San Francisco, CA - Comcast - Page 465

did we lose kqed-HD on clearQAM? i can't seem to find it. recordings stopped working a few days ago. the silicon dust lineup server still shows it on 2 physical channels in my zipcode but i can't see it there.

thanks

Not me. I still have KQED HD in Mountain View. viewed under my pc tuner (dvico FusionHDTV 7) under chanel 91.1

There have been no changes in area code 95127

ugh... i'm in zip 94618. i noticed some talk upthread about one of the public stations moving to comcast digital. is it possible they moved KQED to a frequency where a notch filter might knock the signal down? i think i do have a notch filter at the curb. what range of frequencies do those filters actually take out?

edit... i just realized i lost KGO as well. according to the lineup server they are now together on physical channel 98. previously KGO was on physical 114 so they must have done some rejiggering.

i have no signal on channels 95-100. i dont know if i ever had signal there in the past. it could be the notch filter takes out these channels. strangely in this document: http://home.comcast.net/~cypherx/qam.htm it says that channel 94 is 645MHz and channel 101 is 651MHz and so 95-100 do not actually exist. so it's hard to understand how those channels could be on physical 98. or, the link above is a red herring.

If you lost KGO, I'd definitely be calling....

I still have the notch filter in my cable. It kills channels 35 through 69. (It may kill channel 70 as well, but that is analog and I no longer have any analog tuners).

If you have a Limited Basic, the rental of an HD STB Box is $2.5 a month. You can get one an check if you can receive the channel you are looking for. If you have problem then call Comcast to fix it then you can return the stb.

I also had problem with some clear qam chanel on my tv when comcast was sending duplicate channel id which was confusing my tv.

I was over at my parent's house and switching to the clear QAM on their Panny Plasma (they watch on the small SD box for now) and I got nothing on 7.1, but, 7.2 an others were ok, and the SD digital channel 7 was still there, but, I just switched back to their box and haven't checked (this was last weekend, Saturday the 3rd). This was in 94040, Mountain View, so not sure if it's related.

thanks. i just found out that channels 95-99 are discontinuous and in fact are in the low FM band (93-117MHz). i guess this must mean there is an FM trap somewhere in my plant. maybe i have to call comcast to come out and see if there are any filters at the curb.

blah.

well, that would be consistent with KGO-DT being moved around on at least a couple of systems. for me it's the same thing, the 7.2 subchannel and SD channel 7 are still where they always used to be.

Down in 95014 they moved KGO and KQED down to channel physical 67 several months ago. That is inside the notch filter that was still on my connection. I called Comcast and they wanted to send me out a STB (I had limited basic and tune QAM direct from the TV). I said OK, send it out, but I know that will not fix the problem. I convinced the CSR to schedule a truck roll. When the tech arrived the next day, I told him that I had lost KGO and KQED and that I thought it was due to a notch filter. He believed me and looked. Sure enough the filter was still there. So he took it off, and a rescan fixed the problem.

So this is probably what happened in your area as well. Can you check the Comcast cable at the curb to see if a filter is installed? If you find one, or someone on your head end reports that yes, they channels have moved into the notch (channels 35-70 or so), call and ask for a truck roll. It should be free.

Greg

thanks for the reply.

i know that it's been moved onto physical 98, thanks to silicondust's lineup server. 95-99 are actually down in the FM band, not in the "normal" notch for analog premiums. however, there is such a thing as an FM trap and perhaps there is one of those at the curb. though i'm not sure if that was a common thing for comcast to do.

when i moved in here 6 years ago and set up HSI, they did roll a truck and i remember the tech putting some kind of filter on the line.

i might be able to remove the cover at the curb and take a look. i'll try that today. i think this would be a no brainer if i was more than an HSI customer. they may refuse to roll a truck for me...

do you have a list of all the copy-freely channels you can get now on the Prime with CableCard? I'm assuming it's *everything* but premium movie channels like HBO, Starz, Cinemax etc.

It would be nice if SiliconDust upgraded their regional channel guides to show CableCard accessible channels and their access rights as well as those in clear QAM.

Comcast California only uses Copy Flags on premium channels like HBO, etc. All the Digital Starter and most of the Digital Preferred channels are Copy Freely.

Comcast has finally done it. They have moved a channel I care about into the limited basic filter dead zone.

They have moved Discovery from 71.3 to 43.3.

Damn, now I must visit customer service hell.

I know exactly what you mean...
Maybe this will help you avoid some of the problems I had with missing channels.

I have Limited Basic and gradually lost most of the local SD channels due to Comcast reassigning frequencies. TiVo S3 with CCs showed Searching For Signal.

So I bit the bullet and called Comcast. After tech had me try a few things I had already tried, she scheduled a truck roll. I asked if there would be a charge to come out and she said no.

Young guy showed up, I think he might have been a contractor, not sure. I showed him the missing channel message and he checked signal strength inside. No problem. Then he went to take out the CCs from the TiVo and I stopped him there, knowing what a mess that might cause my TiVo. Told him that I thought there might be a filter outside causing the problem. He looked puzzled.

Not knowing exactly where the filter might be located, I showed him the utility cabinet at the front of the house where the splitters are located. No filter there. Then I pointed out the green plastic thing at the curb across the street that I knew is the Comcast junction box. He told me that was for Fios! I wish.

