I wonder how long before Comcast drops most analog channels?

[radiotvnut]

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.

[John Adams]

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.

[AUdubon5425]

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.

[batterymaker]

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

[ChrisW6ATV]

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

[bgadow]

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.

[John Adams]

Originally Posted by bgadow

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.

[radiotvnut]

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.

[andy]

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[Jeffhs]

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.

[radiotvnut]

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.

[jwharris]

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.

[radiotvnut]

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.

[jwharris]

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.

[andy]

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