I wonder how long before Comcast drops most analog channels?
 

A couple years ago, Comcast moved the Hallmark channel, the Gameshow channel, and Cspan to digital. Effective 11/4/09, they moved TBN, EWTN, the Inspiration Channel and the TV guide channel to digital. The movement of these channels to digital does not bother me; as I never watched them. Currently, the only thing on these channel positions is a message saying where the channels can now be found. I doubt they will be replaced with anything else. I just wonder how much longer I've got before most of the other channels are moved to digital and I'm forced to rent a cable box for each TV connected to cable? I think I remember reading where cable companies were required to carry local channels on analog until at least 2012.

They better watch out. My Charter system makes a big deal out of "hook up all you want, no set top boxes needed". They do this after loosing 1/2 their customers to Dish and Direct.

Two months ago, when I moved mother back home from metro Atlanta, she had just received notice from Comcast that they were eliminating a significant portion (around half comes to mind) of stations from the analog package.

Of course, she was to receive no reduction in the amount billed each month.

Not much difference in character between cable companies and aluminum-siding salesmen.....:dammit:

Are aluminum-siding salesmen really that bad? I had no idea.

What was that movie? Tin Men...never saw it. Nowadays they are selling vinyl, I guess.

Even when things have gone right, there has been something I just don't trust about the cable/phone company. No cable, no dish, no nothing for me anymore. I don't even watch the few channels I get with an antenna. We have Comcast in town but I read that a small, local company wants to offer service in town, too. Might make things interesting.

Yes, Tin Men, great movie.
Richard Dreyfuss, Danny DeVito, Barbara Hershey, and John Mahoney
1987 Tin Men, the second in Barry Levinson's ongoing film series about his native Baltimore in the 1950s and '60s, focuses on a pair of competing aluminum-siding salesman at a point when the industry was loaded with scam artists. Richard Dreyfuss and Danny DeVito play rivals who get involved in a fender-bender that quickly escalates from a minor argument into an all-out war, as they begin pulling practical jokes on each other.

Today, I was programming the channels into a TV for my flea market friend and discovered that Comcast has an information channel on 96 that shows how to hook up the new digital cable boxes and digital adapters. Has anyone else seen this channel? That tells me that analog cable service is not long for this world.

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Time Warner Cable converted all of its systems here in northeastern Ohio to digital earlier this year, so there are no analog signals left to drop these days. Even their broadcast channels only basic service is digital, the ATSC digital signals being converted to NTSC analog for viewers with analog CRT TVs. The only thing TW could possibly do at this point would be to drop that service, which of course would force every subscriber to rent a digital cable box (or get a new set) if they were to keep the cable.

I watched the channel in a little more detail and they are actually explaining how to hook up what they call a "digital adapter". It does not look like the big Motorola digital cable boxes that comcast issues. Instead, it looks to be about the size of a DTV converter. The incoming cable connects to the "cable in" jack on the box. Then, a cable connects between the "out to TV" jack on the box and the cable input of the TV. Then, the TV is tuned to either channel 3 or 4 (depending on what the box is set to). I assume these "digital adapters" are simply a scaled down version of the larger digital cable boxes.

Those smaller cable boxes are the ones for the basic cable service. If you get HD or PVR you get the big Motorola box but all other customers get the smaller one. My mom lives outside of Philly and that is what she has hooked up to her 1980s Zenith console.

Several years ago, Comcast started the digital transition by removing the hallmark channel and the gameshow network from the analog package and moved them to digital. For the people that pitched a fit about this, Comcast offered them the big Motorola boxes for receiving these channels. They claimed that the box would be free for the first year. And, not long ago, a Comcast technician showed up at a friend's house with a Motorola box in hand and he told my friend that they were getting everyone ready for digital. I'm sure their plan is to get digital boxes in as many homes as possible before they convert to all digital delivery. In fact, I didn't know there was any such thing as a "digital adapter" until today. I thought that one of the big Motorola boxes was the only thing available to receive digital cable. I guess these digital adapters are something that they recently introduced. I always said that when it got to the point where I had to have one of the big Moto boxes on each TV, at a monthly rental fee of several dollars per box, I'd cancel the cable. If I have the option to use these smaller boxes, that might be a cheaper alternative to the big box, since we only have basic service and we couldn't care less about HD, PPV, etc.

