Okay guys, I've been reading the forums for a while. And I understand a lot of your complaints and concerns. I work for one of the cable companies, here, in the Twin Cities.
I feel the need, here, to defend the Cable Companies. I've seen a few people on here who understand the high costs of operating cable companies. I, too, am an HDTV enthusiast, along with DVD and many other Audio Video technologies.
The push to digital has many reasons behind it. To improve the quality of video, delivered to the home; to allow the interactivity of subscriber and providers; and to address the issues of cable piracy. All of which have been very successful.
As for the carrying of local and network HD content, there are a lot of factors to consider. Even at the highest data modulation of a QAM, that being 256, you would only be able to deliver Two channels of HD content per 6 MHz of bandwidth. Even with the rebuilds of plants to 750 and now 860 MHz, that bandwidth is precious and limited. Forward plant is operated in the 50 MHz and above range. At least five, of those channels are used for High Speed Data and VOD services. That leaves a maximum of 111 channels, or 6 MHz frequencies left. Our plant still carries seventy analog channels, all of which are basic or standard services. All of our premium and pay services are provided digitally. OTA channels are still must carry on the analog portion as stated by the FCC; and many cable networks require that they remain on the analog side of the spectrum. OTA Digital is not a must carry, yet, and must be negotiated by the broadcaster and the local cable company. These negotiations are not simple and are usually long and protracted. Many OTA's are not providing full time HD. The current QAM technology doesn't provide a solution for switching between Standard and HD OTA broadcasts, since the Program ID's used for the video and audio streams usually change between formats. The OTA receivers, don't look for a specific PID (Program ID); they use any that are provided on that frequency. Settop boxes on the other hand, have to be told where and what the PID's are. This is an issue that the industry is addressing and working to find a solution.
I understand the New York systems were providing the 8VSB signals over their cable. This was something they did until a suitable conversion of the 8VSB signal to QAM was commercially available and financially viable. I'm not sure where TerryB is from, but having a raw studio baseband signal would require a real time encoder to produce digital content. Most cable operators would not invest in such an undertaking because the preliminary financial investment would be outside most budgets and then having competent encoding specialists hired for full time encoding would not be reasonable, plus would be at the mercy of the broadcaster's scrutiny without any regulation by the FCC. Thus, almost all MSO's will just convert 8VSB to 256 QAM, since it has more data capacity and is the most reasonable solution to the customers, with and without digital televisions. This solution offers the non HD channels to all customers, rather than just to people with digital tuners.
Here in the Twin Cities, we are only carrying the full time digital OTA broadcasts. We have several broadcasters here which only broadcast digital at night. That would mean that bandwidth would be blank during the day if provided on our cable system. Would you pay for a channel that is blank for more than half the day? We even provide all five channels transmitted by our public television. We have overcome the decoding difficulties caused by every station choosing a different MPEG encoding scheme. I think our commitment to providing the customers; Analog, Digital, and HD; the best options available, are there. We are constantly looking for ways to stretch the bandwidth and provide the optimum choice of services at the lowest prices to our customers. We are at the mercy of the cable networks, all of which want more money, when it comes to pricing. We are at the mercy of technology when it comes to what we can provide.
I also agree that most of our CSR's are not helpful. Most don't even have a fundamental knowledge of the technology. Many divisions have developed specialized CSR groups to handle the different technologies provided. Even these groups cannot answer all of the questions. If you have questions, that are not being answered, please ask that an engineer be consulted so that your questions can be answered adequately. Many divisions will work their hardest to make a customer happy.
I hope that I've provided some insight into what we can provide the customer.