I went over there and lifted off the green plastic cover and asked him to come over and look for a filter. After asking a few more times, he reluctantly came over and somehow figured out which of the many cables was to my house. He found not one but two filters in the line. I asked him to remove and he used special tool and took them off, grumbling the whole time.

Went back into the house to check for channels and all came in fine, internet still working too. He had me sign the work order, I did so not paying much attention to what was on the form. He left, exclaiming "Stupid Comcast".

A couple of weeks later, bill arrived. Holy crap, $130 in additional charges for adding digital outlets and installing CCs. Apparently the tech guy not only wasn't too good as a tech but couldn't fill out the Comcast forms correctly. Or did he take out his frustration and intentionally try to stick it to me? After three lengthy calls and finally talking to a supervisor, I got the charges reversed.

I have since put up a $25 antenna from Amazon and much to my surprise I get a huge number of channels with good signal strength. So if I could find a better ISP at an affordable price I would drop Comcast in a second. Verizon DSL not fast enough for good Netflix streaming. Maybe I'll drop Limited Basic TV and save a couple of bucks, but still want to check out the OTA signal when rainy season comes.

I read earlier on avs that iNDEMAND was raising the # of HD feeds for center ice/extra innings from 2 to 9. Anyone happen to know if that happened and how that has or will affect the bay area?

Can you get Sonic.net's Fusion service where you are? It might be worth investigating.

Limited basic filter is GONE!

Comcast support wanted to some signals to some non-existing hardware in my house. I finally convinced them that only a truck roll would fix the problem.

Tech called near the end of the service window and tried to convince me that I needed a STB to receive the stations I was missing. I explained to him that with a digital tuner I could receive all of the unencrypted digital channels. I mentioned the limited basic filter, and he finally understood. A different tech showed up, I pointed out the filter, he said that they had not used those in years. 20 minutes later, I had Discovery back.

Attached is a spectrum analyzer plot of the entire cable spectrum before and after the filter was removed.

Thanks, but Novato is one of the odd communities in the BA that has Verizon and Sonic requires AT&T. My only hopes are that some day AT&T and Verizon will share the wired network infrastructure or Verizon will bring FIOS here.

Congrats DAP for getting that damn filter removed. Now watch out for your next Comcast bill.

Maybe it's just my area in Solano County but does anyone feel that Comcast's HD picture quality has really taken a step backwards recently? I have a 50" plasma and a 32" LCD and while it's more apparent on the bigger set, I'm seeing some very soft, almost blocky images very often, especially on skin tones. It's not the TVs because blu-rays look great on both sets. Each set is fed by a DCX3400 DVR and is connected via an HDMI cable. I don't recall the images being this soft earlier this year.

You ARE aware that if you drop ALL TV service, your internet price WILL go up by about $10-$15 dollars, which is common on all CC systems. (the "no TV" penalty charge)
So depending on how much you pay for limited basic, your monthly savings is going to be only a couple dollars at best.

For me in Los Gatos on an HDHR Prime, it's showing as "cgms=protected-rcd" so I can't get it either.

(waiting for Comcast to get me a cable-card that actually works).

so are the HD versions of the broadcast channels no longer considered "basic cable???" that's bad news. somehow i thought they were required by the FCC to carry those stations on clearQAM.

I am an OTA user who has been on Comcast Internet service for a couple years. I recently got the new HDHomeRun Prime for my MythTV PVR and want to get the cablecard for access to a few channels.

Anyone else in this situation have tips /pointers on deals for existing Internet customers wanting to add TV? The one deal I found on their WWW site looks like it had an extremely limited TV plan.

Basically, I want to get ESPN-HD. Comedy Central is a nice-to-have, and the Big Ten Network would be a bonus.

hey hiker, typically the summer weather patterns around the bay cause more headaches for OTA reception than any other time. im 60 miles south of the towers and my reception is very reliable in winter, but can be a bit dodgy with some channels in summertime.

the "rain fade" that affects satellite reception wont affect OTA so if youre good now, you should be good all year.

from almost all accounts, comcast's implementation of cable cards is terrible and reflects poorly on them as a company. my own experience agrees with that.

after a few days i told them to just give me a dvr for free or else, sick of wasting my time and energy on it.

do you have xbox live? if not, its something to look into. espn on xbox live is worth it and it might be all youll end up needing. to boot, xbox is an awesome media center extender

No, I don't think that's the case. I think this is a problem with KQED specifically. I sent them an email about it and hopefully it'll be forwarded on to engineering. I pointed them to a thread on SiliconDust's site which has lots of info that should help them out. I'm sure it's simply an oversight on KEQD's part in having the redistribution control broadcast flag set (as opposed to CCI). Apparently many stations do and don't realize it because it's the odd equipment case on the client end where it's even noticed.

Hmm, that's not good to hear. Are there problems enabling certain channels, or does the cablecard just not work at all?

I don't have an xbox, but I believe the ESPN service via xbox live is ESPN3 - their internet service. I get this today via my Mac Mini HTPC. ESPN3 is nice, and gets a lot of events you cannot get otherwise. But, it doesn't include many of the events on ESPN and ESPN2 (for example, Monday Night Football). Also, the quality is not bad, but it's not comparable to ESPN-HD.

So, I'm hoping to get ESPN-HD for access to the full programs. My plan was to use cablecard..

What's up with KGO tonight? Castle looks like a zoomed in, upscaled 480p broadcast.