My mom has had one of those smaller boxes through Comcast since 2006. I'll ask her how much she pays for her cable and whether she has to pay for the box.

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In my area, Comcast offers channels 2-31 (minus a few in-between), 96, and 98 still in analog (70 literally just switched to digital; it still shows the commercial about the new digital cable box). However, the rest of the channels are snowy.

The digital cable box that we bought for our LCD TV was $60, no coupon or discount whatsoever. Pretty ridiculous if you asked me. I'd rather spend that much on a fancy dinner in all seriousness. My only advantage with the box is a couple digital channels beyond 125, such as Me-TV, a station that runs mostly classic television programs in Chicago. My suburb didn't receive this channel with analog cable alone (you had to live closer to the city).

The problem with the switch to digital cable is that anyone with their old Zenith Space Commands, for example, won't be able to use their once state-of-the-art remote control with the new digital box. The original remote and therefore and channel-changing device on the TV including the knobs, became essentially useless (except for adjusting volume and turning the set on/off). The set loses some of its originality in my opinion because of this.

I really think that the negatives of this switch outweigh the positives. Wasn't the digital/OTA transition enough? (At least the FCC is giving the cable companies a choice this time though)

I have 3 of those digital adapters.Comcast here is completely digital-no analog whatsoever.They told me I could have 3 of the adapters for free-after that you pay a fee.All they get is the locals including the digital sub channels like rtn.

Don't forget stereo sound. Just like most other devices with an RF modulator these boxes are mono. MTS stereo modulators are too complicated and expensive.

Comcast in the Balto. Md area has practically already switched to all digital since earlier this year. they still have a few channels left that you can watch without a box like all the local channels, espn, and tv guide channel. so anybody here would have to get a box. i think they did it so quick because there were a lot of people who were getting free cable. i know they were hurt when their years of free service was cut off

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I was looking on ebay and there are many comcast digital transport adapters for sale, many of which are NIB. I've never known the cable company to sell their cable boxes; so, I suspect that the person that these adapters were rented to are selling them. They'll wish they would have kept them when the cable company charges them several hundred dollars for failure to return the equipment.

BTW, I heard through the grapevine that the digital delivery only switch is supposed to take place on 1/12/2011. They've already been running comcast cable commercials that are similar to the old DTV commercials; but, there is no analog cut-off date in the commercials. I also heard that the cable company would let each household have up to three digital adapters without additional charge. Any more adapters would carry a rental fee.

Time Warner Cable in my area is all digital as well; however, like Comcast, there is still a tier of service that will give subscribers local channels only, without a digital cable box, for under $20 per month. I have this basic service (what I call "bare-bones basic" because it is broadcast stations only) on my TV; no box, but I have no choice since TV reception in this area, 35 miles from Cleveland and perhaps 40-45 (!) miles from the transmitters, which are located in a southwestern suburb of the city, was not that good in analog; most channels are probably nonexistent here nowadays OTA, since TV went digital in June 2009.

I had TW's expanded-basic package for some time, but when its monthly rate went to $55.67 per month (who knows how high it is now), I canceled it and downgraded to BB basic. I don't miss the other channels I was getting with x-basic since I have a small but growing DVD collection and a rather large collection of VHS videos, all of which are classic TV shows and movies from roughly the '60s through the early '90s. I never cared for any of the high-priced cable movie channels either; I had HBO for exactly one month in the mid-'80s, then dropped it (and did not look back) because they had a very limited selection of movies which were, more often than not, repeated over and over for a week at a time.

