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Old 02-07-2012, 07:06 PM
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How much longer will analog cable hang on

We currently have Time Warner digital cable but they still offer the basic analog service in my neighborhood. I use it but suspect I'm one of the last ones who still does... We also have Verizon but not for t.v. and they quit providing analog tv service in 2008.
I hope the cable will continue to offer the plain analog channels but I feel like they're gonna axe it soon... Thoughts?
It's nice to use the tv's internal tuning ... without analog cable i will never really be able to use them again besides on CH 3/4 ...
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Old 02-07-2012, 08:45 PM
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Just like over-the-air TV, the cable companies face a finite amount of spectrum. Going QAM-256 allows up to six decent quality (by my standards) 480i channels to fit in the same spectrum of one NTSC analog channel. And, since few cable systems are willing to experience the pain and agony of going switched digital (which preserves quality while conserving spectrum), you’ll see the digital channels get progressively compressed beyond death as the demand grows for more channels. I expect analog cable to be history by 2020...
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Old 02-07-2012, 09:22 PM
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Such a shame. I like analog because it takes up more spectrum
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Old 02-07-2012, 11:07 PM
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Time Warner Cable in my area, near Cleveland, already has switched to digital; they made a big deal of it when it happened several years ago. The system still carries 64 analog channels; the digital channels are mostly the Cleveland network affiliates, MeTV and Antenna TV, etc. The day will come, however, when even those 64 analog channels will either go digital or will disappear completely -- I have no idea what Time Warner's plans are for them.

I can't help wondering in the back of my mind if or when I may need a cable box to get anything, even with my FP that has an ATSC/NTSC/clear-QAM tuner. I was under the impression that today's digital FPs do not need cable boxes under any circumstances, except to receive movie channels, pay per view and other specialty channels such as Travel Channel, ShopNBC, etc., for which subscribers pay extra over and above their regular cable bills. (Travel Channel and ShopNBC, et al. were formerly on TW's standard cable lineup here until about a year or so ago.)

For standard cable until you get to digital and/or HD (the latter operating on channels in the 1000+ range, at least on TW's northern Ohio/western Pennsylvania systems), I would think today's flat-panel sets would continue to operate perfectly well with the cable connected directly to the set via the RF antenna port. Or is this just another way cable companies have figured out to get more money from subscribers, through forced rental of cable boxes in order to receive anything, including local broadcast channels?

I realize digital cable and satellite are the future of TV, but to drag subscribers kicking and screaming into the digital age like this, even when they already may have a FP TV with a full-digital tuner, IMHO, is too much. There is also something else the cable/satellite companies may not realize (and in all honesty may not care beans about if they do realize it): the fact that some people simply cannot afford digital cable or satellite, and may not be able to receive their area's local channels OTA. If Time Warner and other cable operators drop analog cable, this will leave hundreds or thousands, even tens of thousands, of people with a FP TV they cannot use, except with a DVD player or VCR. In this case, people may well just give up TV and take up reading, in which case the television industry could find itself in real trouble.
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Last edited by Jeffhs; 02-08-2012 at 11:05 AM.
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Old 02-08-2012, 09:42 AM
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Time Warner here in the Milwaukee area still caries around 60 analog channels (down from around 100 channels a few years back). When it goes I'll miss being able to test the tuners of my vintage sets, and be very annoyed when I loose the ability to use the tuners on my SVHS-ET decks and my DVD recorder.

I'll also be pissed that I'll require more than one cable box to recieve multiple channels on my sets. I currently have 4 of my color sets and 3 of my monochrome sets hooked to a couple of four input-three output RF video switchers that are fed the RF output from over 4 different VCR's and a bunch of other things that are connected to the AV inputs on them, and will miss being able to watch multiple shows at once. I don't do it often as there is not often more than 1 show I want to watch at a time, but it is awesome not to need to choose, and damn impressive when I can get as many sets as the breaker will tolerate going at once going all playing different things.
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Old 02-08-2012, 03:13 PM
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Some info here:

http://www.ezdigitaltv.com/Cable_Television.html

Since this is Feb 2012, we may indeed see many cable companies dropping analog. I suspect that economic considerations will drive this... a trade off between the cost of the cable company installing some new equipment vs revenue gained by cable box lease vs potential customer loss. There may also be agreements with various local government agencies that govern the necessity of providing either analog or "in the clear" digital signals for the lowest tier customers in a given area.
In short, there will be considerable variation in this transition of cable services... Perhaps it would be worth making a call to your local cable provider and asking about these changes?

jr
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Old 02-08-2012, 03:29 PM
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More like, I'll call them and tell them to terminate my service , and go all-verizon at that point.
I hate using quality older tv sets with these POS chinese set top boxes that exude crapiness.
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Old 02-09-2012, 12:04 PM
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Well, that's progress. Time marches on, even for those of us with old pre-DTV sets. If you want to continue to use these sets, you only have three options: use an OTA converter box ("Chinese crappiness" or not), a digital cable box if you want to continue using cable, or nothing, as analog cable is being phased out. For now, we can simply connect the cable directly from the wall jack to the RF antenna port in back of the TV (using a matching transformer, if necessary) and use it just as we always have, but one of these days, sooner (much sooner) rather than later, this being February 2012 (by the end of which cable systems must and will discontinue standard cable service in favor of digital), analog cable will disappear forever. Those of you with old knob-tuned NTSC analog TVs may not and apparently (from what I've been reading in this forum) don't like it, but that's the way of it. Did you expect the knob-tuned NTSC analog TV era to last forever?
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Old 02-09-2012, 12:27 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeffhs View Post
sooner (much sooner) rather than later, this being February 2012 (by the end of which cable systems must and will discontinue standard cable service in favor of digital), analog cable will disappear forever.
NO! There is no "must discontinue" date... the document that I linked as I read it shows that the cable companies "must provide" analog (or an inexpensive digital option) UNTIL at least Feb 2012. What happens after that date likely will depend on other factors as I outlined in my post.

