Basic cable into 722

[SHEEPareBAD]

I have a live cable feed into my house. no filters or anything. I was wondering what would happen if i plugged it into my 722 and did a channel scan like you would with an OTA. would i get the channels in my guide like ota?? Also in the menu 6>8 screen you can select the analog type, (ota, std, irc, hrc) would that make a difference when i'm scanning??

regardless im going to run another cable to my receiver this afternoon, so if noone knows, ill post my findings later..

 

[TNGTony]

More than likely you will get nothing on the OTA tuner.

Digital Cable generally uses QAM compression (even when not encrypted) to shove more channels in the same bandwidth. The 622/722 (or any other Dish OTA tuner for that matter) does not have a QAM decoder so it cannot see any digital channels if QAM is used.

Also the OTA tuner on these receivers is strictly a DIGITAL tuner and can not pick up any analog channels.

The OTA tuner on the Dish receivers is strictly for Over The Air antennas.

This is why I tell people to make absolutely certain their new TVs have a QAM tuner on them. Not all of them have it and most sales droids will insist they do.

See ya
Tony

 

[Pepper]

Tony is probably right. But why not just connect it for yourself and see if it finds anything.

 

[garys]

It doesn't work. I know several who have tried. They get nothing at all.

 

[BuddyBoy]

Not that it makes any difference, but I would bet money that the DTV receiver in the 722 actually supports QAM, but that Dish just disables it. I can't imagine anyone these days building a DTV receiver that doesn't support both QAM and 8VSB (and probably a few other standards as well).

 

[TNGTony]

There's a ton of HDTVs on the market today without a QAM tuner. This is not an "automatic" feature yet.

I think of QAM as being analogous to the analog "Cable Ready" TV sets in the mid 80s. There is no reason why everyone didn't have it other than it would have cost an extra nickel to make the tuners.

See ya
Tony

 

[garys]

Not that it makes any difference, but I would bet money that the DTV receiver in the 722 actually supports QAM, but that Dish just disables it. I can't imagine anyone these days building a DTV receiver that doesn't support both QAM and 8VSB (and probably a few other standards as well).

If Dish had it built into their receivers and could disable it, they would have a fee in order to have the feature activated.

 

[BuddyBoy]

Can anyone show me a DTV receiver chip from a major vendor that supports 8VSB but not QAM? As far as I can tell, everyone has decided that adding QAM demodulation into the receiver is cheaper than making separate parts for 8VSB and QAM.

I've not seen an HDTV made in the last three years that didn't support QAM, but maybe I'm looking in the wrong place.

 

[Claude Greiner]

I remember the old 5000's used to have a cable Tuner inside of them. I was like what the heck is there a cable Tuner inside the receiver for if the customer is subscribing to satellite.

The early days in the late 1990's when people kept cable when they got satellite are over!

 

[TNGTony]

I bought a Samsung last year that the sales-dweeb insisted had a QAM tuner when I pressed him on the issue he would not back down that "they all have QAM". I took the TV home, hooked it up to my cable and guess what? NO QAM! I called the droid back and asked him how to get my QAM channels. He FINALLY looked up the friggin specs to the TV and guess what? No QAM. I returned it within 30 minutes and got a Toshiba for a good "we screwed up" discount.

Many have the feature, The more expensive models generally have it. But not all of them have it! I just went to the HH Gregg page and within two minutes found a $400 32" TV that doesn't have a QAM tuner listed next to another $400 set that does.

They don't all have it.

I guess this is my quest to make people realize just how important this feature is and that not all TVs or HD tuners have this feature.

See ya
Tony

 

[FitzAusTex]

I bet E* could sell their service to quite a few folks who'd be willing to subscribe to E* if the customer could feed their Cable Co's locals through their E* receivers. I know I'd have paid my Cable Co. the $10 bucks a month to get ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, PBS and CW in HD - which E* doesnt provide me. (E* doesnt have every DMA's HD Locals, not to mention certainly not ALL of the HD local channels for many DMAs).

 

[GaryPen]

I bet E* could sell their service to quite a few folks who'd be willing to subscribe to E* if the customer could feed their Cable Co's locals through their E* receivers. I know I'd have paid my Cable Co. the $10 bucks a month to get ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, PBS and CW in HD - which E* doesnt provide me. (E* doesnt have every DMA's HD Locals, not to mention certainly not ALL of the HD local channels for many DMAs).

Do you think they'd make it so easy for you to avoid paying them $5/mo for locals? This is Dish, remember.

 

[TNGTony]

Nah... the $5 fee would remain for the guide data!

See ya
Tony

 

[Jim S.]

(E* doesnt have every DMA's HD Locals, not to mention certainly not ALL of the HD local channels for many DMAs).

Not to mention that at least one DMA isn't adequately served by the spotbeam that they put the HD locals on!

 

[DishSubLA]

The user's guide or the help menus do indicate that one can input a "cable TV" line into the OTA and access unencrypted signals (QAM) that are supposed to be integrated into the guide upon detection. It seems this feature was designed for those who get their local HD stations via Cable TV before Dish had anywhere near the HD LIL's they do today. However, this feature seems NOT to be active. Perhaps Dish changed their minds once the units got out into the field.

Is their anyone out their who has successfully completed such an install or gotten the OTA tuner to do what the help explanations say it is supposed to do, that is receiving QAM Cable TV signals?

 

[TNGTony]

The 622/722 can receive digital channels from cable. They just cannot be transmitted using QAM compression. Pure and simple. It is not a hobbled femoved feature. It is something that was never there. Dish 622/722 are incabapble of receiving QAM compressed channels.

See ya
Tony

 

[BuddyBoy]

QAM is a modulation technique, not a compression method. QPSK, 8VSB, 256QAM - they are all techniques to modulate an analog signal with digital data.

 

[tnsprin]

If Dish had it built into their receivers and could disable it, they would have a fee in order to have the feature activated.

They already disabled it. The basic chipset in the 722 supports QAM.

 

[TNGTony]

QAM is a modulation technique, not a compression method. QPSK, 8VSB, 256QAM - they are all techniques to modulate an analog signal with digital data.

Without QAM... 1 HD channel per 6MHz "Channel"
With QAM... 3 HD channels per 6 MHz "Channel"

Gotcha. Not a compression method.

Something about looking like ducks....

See ya
Tony

 

[Jim S.]

The cable companies may in fact be recompressing OTA HD channels when converting them to QAM, but you can't just look at how much bandwidth the channel uses. QAM may allow more bits per cycle than 8VSB. It's like going from QPSK to 8PSK, except QAM and 8VSB aren't related to each other nor to the phase shift modes. For that matter, there are different degrees of QAM complexity. Cable now uses 256QAM. It used to use 64QAM.