, DISH, DirecTV and OTA seems just fine, but of course they are currently in HD news, not network. FOX no longer has an SD network feed and KSAZ splices the FOX HD feed directly to the air chain (does not pass it through any equipment that can modify the PQ).

I have recordings this weekend of Fringe and Simpsons from DirecTV; I will check those and report back.

Are all of these reports from Cox subs? Actually, all Cox does is demux/demod ATSC and remod as QAM, so it is hard to imagine they could mess with the PQ in this manner. If there is a problem it must be something Cox is doing, but what would they be doing during network that they are not doing during local?. There doesn't seem to be any common thread here. But I love a mystery.

If your reception was either good or bad for FOX network on KSAZ this weekend please post that back along with your general location in town (it may be headend-specific or node-specific). If you can post an example to youtube, all the better.

BTW, Cox will soon be sending different commercials to Cox subs than the ones broadcast OTA on local stations (for their own commercials) so that they can target non-subs OTA and on DBS and upsell existing subs more services.

Fringe last Friday was not in HD, but was full screen 16:9. I will report on Alcatraz tonight. Fox10 News was fine however.

Cox Ahwatukee area.

EDIT: I just checked the TiVo recording and it has a bitrate as 16.77Mbps, I am downloading now to check the file with MediaInfo.

MediaInfo:
Complete name : C:\\kmttg\\Fringe - Welcome to Westfield 412 (02_10_2012).mpg
Format : MPEG-PS
File size : 6.36 GiB
Duration : 1h 0mn
Overall bit rate : 15.2 Mbps

Video
ID : 224 (0xE0)
Format : MPEG Video
Format version : Version 2
Format profile : Main@High
Format settings, BVOP : Yes
Format settings, Matrix : Default
Format settings, GOP : M=3, N=6
Duration : 1h 0mn
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 14.9 Mbps
Nominal bit rate : 38.8 Mbps
Width : 1 280 pixels
Height : 720 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate : 59.940 fps
Standard : Component
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Compression mode : Lossy
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.269
Stream size : 6.23 GiB (98%)

My family guy recording was via directv.

Apparently Phoenix Fox 10 is having some issues which they may or may not know about. My Dish Network feed is clearly not HD. Both Sunday night - The Simpsons, and tonight - House and Alcatraz are very clearly upconverted widescreen SD feeds. And not very well upconverted at that.

It's possible that local commercials and news are in HD - just not primetime programming from the network.

For what's it worth, I also have an HD Media Center DVR recording over-the-air and it is showing the same symptom.

Didn't find anything on Fox 10's site or their Facebook page. So either they don't know about it or are being 'sheepish' hoping for fewer complaints.

With the rising popularity of Sickbeard and other methods people find to cut the cable, you would think the local Fox affiliate would be a little more 'on the ball' in order not to offend their local viewers. Not having Fox shows in HD is a pretty good motivation to cut out the local affiliate and buy the shows from Apple or obtain them by other means.

Anyway.. my two cents: Fox 10 is shooting themselves in the foot with their incompetence here. This is not the first time they've had this issue.

FWTW, I watch House MD and Alcatraz tonight both were NOT HD quality and seemed more like up-converted SD. Anyway to communicate this issue to FOX PHX?