I looked on the comcast website and it says that when they go to digital delivery, some markets will lose ALL analog delivered channels, requiring a digital box to view even the lowest form of basic cable. They go on to say that in other markets, everything EXCEPT the lowest form of basic cable will go to digital only delivery and that any TV connected directly to a cable jack will only receive the limited basic channels (which, consist of local broadcast channels, WGN America, two home shopping channels, and a local access community channel).

Somewhere, I read that the FCC required cable companies to carry local broadcast channels in analog until at least 2012. So, I guess we'll see what happens come 1/12, or whenever they decide to terminate analog delivery. It's looking like I'll only be able to use the rotary tuner in my TV's for a very short time period.

Not being able to use the rotary tuner will be what I'll miss the most.

My Cox Cable bill came in today. I have digital and with the box rental the TV portion comes in at over $80 per month now. There is still a bare-bones package - I'd be looking at $20 for the local channels, shopping channels, an infomercial channel and BET of all things. I've had enough and will be turning in the cable box the first weekday I have off in January. There are 21 (twenty-one) free over-the-air channels that broadcast in English.

Last summer I started to drop the digital and move down to expanded analog, but it would have saved me less than $20. With such a mild difference in price, I wouldn't be surprised if they discontinued analog cable in the near future.

Here in Athens, TN we are all digital even for budget basic. And the basic Comcast DTA is made by Pace. Had some kinks getting it installed and running. They sent out an engineer and picture and sound look great.

Comcast is about to pull the plug on analog in my neighborhood. Starting today they're showing an endless loop of instructions for ordering and hooking up a digital box on all the analog stations.

I just got a letter from Wide open west saying they are not supporting my analog cable box starting around April of this year.

I have Cox here - we get all the basic channels (up to 99) and all of the OTA digital channels (NBC, CBS, ABC, FOX, PBS, PBS World) without the box on one ATSC HDTV set. Do you have an HD set? Cox is still QAM - no box required for the basics. Without the boxes, we'd save about 70 each month, but with the wife's DVR habit....

Call Cox and tell them you want to switch to another provider (even if you don't) - they have a retention team that will discount things to make it sweeter for you. We did about three years ago and slashed our phone/internet/cable bill by about 90 bucks a month for 6 months, then the "free" stuff went away, and things were still about 55 dollars less per month. Dish Network, Verizon FiOs, DirectTV and others scare the !%@t out of Cox and they want to retain you - so force them to offer a better deal. The retention specialist used to visit you - now it's just a phone call. Down side is, you'll lock in for a prescribed set of time - a year or so. If they don't offer a one-year contract, ask for one. Then see if they'll sweeten things even more if you go two years.....:thmbsp:

OK, I found out that comcast is supposed to be canning most analog delivery sometime in March. The only channels that will continue to be sent in an analog format will be channels 2-12. Anything above channel 12 will require a digital box. Since 2-12 will still be analog, I'll still be able to use the VHF rotary tuner in my old TV's. Of course, I'm sure even those channels will eventually be converted to digital only.

For what reason? I'm sorry but I don't buy the "it's saving us A LOT of money" as an excuse to make these sudden DTV/Cable TV transitions. Back in 2008, most phone companies discontinued analog even though close to 1 million people still used analog phones, such as the old car corded phones or any cell phone created before 1998. They were basically told to spend more money on a new digital cell phone. In all honesty, people should not be forced to conform to progression in technology. It's nice to see that we still have forums like this to keep at least some of the past alive.

Because the cable companies are dealing with a limited amount of bandwidth. They want to offer more services, yet with analog video still around, it's taking up prime real estate that could be used to better serve their customers. A standard analog cable channel is 6MHz wide, the digital version will take up much less space, so with digital they can "cram more stuff down the pipe."

I talked to a cable installer and he told me another reason for the switch was to try and cut down on cable theft. Those boxes have to be activated by the cable company for the level of service that the customer is to receive. So, it will no longer be possible for a crook to climb the light pole, attach a cable, and watch free TV.

