Please Verify

[Jay]

I live in Central PA, recently my QAM tuners could no longer tune the NBC HD channel, just said no signal.

Upon calling the Comcast customer service, I was advised the following:

- Would need a digital converter box as they are moving to SDV;
- The current signal is analog and our QAM tuner converts it to digital (I call BS on this one);

I thought the FCC required that the locals be transmitted unencrypted (and thus not requiring any additional equipment) unless a special waiver was granted? Can anyone confirm?

Thanks,

Jay

[richard1980]

The FCC rule reads as follows: "Cable system operators shall not scramble or otherwise encrypt signals carried on the basic service tier." In another rule, "The basic service tier shall, at a minimum, include all signals of domestic television broadcast stations provided to any subscriber (except a signal secondarily transmitted by satellite carrier beyond the local service area of such station, regardless of how such signal is ultimately received by the cable system) any public, educational, and governmental programming required by the franchise to be carried on the basic tier, and any additional video programming signals a service added to the basic tier by the cable operator."

SDV has nothing to do with encryption. SDV channels can be either encrypted or not, and as long as the basic tier remains unencrypted, there is no reason why a cable company couldn't use SDV with the basic tier, as there is no rule barring this practice. You will be required to use a Tuning Adapter, but I'm not sure how that works without the use of a CableCARD tuner.

The part about your QAM tuner converting it to digital is in fact BS. It's 2 different technologies.

[Jay]

The FCC rule reads as follows: "Cable system operators shall not scramble or otherwise encrypt signals carried on the basic service tier." In another rule, "The basic service tier shall, at a minimum, include all signals of domestic television broadcast stations provided to any subscriber (except a signal secondarily transmitted by satellite carrier beyond the local service area of such station, regardless of how such signal is ultimately received by the cable system) any public, educational, and governmental programming required by the franchise to be carried on the basic tier, and any additional video programming signals a service added to the basic tier by the cable operator."

SDV has nothing to do with encryption. SDV channels can be either encrypted or not, and as long as the basic tier remains unencrypted, there is no reason why a cable company couldn't use SDV with the basic tier, as there is no rule barring this practice. You will be required to use a Tuning Adapter, but I'm not sure how that works without the use of a CableCARD tuner.

The part about your QAM tuner converting it to digital is in fact BS. It's 2 different technologies.

SDV bites. Wonder why they are doing just one of the local channels and not all of the locals.

[richard1980]

Of course, this only applies if NBC has actually been converted to SDV. Have you tried to re-scan for channels and see if maybe they moved it to a different frequency? I say this because it doesn't really make much sense to switch a popular channel. The operator might see a bandwidth savings, but the more popular a channel is, the less bandwidth the operator will save. It makes more sense to have the less popular channels switched. So maybe they just transitioned to SDV, and in doing so, they ended up moving NBC to a different non-switched frequency.

[Jay]

Of course, this only applies if NBC has actually been converted to SDV. Have you tried to re-scan for channels and see if maybe they moved it to a different frequency? I say this because it doesn't really make much sense to switch a popular channel. The operator might see a bandwidth savings, but the more popular a channel is, the less bandwidth the operator will save. It makes more sense to have the less popular channels switched. So maybe they just transitioned to SDV, and in doing so, they ended up moving NBC to a different non-switched frequency.

Yup, rescanned and still doesn't show up. Even trying to manually tune the channel doesn't work.

[makryger]

You scanned ALL channels to see whether it was moved somewhere else? It is indeed required that they transmit all OTA channels in the clear over cable. Comcast is probably just trying to muscle out the competition at NBC. Oh wait...

I don't think its legal for them to switch it to SDV, because if im not mistaken, SDV requires cablecard, and cablecard requires encryption... so clearQAM legally must be outside of the SDV rules.

You are right that you should not need one of their digital converters for NBC.
You are also right that its very unlikely to be an analog signal. Digital is digital- it doesn't take a rocket scientist to notice the difference in pictures.

[richard1980]

I don't think its legal for them to switch it to SDV, because if im not mistaken, SDV requires cablecard, and cablecard requires encryption... so clearQAM legally must be outside of the SDV rules.

