<br><br><div><span class="gmail_quote">On 3/21/07, <b class="gmail_sendername">R. G. Newbury</b> <<a href="mailto:newbury@mandamus.org">newbury@mandamus.org</a>> wrote:</span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
Don't top post please...See below.<br><br>jason maxwell wrote:<br>>>From what i understand, right now, the FCC mandate only covers analog<br>> broadcasts. They dont _have_ to send the digital channels<br>> unencrypted... yet. Most companies do send all local channels
<br>> unencrypted though.<br><br>Because they are required by law to do so...Digital too. See below.<br>><br>> On 3/20/07, R. G. Newbury <<a href="mailto:newbury@mandamus.org">newbury@mandamus.org</a>> wrote:
<br>>> Mark J. Scheller wrote:<br>>>> I'm in the Philadelphia area with FIOS TV currently recording on a PVR350<br>>>> attached to a cable box. This is working OK, but I now have enough<br>>>> conflicts that I'm looking for an additional tuner. Looking forward to the
<br>>>> future, as I will "soon" have an HDTV capable set, I'm wondering whether I<br>>>> could get the HDHomeRun and use its 2 tuners now just to record SDTV<br>>>> content<br>>>> to my Myth (and eliminate the PVR350/cable box).
<br>>>><br>>>> Any input would be appreciated -- thanks in advance!<br>>>><br>>>> [MjS]<br>>> It will depend entirely upon what unencrypted content your provider<br>>> pours down the 'wire'.
<br>>> Content can be delivered by digital or analog streams.<br>>> Content can be SD or HD.<br>>> Some digital content is encrypted and you need a set top box.<br>>> Some digital content is not encrypted (although QAM256 encoded on cable').
<br>>> The FCC mandates that cablecos provide the local off-air channels<br>>> through an unencrypted feed (ie: not 'premium content').<br>>> So you will get your local off-air available channels as HD content,
<br>>> unencrypted, to the extent that the local network affiliates broadcast HD.<br>>> Other digital channels may bne HD or SD as the cableco decides.<br>>><br>>> You will probably still need the 'cable box' as it probably does the
<br>>> optical to wire conversion required to split out the tv signals.<br>>><br>>> Geoff<br><br><br>Well a quick browse through US 47 CFR lead me to chapter 76.56 which<br>says, in part...<br><br> 47 CFR
76.56<br> ...<br> (b) Carriage of local commercial tele-<br> vision stations. Effective June 2, 1993, a<br> cable television system shall carry<br> local commercial broadcast television<br> stations...<br> (c) With respect to digital signals of
<br>a television station carried in fulfill-<br>ment of the must-carry obligations, a<br>cable operator shall carry the informa-<br>tion necessary to identify and tune to<br>the broadcast television signal.<br>.....<br> (f) Pursuant to §
76.64(f)(3), a local<br>commercial broadcast television station<br>that fails to make an election is<br>deemed a must-carry station. A cable<br>operator shall carry such a television<br>station on the cable system channel
<br>number on which the local commercial<br>television station is broadcast over the<br>air, or ....or......[then] the cable operator shall place<br>the signal of such a television station<br>on a channel of the cable system's
<br>choice, so long as that channel is included<br>on the basic service tier.<br><br>*********<br>That seems to me to dispose of the question: the basic service tier is<br>not an encrypted service tier and a digital signal must carry the
<br>identification and tuning information.<br><br>I did NOT find the sections which provide penalties for failure to<br>comply. However, I noted that the FCC pages have a section on the<br>electronic filing of complaints. I would think that a complaint that a
<br>cableco had failed to comply with the regulations under which it is<br>licenced would be dealt with by the FCC.<br><br>Geoff<br>IAAL and therefore had no problem reading the CFR's....</blockquote><div><br>As I understand it local broadcast channels can force a cable company to carry their analog signal on the most basic tier. This is not true for digital signals. But if the cable company does carry a broadcast digital channel they must do so unencrypted for all tiers.
<br></div></div><br>-- <br>_____________<br>Ryan Patterson