Channels under 100, digital yet?

[Cozdiver]

Does anyone know if Charter's channels below 100 are being simulcast in digital yet in their area? Didn't the FCC give cable companies temp channels to do this? Locally these channels are lousy on my new HDTV. Figure it's because the set-top box is doing a poor job of upconverting from analog to digital. About to jump to dish.

 

[cableman265]

In my area (which is St Louis) they have converted about 60 of the 1-99 channels to digital. They are kind of scattered around, but so far it makes it easy to see that digital is far better than analog. They are doing about 30 channels every 2 weeks, with the last 30 or so to come in about a week and a half. Hope that helps.

 

[LonghornXP]

Does anyone know if Charter's channels below 100 are being simulcast in digital yet in their area? Didn't the FCC give cable companies temp channels to do this? Locally these channels are lousy on my new HDTV. Figure it's because the set-top box is doing a poor job of upconverting from analog to digital. About to jump to dish.

The FCC has nothing todo with this. Many cable companies are moving over to switched video hardware which will give them virtually unlimited bandwidth for VOD and HDTV services. Because they need this hardware for new HDTV channels they can offer digital customers their analog channels in digital with great ease so they are doing just that to compete with satellite companies.

Just remember that the FCC is only involved with digital TV/HDTV TV with OTA broadcasters. Cable and satellite companies aren't required to offer anything in digital nor HDTV even though most do offer digital/HDTV content.

Now the FCC does deal with cable and satellite companies in different ways but just be aware of what is being done and what to expect. Also when cable companies upgrade to switched video technology and upgrade their Internet to DOSIS 3.0 they can offer 100Mbps + internet speeds both down and UP without upgrading cable lines.

 

[cableman265]

I have heard that the switching technology is in the preliminary stages here, and they can really get moving on it once all the analog is gone. But it still looks to be 2-3 years away. But 100Meg + will be a real thing then.

 

[shelto13]

After the conversion to digital, does Charter compare better to Dish or Direct quality?

 

[LonghornXP]

After the conversion to digital, does Charter compare better to Dish or Direct quality?

In the very small comcast served area in the Tampa Bay Area that has gone all digital for digital cable customers I can say that analog channels are actually better than anything I've seen on both D* and Dish and Voom for that matter. Also I noticed a big increase in quality of the VOD and HDTV channels when they made the change. Also the channels above 100 look just as good as the analog ones and that is saying something because the analogs in digital have better picture quality than the old digital channels before the switch.

So with this review in mind I can say that at least this system gave much more bandwidth back to all channels when they made this switch but that doesn't mean every market will do the "right thing".

They also upgraded their internet speeds to 20Mbps down and 5Mbps UP as well. I'm thinking about buying a house in this area just for those speeds alone for cryin out load.

I'm saying this because I hope it gives you an idea of what this can do for us and also keep in mind that even with all these new upgrades they still offer the full analog lineup to customers without needing a box. I know this because of my co-workers lives in this area. He is also testing this cheap motorola box that a user on AVS was talking about and its very cool.

It seems that Comcast in this market will be rolling this out to all non digital customers within the next several months. The customers bills won't be increased at all unless they need more than 2 of these boxes in which they will be charged a rental of 1 buck per month per box beyond the 2nd one.

This box has a remote control with it and has these features below. For one its a two-way box as well.

It has the cable companies branded program guide which happens to be Moxi guide software and they will be rolling out Tivo software as soon as they get it from Tivo.

The box has a standard coax jack and s-video, composite and a coax digital audio port.

This box can access all digital cable channels the customers subscribes to and can access all VOD content as well. This includes Starz On Demand type VOD. Once they roll this box out they will get rid of the analog lineup for good and the system will be all digital.

 

[palese]

After the conversion to digital, does Charter compare better to Dish or Direct quality?

I had digital Charter and it could not compare to Sat at all, I had to deal with dropouts on most stations and in fact TNT was unwatchable. Also ghosting on most stations, this was in the Los Angeles area.