Re: Comcast and 8VSB

On Fri, 09 May 2008 06:09:24 -0400, TheWebJunkie wrote:

>> "Comcast has a knowledgeable member of a technical
>>staff who answers the phone??"
> 
> No.  He is a technical supervisor I ran into who told me that he
> attended the planning meetings.
> 
> The conversation began when I asked him when Comcast would be suspending
> analog delivery in my area.  He replied that the FCC required that it be
> done in February.  I then spent five minutes arguing that the mandate
> did not apply to Comcast; that their only mandate was to continue to
> provide analog of the local broadcast stations until 2012.  He said that
> Comcast had decided to make their schedule consistent with the
> over-the-air changeover.
> 
IOW's he lied to you.It wasn't required by the FCC.:-)

> We then discussed converters.  He said that I could either get a Comcast
> box *or* one of the government-subsidized ones.  I argued that the
> subsidized boxes were 8VSB only.  That is when he told me of Comcast's
> plan to make their service compatible with the boxes by feeding the
> broadcast stations in 8VSB instead of in clear QAM.
> 
Actually, this is a wise decision if it's in fact true.. They can cut 
there analog bandwidth to 20% of what it is now.

> I argued that I knew it was in Comcast's best interest to *remain*
> QAM-only because it allowed for twice the bandwidth of 8VSB.
> Nevertheless, he said that it was Comcast's mission to become compatible
> due to customer pressure.
> 
I doubt that's the reasom. More likely to argue the point with the FCC 
ruling that they provide analog when OTA stations no longer do. And they 
do have a point there.

> What gave me the impression that he was knowledgeable was that he knew
> the difference betwen QAM and 8VSB, knew that they were incompatible
> with each other, and knew that Comcast digital is *currently* QAM only.
> He also mentioned that Comcast had decided to honor Cable Card
> technology, and *is* currently issuing Cable cards as an option for
> their proprietary boxes to receive encrypted QAM channels.
> 
Well, they had no choice in that matter.

> One of my sayings is: "That which was true yesterday is not necessarily
> true today; that which is true today will not necessarily be true
> tomorrow."  That is why I do not want to take the stubborn position that
> this Comcast guy does not know what he is talking about.

IMO, it would be a smart move on their part. It's a win win situation. 
They get a lot of extra bandwidth doing away with NTSC. Customers get 
better pictures and those with newer TV's don't need a cable box for basic

service. And those without can use cheap DTV converter boxes. I'd also 
guess they will serve nothing but SD over this. 

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