Back around '89, I knew this guy who, in the middle of the night, climbed the pole and connected his line to the cable feed. To top it off, he found a cable descrambler box and he was watching everything offered - for free. I was only about 12 at the time; but, I still thought he'd lost his mind and I told him so. I think the cable company finally caught up with him.

It's funny that you mention that. My friend's uncle used to steal his neighbor's cable all the time because he as a construction worker for houses he knew the exact wiring of a cable line. Therefore, he often climbed to the roof and "re-arranged" the cables. He got caught several times but hasn't been fined or anything.

I also remember when cable companies would install a trap in the cable line to prevent the customer from watching channels above a certain number. Sometimes, the cable company would install the trap right where the cable enters the house and the customer would bypass the trap. I remember one man telling me that his Mother was in a nursing home and the cable company had the trap connected right at the back of the TV. So, he simply removed the trap and his Mother was able to watch all the cable channels. With the digital boxes, that sort of activity will cease.

I've also heard stories of people sliding a piece of aluminum foil over the cable line in order to receive HBO. I think this was back in the early to mid '80's. I remember HBO being on channel 4 and both picture and sound were scrambled. On the other premium channels, which were on the higher channels, the audio was OK; but, the picture was scrambled. They eventually moved all premium channels to digital; so, one would have to obtain (as in, pay for) a digital box in order to get the premium channels.

Another guy told me that he used two TV's in order to watch a PPV channel. He claimed he could fine tune the audio in on one TV and fine tune the picture in on the other TV.

And all that fun will end when the transition to digital is complete.

Now, what to do with all of those analog cable boxes that I have kicking around? I guess they will be totally worthless after the digital cable switch. The only old analog box that I may hang on to is a 37 channel Jerrold non-remote box from the late '70's-early '80's. This box has a row of "clicker" buttons and a three position toggle switch to select the desired channel band. I don't think I've actually seen one of these boxes in use since the mid '80's. By that time, the cable company was using remote controlled boxes that had digital LED displays. These boxes would turn the TV on and off with the remote and a few of them would even control the volume with the remote.

The digital transition is complete, and has been since mid-June 2009, as far as the nation's full-power TV stations are concerned; however, I'm sure what you are referring to is the conversion of analog cable systems to 100 percent digital. Time Warner Cable, the cable operator in my area near Cleveland, converted every system in its coverage area (northeastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania) to digital several years ago, so now if anyone wants more than local digital TV they have to rent a converter box, or get expanded basic service; the latter is still available without a box, but for how much longer is anyone's guess. (For basic service I do not use a box; I simply have the cable connected more or less directly to my TV.) I had full digital cable for about five years and liked it, a lot. I'd probably still have it today if the rates hadn't gone through the ceiling. I live on a fixed income (disability) and cannot afford DTV at this time, which is one of two reasons I still have CRT TVs in my apartment. The other reason I do not yet have a FP TV (and do not expect to get one any time soon) is that the lesser-known (and cheaper) brands do not last very long, and the best brands are too darn expensive. If and when Panasonic's Viera line of flat panels becomes truly affordable for people such as myself, I may consider getting one, but for the time being I will stay with my old reliable CRT sets.

Well, it finally happened. Comcast kept telling everyone that they would have to have a digital device by 3/26. 3/26 rolled around and nothing happened. Then, I heard that 4/6 was the new date. Again, nothing happened. Today, I connected a BPC 13" set to the cable so that I could program it's channels into memory. With the TV connected directly to cable, it would only receive channels 2-12. Then, I checked the kitchen TV, which is also directly connected to cable, and it would also not receive anything above 12.

I'm glad they at least left 2-12 in analog. That way, I can still use the rotary tuner in a TV and I will at least have some sort of signal, without having to hook up a box, for quickly checking out a TV.

Offering channels 2-12 is the bare minimum for cable companies until 2012 when they will unfortunately be allowed to fully transition to digital.