Boston, MA - Comcast - Page 3

Originally Posted by JDLIVE

I'd be OK with that, if they give us movies that respect OAR, have Dolby 5.1, etc.

I'm fairly satisfied with the lineup now, adding the HDNET channels would be my next choice. They also need to keep the quality high and not start lowering bitrates or start over-compressing.

Originally Posted by wdwms

I'm not satisfied w/the line up.. With all the BS between Comcast and Cuban (even though right now I do have HDNEt and HDNmovies), and the snails pace to roll out new channels, it doesn't give me warm and fuzzies. I want my SD channels replaced by HD (which is what is going to happen as the years go on anway). Where is Food HD? where is Nat Geo HD? where is A&E HD?

Comcast is stil treating HD as if it is a special "tier" of service, when in reality the HD channels will eventually be the norm. It sounds to me like Comcast wants to cater their HD "tier" to those who will buy ondemand movies and special content. Sorry, but I prefer TV shows & local sports (no complaint on the sports coverage) over movies and I guess I don't fall into their properl demographic.

Seriously though, i may wind up having D* or E* plus comcast to get what I want..

-t

Originally Posted by YesJim

We DO have Nat Geo HD on 821 now, were you aware of that?

Originally Posted by mgpt6

see no reason why Comcast cant go to from 70 analog channels down to 40-45 analog channels.

Originally Posted by mgpt6

The goverment will provide converter boxes after the Feb 2009 turn off of analog to people without cable and only NTSC analog Tvs at home.Comcast might be smart to start tranistioning channels to digital now ,as Feb 2009 is only 2 years away.

Originally Posted by wdwms

I'm not satisfied w/the line up.. With all the BS between Comcast and Cuban (even though right now I do have HDNEt and HDNmovies), and the snails pace to roll out new channels, it doesn't give me warm and fuzzies. I want my SD channels replaced by HD (which is what is going to happen as the years go on anway). Where is Food HD? where is Nat Geo HD? where is A&E HD?

Comcast is stil treating HD as if it is a special "tier" of service, when in reality the HD channels will eventually be the norm.

Originally Posted by mgpt6

Are all 70 analog channels ,very popular? Maybe 20 to 25 is perhaps to many to go to digital from analog, BUT there must been 10 to 12 on analog that could go to digital without too much distress to many viewers.

Originally Posted by mgpt6

lets face it after Feb 2009 , Comcast could require a box to view TV after the broadcast stations are digital only after the analog turn-off.

Originally Posted by mgpt6

The goverment will provide converter boxes after the Feb 2009 turn off of analog to people without cable and only NTSC analog Tvs at home.

Originally Posted by mgpt6

Are all 70 analog channels ,very popular? Maybe 20 to 25 is perhaps to many to go to digital from analog, BUT there must been 10 to 12 on analog that could go to digital without too much distress to many viewers. lets face it after Feb 2009 , Comcast could require a box to view TV after the broadcast stations are digital only after the analog turn-off.The goverment will provide converter boxes after the Feb 2009 turn off of analog to people without cable and only NTSC analog Tvs at home.Comcast might be smart to start tranistioning channels to digital now ,as Feb 2009 is only 2 years away.

Originally Posted by bicker1

Who makes the choice? I listed the channels I care about. I bet if I asked my neighbors on on e side, they'd add A&E, AMC, Bravo, Court TV, Lifetime, Fox News, Bloomberg and CNBC. If I asked my neighbors on the other side, they'd add Disney, Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, Hallmark, TVLand, ABC Family, Comedy Central, CNN, TWC. Joe, across the street would add ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN Classic, NESN, Fox Sports, and Speed. And I left E!, Travel Channel and MSNBC, off my list by mistake. And my wife would kill me if she lost Animal Planet. And there are 16 must-carry channels. I think there are may be 3 or 4 channels currently on analog that only a few people would care about losing.

If you want to accomplish something along these lines, get laws passed that prohibit municipalities from requiring their three access channels to be on analog, and get must-carry overturned.

Either that or provide them as in-the-clear QAM, but I understand what you're saying. However, I don't think there is any significance to the February 2009 date for Comcast: They can make that change-over right now, if the municipal agreements would allow it, and there is nothing that happens in February 2009 that suddenly makes it different for Comcast. February 2009 is a date that is just meaningful for OTA, not for cable.

Comcast's challenge isn't some arbitrary date, but satisfying customers who have expectations that their current equipment will work. If Comcast did as you suggest, they'd very likely lose a lot of customers to satellite, since if they're going to have to get a box anyway, why not switch providers? especially since these customers will be irrationally angry at Comcast for taking away something...

Wrong, and wrong. The government may provide coupons for discounts on ATSC converters, and only one per household. So we're still looking at a lot of people having to spend money to put a box on every existing set in their home, dealing with the bother of doing so, and even then there is no reason to think these boxes will convert QAM.

Originally Posted by mgpt6

Comcast has to move analog channels to digital to free up the bandwidth to add more HD channels while keeping the same bitrates. see no reason why Comcast cant go to from 70 analog channels down to 40-45 analog channels. This would be enough for all local brodacast, goverment , and the most popular cable chnnles to remain on the analog tier , and free up over 250 MHz of space for HD and more SD channels.