jr
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Old 02-09-2012, 09:37 PM
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Our basic cable still offers 70 analog channels. Beaucoups of channels if you go digital.
They claim they have no plans to do away with them, but I have a hard time believing that.
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Old 02-10-2012, 12:23 AM
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I feel somewhat inclined to send my provider a message inquiring about their plans.

Wonder if I'd even get a decent reply...
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Old 02-10-2012, 11:18 PM
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It's a good thing I got a digital flat-screen TV when I did. I am not concerned about movie channels or pay-per-view (I can get movies on AMC and TCM on cable and have a subscription to Netflix, as well as a bunch of my own DVDs and videotapes), so I probably won't need a cable box. I had HBO for exactly one month in the mid-1980s, but discontinued it when I found out that they didn't have that many films to begin with; those they did have, they showed over and over again for a week at a time.

jr_tech's response to my last post set me straight on the FCC's position regarding the hard date for the discontinuation of analog cable service; turns out there is none, at least not as far as the FCC is concerned. I read the FCC article myself and found that it is not their decision to end analog cable service; rather, it is a business decision made by individual cable companies. As I have mentioned, Time Warner Cable in my area (northeastern Ohio/western Pennsylvania) has already converted their systems to digital, but for now they are still carrying analog cable channels such as CNN, ESPN, TBS, TNT, et al.

I have not yet read anything online or in mail communications from TW, however, indicating that the company has any plans to drop analog cable any time soon, although they have moved several channels from analog to digital already, so this may just be the tip of the iceberg; we'll just have to wait and see what happens from this point on.
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Old 02-11-2012, 12:16 AM
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I had digital cable from 2007 until 2010 (Cox) and went through at least six Motorola converter boxes. For all their Chinese crappiness, I haven't had issue one with either the Zenith or Digitalstream DTV converter boxes in the three years they've been in use.

(I've been strictly OTA for a year and a half with about 13 channels offering English programing of a non-ethnic or evangelical nature.)

My mother has Cox analog cable and we haven't heard of any plans to discontinue it yet.
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Old 02-11-2012, 01:02 AM
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We have Comcast in my area and they dropped most of the analog channels last spring. The only channels that remain analog are channels 2-12; which, can be tuned with a standard knob style VHF tuner on an old TV. How long will these channels be available is anyone's guess; but, it probably won't be for very much longer.

Comcast offers two types of digital boxes. The first type is the big full blown Motorola box. The second box is a small POS called a digital transport adapter. This is a bare bones box that does nothing more than receive the digital channels and outputs an RF signal on either channel 3 or 4. This box has no A/V output jacks and if something goes wrong with the remote, you are screwed b/c there are no channel buttons on the box.

When they went digital, they said that each subscriber could have either one big box plus two small boxes or three small boxes at no extra charge. I think they charge something like $2/month extra for each additional small box.

In my house, the kitchen TV (a '90's 13" BPC Sharp) and my bedroom TV (an '84 knob tuned 13" Zenith) are connected directly to the cable. The other 3 TV's are connected to those POS DTA boxes. And, those boxes can be a headache. Sometimes, the picture will break up and/or drop out. Other times, the wrong channel will appear on the screen. And, I've had to call the cable company to "re activate" one of the boxes when it lost all reception. We didn't have those problems with the old analog system.

If they convert channels 2-12 to digital, I will simply install DTV converters on the effected TV's. The cable bill is too high as it is. I don't want to make it higher by renting extra boxes just to see trash programming that we care nothing about.

BTW, my analog line-up is as follows:
2 - mynetworkTV (also available OTA)
3 - WGN America
4 - Home Shopping Network
5 - CBS (also available OTA)
6 - ABC (also available OTA)
7 - NBC (also available OTA)
8 - CW - (also available OTA)
9 - PBS - (also available OTA)
10. FOX - (also available OTA)
11. QVC
12. Local access channel that airs the city council meetings, board of supervisors meeting, a few local church services, and announcements/programming having to do with the local community college.

I miss the early '80's when the quality of programming was better and the cable bill was something like $17/month. Now, they try to justify the cost by the number of channels they have. What good are all those channels if there's nothing worth watching on them?
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Old 02-11-2012, 01:13 AM
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Oh, and one other thing. I wish these modern POS boxes had a switched outlet on the back of them, like the older analog cable boxes. I think the older Motorola digital boxes had the switched outlet; but, I don't think the current Motorola big boxes have them. I guess so few people are using non-remote TV's anymore that they didn't figure a switched outlet was necessary.

Somewhere around here, I have one of those old late '70's-early '80's Jerrold cable boxes with a row of mechanical click-style buttons for channel changing. I think those boxes would go to channel 37 and I don't recall actually seeing one in use since around '86. Since then, most people had the digital readout boxes that would turn the TV on and off, as well as change channels with the remote. Some of the fancier boxes would even control the volume.
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