05-05-2010, 05:12 PM
space-time wrote:
all digital channels (QAM) show up as scrambled now. I should probably hook up an antenna and see what channels I can get over the air
Comcast messed with mine on April 21st, forced me to hook up the cable boxes which convert this digital cable to Analog for the final 18 inches.
I still get quite a few channels in Clear QAM and many local HD channels after doing a re-scan, but most of what had been Extended Basic is now gone.
In addition to all of the local broadcast channels (SD and HD versions), I still get the public access channels, lots of shopping channels (including one in HD), CSPAN/2/3, Discovery, History, WGN, HGTV, Versus, Bloomberg.
They also seemed to supply virtual channel numbers to their SD version of some local channels by adding 200 to the broadcast channel number, so an SD version of local channel 5 is at channel 205, while the HD version is at 5-1. Only some of my QAM tuners picked up those virtual channel numbers.
And I still get 23 analog channels.
The full cable box that I got (Motorola DCH-70) has both Composite and RF outputs, so I've got a splitter before the cable box, and run the Comcast cable to both the TV and the converter, and then run the Composite output from the box to the TV, so I can watch either the Clear QAM for higher quality, or the cable box output.
On the other TVs with the Pace DC50X DTAs, I can't do that since those boxes only have RF output.
And that DCH-70 draws 11 watts 24/7, it seems that turning it off using the remote control just turns off the power LED, the actual power consumption doesn't change at all.
The DC50X is always on too, drawing 3-4 watts.