I can't find any information to back up your claim that SDV requires CableCARD, but maybe I'm not looking in the correct place. Can you point me in the right direction? Even if you are correct, CableCARD doesn't require encryption. If it did, ClearQAM channels wouldn't work on CableCARD tuners. So I'm thinking if you are correct and a CableCARD is required, it is required only because it stores the channel map. But since the FCC allows cable operators to change frequencies as much as they like, as long as the basic channels are still unencrypted, switching them doesn't break any rules. Though it is a good way to pick a fight with the FCC. Then again, the FCCs SDV rules clearly only apply to retail CableCARD devices, and the FCC has never required any TV come with a QAM tuner (only an ATSC tuner is required).

[makryger]

Maybe I'm jumping to conclusions about SDV only working with Cablecard--- keep in mind I'm only applying it to the case of HTPCs... but I would assume that if someone is using a purely clearqam tuner, then I just don't know where an SDV device would be incorporated into the HTPC- none of the clearQAM drivers do it- its only with the cablecard devices. There is no extra SDV port on televisions that tune clearQAM. To me, it seems like SDV + clearQAM just don't jive. Your suggestion that it all has to do with using devices that have channel maps does make sense... amd that would apply basically to cablecard devices and the cable companies own boxes.

I stand corrected about the "cablecard requires encryption"... I suppose if he bought a cablecard device and used SDV with it, then it should work all fine and dandy for the clearQAM. But then if you're doing that, then you may as well just spend the extra two bucks on the cablecard.

[richard1980]

I found part of the answer here. Cable companies are required to provide the "must carry" channels in analog unless it's an "all digital" system. By providing the channels in the analog format, cable operators have fulfilled the requirement to broadcast the channels "in the clear". So whatever they do with the digital version of the channels is irrelevant. For "all digital" areas, the cable company is allowed to carry those signals only in digital format, provided that all subscribers, including those with analog television sets, have the necessary equipment to view the broadcast content. In this proceeding, the FCC tells the cable companies that go all digital to require the customers to get a STB and charge the customer for it (see paragraph 42).

[richard1980]

Additionally, JohnW248 posted something on WEC that gives me the impression that SDV doesn't work with ClearQAM tuners. Without input from someone that knows more about it (not that John doesn't know, he just didn't come right out and say it...I could be reading his post incorrectly), I still don't know for sure though. It makes sense, except that Cisco developed SDV for DVB (and DVB doesn't use CableCARD).

In any case it appears to me the FCC really doesn't care about ClearQAM. Everything they have said seems to be geared toward CableCARD, set top boxes (including DTAs and TAs), and analog broadcasts.

[erkotz]

There is some (simple) cryptographic authentication between the TA and CableCARD, so, as the standard currently stands, it is impossible to use a TA with ClearQAM devices. To be honest, if a manufacturer was going to go so far as to implement SDV, they might as well do the whole CableCARD stack.
That said, I don't believe that Comcast moved NBC to SDV - Comcast has SDV in few, if any, markets. My bet is they are confusing a TA and DTA.

[richard1980]

Thanks erkotz. There doesn't seem to be much technical information available on the web about SDV. So I guess that means makryger was right, and SDV does require a CableCARD.

I would say you might be correct about Comcast confusing DTA with TA, but if Comcast had gone all-digital in that market, thus requiring analog customers to get a DTA, how would that cause the OP's ClearQAM tuner to fail to tune NBC HD? Even with a switch to all-digital, you should still be able to pick up the ClearQAM channels. Unless of course they encrypted the HD version, which apparently is perfectly acceptable in certain situations.

[erkotz]

I'd bet either they encrypted it (rightly or wrongly) or have put it at a frequency above what the ClearQAM tuner the OP has (I think he said he had an HDHR, so above 860MHz).
The easiest way to tell is find something that can tune it (STB or similar) and look what frequency it is.

[blueiedgod]

This is just a guess, but I don't think SDV and associated Tuning Adapter requires CableCard. All it does is transmit the request to the main Cable system computer to feed certain channel at a certain frequency.

So, when you change a channel on an SDV system, the TA sends the signal to Cable Company computer to send the feed for that channel, meanwhile the tuner is tuning to the frequency that it expects the channel to be. By that time, you hope the cable company computer has responded and sent the signal.

You need the CableCard for channel maps, but more importantly, for the decryption of the encrypted channels.

[richard1980]

Look 3 posts above yours....