Comcast Digital "Migration?"

[mwplefty]

Someone might be able to help me with this. If I hook up a TV with an analog tuner to Basic Cable, will I still get those channels when D-Day comes once again and Comcast cable service goes all-digital on Extended Cable? I thought I read on their website that I needed a Digital QAM Tuner on my TV to get those Basic Cable channels after the digital "migration" without a new box. I really hope that's not true since my older TV's don't have any digital tuner whatsoever. I still want to get those local cable programs like ABC and FOX simply by plugging the cable cord from my analog TV into the wall outlet.

[Gerardn3]

My understanding is that cable companies are required by the FCC to provide all local channels via analog until 2012, but all other channels are up to them. I suspect cable companies will gradually reduce the amount of non-local channels on analog over the next couple years, and eventually cut all analog after 2012. After that, you will need a digital QAM tuner or digital cable box to receive any programming from cable.

Cable companies have great incentive to stop analog broadcasting because every analog channel must be fed through the lines to every subscriber at all times. Not only do digital channels use less bandwidth due to compression, they only get sent through the lines after the watcher tunes into them. It's a shame because in my experience the digital boxes are sluggish and often take several seconds to tune in channels, but unfortunately there is no way to avoid the switch to digital.

[mwplefty]

Originally Posted by Gerardn3

My understanding is that cable companies are required by the FCC to provide all local channels via analog until 2012, but all other channels are up to them. I suspect cable companies will gradually reduce the amount of non-local channels on analog over the next couple years, and eventually cut all analog after 2012. After that, you will need a digital QAM tuner or digital cable box to receive any programming from cable.

Cable companies have great incentive to stop analog broadcasting because every analog channel must be fed through the lines to every subscriber at all times. Not only do digital channels use less bandwidth due to compression, they only get sent through the lines after the watcher tunes into them. It's a shame because in my experience the digital boxes are sluggish and often take several seconds to tune in channels, but unfortunately there is no way to avoid the switch to digital.

Is a Digital QAM Tuner just simply a Digital Converter Box that everyone with analog TV's bought to continue watching OTA television post-June 12, 2009?

[andy]

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[leadlike]

I believe it is simply a box that the cheaper boxes receive analog only. This particular transition is related more to what your box can receive than what its outputs are, in other words, you won't have any more difficulty hooking up your digital box to your television than you do with your current one.

Laura works for Comcast, and deals with this question all day long. If she tells me anything different, I'll pass it along.