Originally Posted by wdwms

Check out this article

Comcast: 'We're Not Worried About DIRECTV HDTV'
http://www.tvpredictions.com/burke020107.htm


Here is a snippet:
--------------------
The cable operator now offers less than 20 national high-def networks in most markets. But Burke told Wall Street analysts that Comcast will not try to match DIRECTV's HD lineup which is expected to include a large number of variety channels.

"We're not going to radically change our game plan," he said in an investors conference call. "We think we offer a superior HD experience."

Burke instead said Comcast will focus more on high-def movies, sports and local channels, which he said are most popular among his subscribers.
----------------------

When will Comcast wake up? They obviously don't get the fact that HD is here to stay and "I want my HDTV" is what people are saying!

Grrrrrr...

-t

Originally Posted by Motortree

If you overload your shopping cart are you actually gonna end up with all those Cheerios when you arrive home? Or will they drop off in the parking lot along the way? Same thing with stuffing a 700MHz antenna pipe. Think about it...52MHz-750MHz: analog TV - 500MHz, Digital domain - 250MHz, stuff in digital phone, digital voice (VOIP), HSD, VOD and monitoring signals. Whats leftover...squat, ya ever heard of Jack Schitt (cousin of Ida Neau). You should be praising the magicians at Comcast, they're not working with a lot...but you're getting 9Mbps and also HD and VOD...along with a digital simulcast of mustcarry and expanded basic.

Originally Posted by wdwms

Not here in Southern NH.. although certain websites show us having the channel it has yet to show up. They also show us having WGBH HD on 702, but no go there either..

All of our HDs are in the 700s, so we could be pending a move to the 800s..

Originally Posted by magredc5

That's strange. Nashua is like the rest of Comcast NE with HD in the 800s. And we do get NG-HD on 821.

BTW They just added a new sports channel on 848. Not sure if it's the Golf channel since that's what was mainly being shown over the weekend, but they continue to add to the lineup.

Originally Posted by Motortree

When combining OCAP and MoCA, what you will see is a standards compliant approach to integrating the technologial furnishings you own and those furnishings which are yet to be developed. OCAP's use of MoCA as a return path to a service provider enables true, flexible and standard two way communication for continued interactivity and control over both your furnishings and the content for which you subscribe. The bottom line is this, OCAP will allow you to receive the 'pay for' content wherever you want to see it (cable box, computer, refrigerator screen while you're eating you fruit loops) and MoCA will provide that open standards delivery path to communicate with the MSO and the rest of the world. Who ever thought their refrigerator would automatically place a peapod order every Friday night at 11:30 using cable and a shopping list stored in their SD card. Check out your available beer in your fridge before you leave work using MoCA to you fridge's web server.

Originally Posted by dozens

I do not believe MOCA will be the return path method, its primary used for in-home networking between RF equiped devices. The standards based return path will be DSG which in an extention of DOCSIS.

Originally Posted by Motortree

Thank you for the correction, MoCA is just the delivery path for DSG in those systems that employ the technology.

Originally Posted by wdwms

Sorry, I'm but I don't subscribe to VOIP with comcast, VOD is useless for our household viewing habits, and what other marketing gizmos comcast can stuff in the pipe is useless to me. I don't need any of their other fancy services, i want internet and decent tv reception & programming.

Heck they can't even deliver a decent SD picture (both analog and digital) on a handful of local channels to my house, what would make me believe that things will get better in the future. Understood the pipe is overloaded, but its overloaded with JUNK channels that don't fit into my needs. I'd rather see services like VOD ann GOTuit channels optional, freeing up bandwith for what I want the service for.

You are right, Comcast doesn't have a lot of room in the pipe, but they are stuffing it with things THEY THINK I want/need. Hoping on the off chance that I may just spend $3.95 on a movie. I'll trade that ability for increased channels and QOS anyday.

-t

Originally Posted by Motortree


PEG Channels are not mandated to be made available via analog tier...that is a choice on part of the service operator and their franchise coordinator.

Originally Posted by Motortree

...that's is what must carry is about, not what channels to carry such as PEG's.

Originally Posted by wdwms

You are right, Comcast doesn't have a lot of room in the pipe, but they are stuffing it with things THEY THINK I want/need.

Originally Posted by afty

Regarding dropping analog channels: Before we got our HDTV, we were analog subscribers. We both did not want a cable box, and we got all the channels we wanted. If Comcast started dropping analog channels, I would have been royally pissed. The only way I could see to do this without angering customers would be to give the digital box for free with the Enhanced service.

Originally Posted by ScoopsHD

Give Comcast time to engineer and design and spend the money to get the Adelphia systems up to the same class as their existing systems.

Originally Posted by djbrown13

Hey everyone,

Both last night and Monday of last week I had the DVR (Moto 3412) set to record Studio 60 on NBC HD and The Hills on MTV both on at 10:00 PM. For some reason only the last 30 minutes of Studio 60 were taped. Did anyone else experience this?

I don't know if the time Studio 60 is on is coded wrong for the DVR to capture it correctly, of if for some reason my box no longer records two programs at once, so it captured the second half of Studio after The Hills ended at 10:30.