[mythtv-users] HDTV reception via Cable

[Len Reed]

Steven Adeff wrote:>
> half-true, they are required to give you a cable box with firewire
> output, but they are not required to send any unencrypted channels via
> firewire. What they are required to do is send any ANALOG OTA signal
> over their cable lines unencrypted. HDTV is considered DIGITAL under
> this law and thus does not fall under the requirement. MOST cable
> companies will offer the OTA HDTV over their lines unencrypted via QAM
> and over firewire output without DRM, but they don't have to.

As usual, Steven's posting is accurate.

The original poster mentioned that he has Charter cable, and since I too 
have Charter cable I'll describe what I see.  I'm in Gwinnett County, GA 
(metro Atlanta).

6 local digital channels in digital, QAM256 with no encryption.  My 
HD5000 tunes these and only these.  These -- and only these -- are also 
available by the DCT6200's firewire port.  You have to ask them to 
enable firewire, though.  I had no problem with this but when I placed 
the order I got a technically savvy person (once in 12 years.  pretty 
good, huh?).

Channels below 100 in analog standard cable.

Everything else, including digital NTSC channels (BBC-America, IFC, 
etc.) and digital HDTV channels (HBO, HDNET, etc.) are encrypted.  I can 
record these via the box's Svideo, but that means that the HD channels 
lose resolution.

I have the box connected via DVI and optical to the TV, via 
SVIDEO+linelevel audio to a PVR250, and via firewire.  I tune it via 
firewire (or IR remote when watching directly).  The box can only tune 
one channel at a time even though I've connected three outputs.

Firewire apparently is broken in 0.19 (I'm using a 0.18 SVN version). 
Firewire is hit-or-miss even for me, but that may be due to my VIA chip 
set.   My system uses the HD5000 to record HD, and firewire only in the 
rare case of a conflict.

Summary: Don't count on getting digital anything but local broadcast 
channels.  They will probably be QAM256, but even Charter may vary from 
place to place.  They *must* make local digital channels available by 
firewire (FCC rule), but they have to enable that in the box.  (They can 
program this feature remotely.)