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Bronze Member Username: Scotty2hottyChicago, IL Post Number: 29 Registered: Nov-04 | I'm not sure which section to post this, but here it goes: What exactly is digital cable? I have heard many people say they have 'digital' cable and I have also seen many people say that those people do not receive a true digital picture like the cable company says they do. What's the dillio? |
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Discovering Unregistered guest | Here's the way it works. Before digital cable existed everything was analog from the head-end (dish garden) to your home, and still is for those not taking digital. If you were fortunate enough to be closer to the source, then your picture and reliability of service was excellent. Analog signal suffers from attenuation or resistince in the copper cable. Every 2000 feet or so an amplifier is needed to boost it along. The more amps, the more noise in the signal. I lived 26 amps from the source. My picture was grainy. Lots of active devices mean more fuses. My cable went out a lot. The amps were rated to boost only 360 mhz. An analog channel requires 6 mhz. Thus, not many channels could ride the line. (about 32) That's why Dallas has a dual cable system. Then, along came fiber-optic cables and amps. Source quality signal can now be delivered to your neighborhood and copper used for only the last few hundred feet. Analog signal improved greatly. So did bandwidth. (more channels) So did reliability. (far less active devices) Cable operators found that they could digitize the analog channels at the source and use a digital to analog converter at your set to improve picture quality even more. (and charge you more) Here's the catch. All of this has nothing to do with a true digital source signal, which is an entirely different format from the standard NTSC analog format. A true digital HD signal will provide twice the resolution as an NTSC analog channel that has been converted to digital and then back to analog. There isn't a lot of programming in this new HD format. Comcast offers our local Dallas off-air channels in true digital HD, but not all programming is true HD. One HBO out of seven is HD. One Showtime. There's HD Discovery Channel. (great channel) UHD and HD Net has also come along. More HD programing is on the horizon. The good news is you're ready for it. Here is an ABC link that explains more. Happy viewing! http://abc.go.com/site/hdtvfaq.html |
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Discovering Unregistered guest | Here's the way it works. Before digital cable existed everything was analog from the head-end (dish garden) to your home, and still is for those not taking digital. If you were fortunate enough to be closer to the source, then your picture and reliability of service was excellent. Analog signal suffers from attenuation or resistince in the copper cable. Every 2000 feet or so an amplifier is needed to boost it along. The more amps, the more noise in the signal. I lived 26 amps from the source. My picture was grainy. Lots of active devices mean more fuses. My cable went out a lot. Then, along came fiber-optic cables. Source quality signal can now be delivered to your neighborhood and copper used for only the last few hundred feet. Analog signal improved greatly. So did bandwidth. (more channels) So did reliability. (far less fuses) Cable operators found that they could digitize the analog channels at the source and use a digital to analog converter at your set to improve picture quality even more. (and charge you more) Here's the catch. All of this has nothing to do with a true digital source signal, which is an entirely different format from the standard NTSC analog format. A true digital HD signal will provide twice the resolution as an NTSC analog channel that has been converted to digital and then back to analog. There isn't a lot of programming in this new HD format. Comcast offers our local Dallas off-air channels in true digital HD, but not all programming is true HD. One HBO out of seven is HD. One Showtime is HD. There's HD Discovery Channel. (great channel) UHD and HD Net has also come along. More HD programing is on the horizon. Here is an ABC link that explains more. Happy viewing! http://abc.go.com/site/hdtvfaq.html *** |
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Bronze Member Username: Scotty2hottyChicago, IL Post Number: 30 Registered: Nov-04 | I have Comcast, but no HD service. The analog channls, when I have a reception problem, are snowy. However, when there is a problem in my area, the upper channels come in pixelized. I assumed that this was because they are digital, but this is not so? |
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Anonymous | Receptions kinda better butt the tv still sucks and you gotta pay a crapload of money each month. I advice just get internet service and dioownload all your tv programs and stuff stop feeding the pig. your lucky you never heard of and wasted thousands and tousands of dollars on thiodss crasp. |
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Discovering Unregistered guest | Your right, it's not so! The snow and other artifact tells me you have a bad analog signal. You shouldn't have to pay for that either. Make them fix it. Better yet, if Comcast offers digital cable in your area and the box has a component (Pr, Pb, Y) or DVI output, get it. Better yet, ditch cable for Direct TV! Whatever you do, you deserve a better signal. |