Re: Slightly OT: Comcast Analog Cable

I had the same call recently. I am a legacy subscriber to ther base
analog package and it costs me less than 15/month (was less than 9 when
I started). When I added the internet it poked the proverbial hole in
the bandwidth and my channel availability went from 22 to about 70. They
have been trying to get me to upgrade from day 1 so the call was nothing
new to me. The lie however was interesting to hear and I just laughed at
the salesperson as I hung up the phone after literally calling them a
liar (I hope the call was "recorded for quality reasons").

I have been a little proactive about the switch because I know it is a
sound business practice on their part and I figured it was coming
regardless of what the feds did. I went out and bought a cheap digital
card for my mythbox (dvico fusion rt lite less than $50 with usb
reciever and remote) to play with it.

Many of the old analog channels are broadcast, unencrypted, digitally. I
have found about 30 channels I can get, with 7 of them being HD. The HD
are all local stations you could probably get over the air anyway.
Antenaweb says I should be able to get 5 with the right antenna

As to the details of what exactly is broadcast, I believe I read
somewhere that it is a raw MPEG2 stream and can be basically treated the
same way as an MPEG2 or VOB file, which is why you get all the audio
encoding, language tracks, etc. just like you would have on a dvd.

On Wed, 2008-05-21 at 23:00 -0400, Bob K Mertz wrote:
> I thought you might be interested in the latest ordeal I had with  
> Comcast.  I got a call today from a sales guy in my area who explained  
> to me (paraphrase) that they are screwing their customers because the  
> FCC is mandating them too.  I called his bluff and he continued to use  
> the same story.
> 
> http://blog.bibleboy.org/2008/05/comcasts-fcc-smokescreen.html
> 
> 
> On May 20, 2008, at 3:39 PM, Douglas E. Warner wrote:
> 
> > On Tuesday 20 May 2008 15:15:50 Bob K Mertz wrote:
> >> I just wanted to pass this along to anyone that is using Comcast's
> >> analog cable packages.  You might be affected and Comcast won't give
> >> you a warning.
> >
> > Totally awesome (not).
> >
> > I noticed some channels I watched on analog were being moved to DTV  
> > only and
> > it's very irksome to me.  I know comcast definitely wants to push  
> > everyone to
> > rent one of their boxes; that's where the money is!
> >
> > I'd much prefer to *not* rent *any* hardware from them.  In an ideal  
> > world the
> > FCC would force them to provide unencrypted QAM for all broadcasts,  
> > but that
> > seems very unlikely.  Instead, Comcast forces everyone to conform to  
> > their
> > crappy, proprietary java-based service.
> >
> > -Doug
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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