[mythtv-users] [Slightly OT] comcast moving to settop on Bay Area - goodbye analog

[Mark Knecht]

On Sat, Jan 31, 2009 at 4:56 PM, Brad Fuller <bradallenfuller at gmail.com> wrote:
> http://tinyurl.com/ant2zz
>
> At least they are giving settop boxes away... for now.  Who knows if
> they will add a lease to your bill afterwards.
>
> I'm not happy about this since I depend on analog cable and QAM for my
> feeds.  Didn't I read somewhere on this list that it _could_ be
> against the law to do this? Something about local free channels... or
> something...
>
>
> --
> Brad Fuller

Hey Brad - I'll have to read this whole thread. I didn't pay attention
when the conversation was going on.

Comcast is in my house right now. Here in Los Gatos the way it's going
to work is this:

1) On Feb. 17th, or whatever the date is the conversion actually takes
place there will be no change. All analog will continue.

2) About 4-6 weeks later Comcast will stop sending analog on all
channels above 34.

3) Comcast is allocating 3 digital converter per household. They will
install them for free and expect people to use them to get everything
from 2-100. Since I had them here for Internet connectivity problems I
had them install 1 converter so that I could start playing with it.
The guy was nice and showed me how to get into the info pages of the
unit. (Hold the info key for 4 seconds, then you can page through the
pages to see signal level, etc.) According to him these boxes are
compatible with Tivo and Tivos can tune them for recording purposes. I
don't know how that works and I haven't looked at the box in any depth
as of yet. The only additional input on the back is marked 'IR In'. Is
there a way to send a signal electrically into that input?

Like you the family mine depends on Myth recording upper analog
channels so I'm going to have to understand how to make this work
pretty soon. Hopefully I'll get the HDHR I purchased to actually
record something at the same time.

Hope this helps,
Mark