DIGITAL CONVERSION / CABLE MISUNDERSTANDING

Hi All,
In another string, the following Comment was placed:
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ComcastCares said...
Thank you for the feedback regarding Comcast's handling of the digital TV transition. It is important to note that if you have cable, there is nothing you need to do to continue to receive your local channels. As stated in a previous comment, as long as the cable company provides an analog signal, you will continue to receive the channels as you do today. More information is available from the FCC at the following

URL:

http://www.dtv.gov/

Thank you for being a Comcast Customer!

Frank Eliason
Comcast Executive Offices
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While this statement is clearly true for the vast majority of COMCAST's millions of cable customers, here in CV we have a unique situation.

Generally speaking, a Cable TV customer has a Set-Top-Box (STB) sitting on or near his TV. The cable enters the home and is connected to the STB.
A second cable connects the output of the STB to an input of the TV and thus you view your channel of choice.

In CV we have a special enhanced Basic Cable selection of 65 channels which are placed in the Cable frequency band in such a way as to be accessible to the standard tuner of any Cable ready TV; hence, no STB is necessary, and that is the case for the vast majority of 7854 CV COMCAST customers. These Customers will require some sort of intervention when Digital Transition occurs.

A very few CV Customers do indeed have a STB, because they have opted for other Higher Tier services (at extra cost)
that require the STB to receive those services. Those customers are indeed covered by the blanket statement of "painless Digital Transition"

The analog channels to be provided as mentioned in the extracted Comment above are required by law, as Cable companies must continue to provide analog breakouts of Local TV Broadcast stations; Larry Kall advises that COMCAST will provide 12 such channels. This leaves 53 channels to be resolved. Let's look at his issue.

The STB is a sophisticated Radio Receiver with Communications MODEM capabilities, in otherwords, it not only receives signals from the cable, it also transmits signals back to the Headend (Signal source at COMCAST).

In order to continue to receive the remaining 53 channels after Digital Transition has occurred, the safest way to proceed is to have a COMCAST STB attached to EVERY TV in your Unit. Many CV customers have multiple TV sets, so this shapes up as a major undertaking as regards installation and cost, because these STB's are rented out by COMCAST or they may be purchased outright.

Larry Kall is attempting to negotiate the best possible cost for this process.

What alternatives are there?

1) If your TV is Cable-Ready and has a Digital Tuner, you should be ready for Digital Transition, without the need for a STB, unless as noted above you opt for Higher Tier services.

2) If you have an older anlogue model TV, you may purchase an external Converter Box, which must also be Cable-Ready and incorporate a Digital Tuner.

I hope this has been useful.

Dave