OTA HD Channels... Gone :(

[theknight571]

I have 2 TV's that are HDTV.

From the time I bought them, to 4 days ago I was getting the standard brodcast, over the air, HD Channels, in addition to the standard (non digital) cable channels.

4-5 days ago, I stopped receiving all HD channels... the one TV states that the signal is scrambled and other other just says signal unavailable.

I've made no changes to the settings on either TV... they just stopped coming in?

Any idea what might be going on?

Thanks.

 

[Big Lar]

Were/Are you running OTA, Antenna. or what? Do you have a seperate Tuner box or?

Larry

 

[theknight571]

The built in tuner/antenna was picking them up without problem for 8 months... at least.

 

[PurdueRy]

Stations are still working as we'd be picking up the same ones. Is the wire to your antenna still good?

 

[sivart]

Cable companies are only required to carry the locals in the clear digital signal (that can tune with the QAM tuner). As long as you are at least getting the locals in SD the cable company is following the FCC rule. They are not required to carry the HD feed unencrypted (eg. in the clear)

Sounds like your TV is working fine...time to buy an antenna and dump the cable company. Basically they just want to rent you another box for each of your TV's and screw you out of more money.

Mine hasn't done it yet, but as soon as they do, I'm dropping all of their services. The unencrypted HD's are nice with my HDTV tuner hooked to my PC.

 

[theknight571]

Originally posted by: sivart
Cable companies are only required to carry the locals in the clear digital signal (that can tune with the QAM tuner). As long as you are at least getting the locals in SD the cable company is following the FCC rule. They are not required to carry the HD feed unencrypted (eg. in the clear)

Sounds like your TV is working fine...time to buy an antenna and dump the cable company. Basically they just want to rent you another box for each of your TV's and screw you out of more money.

Mine hasn't done it yet, but as soon as they do, I'm dropping all of their services. The unencrypted HD's are nice with my HDTV tuner hooked to my PC.

So... what you're saying is that I was really picking these up through the cable?

I figured they were over the air because the channels showed up on their real numbers.

i.e. Our local Channel 56 on cable is channel 12 or 13 but the HD feeds showed up on the "real" channel 56 (56-1, 56-2).

 

[sivart]

well you were confusing about how you had it connected.

The only way you were picking them up over the air is if you have an antenna hooked to your TV. You also mention that you were getting the analog channels so I assumed that you had to have cable connected to get the analog channels.

1) Does your TV allow both an antenna and a cable feed at the same time?


If you only have a wire from the cable outlet to your TV there is no way you are getting over the air channels without an antenna.

 

[theknight571]

Let me apologize if I was confusing... I think perhaps I was confused myself.

The only "wire" I have attached to my TV, other than the power cable, is the Cable TV wire.

I made the assumption that I was getting the HD signals over the air because the HD channels appeared on the appropriate tv channel (as opposed to it's corresponding cable channel... i.e. Channel 20 is cable channel 6, but the HD feed was coming in on 20-1,20-2 which is what made me think it was coming over the air)

I assumed, perhaps wrongly, that there was an internal OTA HD antenna.

But it's now sounding like I was really getting the signals from the cable feed, and they've now turned that off.

I'm asking around, but I don't know anyone else that got a new HD TV that didn't then get the digital cable.

We were going to, but decided to put it off since we got the broadcast HD.

 

[sivart]

With TWC in my area, the locals in digital are part of the basic package so that is why you don't need a digital subscription in my area to get the locals in HD (which are also in SD in the clear so I fear that the same thing may happen here soon). Actually, don't tell anyone, but I only have internet through TWC and the local digital 'in the clear' stations come in from TWC.

There is an off chance that if you put your TV in antenna mode and the cable wiring around your house is long enough and you are close enough to the towers that the cabling throughout your home could act as an antenna of sorts, but I doubt you'd be able to pick up all the local stations that way. The only devices I know with built in antennas these days (other than cell phones) are AM radios

Sounds like it is time to hook up an antenna to watch the locals in HD or a good opportunity to look at other pay TV services in your area. Sounds like you need to hook up an antenna or pay for 2 more box fees...what are those these days $7-8 per box per month?

 

[zzuupp]

Since you were receiving channels through cable TV, have you re-scanned channels after you lost everything?

Some cable companies are notorious for moving *everything* around as they add more HD channels.

 

[krotchy]

Originally posted by: zzuupp
Since you were receiving channels through cable TV, have you re-scanned channels after you lost everything?

Some cable companies are notorious for moving *everything* around as they add more HD channels.

my thoughts exactly

 

[theknight571]

I have not re-scanned yet.... just haven't taken the time.

I did find out that they made alot of "backend" changes to the system in the past week or so. (Our city provides our cable... so it's a rather small operation)

I'll rescan and let everyone know.

Thanks for all the help.