Need Cable/Antenna/Digital TV Help

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  • LCHIEN
    Internet Fact Checker
    • Dec 2002
    • 20914
    • Katy, TX, USA.
    • BT3000 vintage 1999

    #16
    actually, I think, by law, most cable companies are required to retransmit local broadcast TV stations. This is so that local news and alerts (weather and disaster information) is available to the end user. It was also a concession to local municipalities when cable first came on the scene that it would improve reception for marginal range citizens and increase the penetration of advertisers on the local channels and not put those guys out of business that only watching nationally sourced commercials might.

    So for this reason, its basically real time, not stored, and reformatted to NTSC for legacy customers and limited to the 10 or so channels you get for very, very basic cable. Everything else they are going to cable digital formats (not ASTC) for which you require converter boxes. This saves bandwidth so they can offer more channels with cable (not fiber) technolgy they use.
    Last edited by LCHIEN; 10-01-2011, 08:26 AM.
    Loring in Katy, TX USA
    If your only tool is a hammer, you tend to treat all problems as if they were nails.
    BT3 FAQ - https://www.sawdustzone.org/forum/di...sked-questions

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    • wbsettle
      Forum Newbie
      • Mar 2006
      • 92
      • Wilmington, NC
      • BT3100

      #17
      Originally posted by Knottscott
      Thanks so much to everyone for all the great replies. This stuff is far more complex than I realized.

      I'm going to try and manually tune some of the antenna channels into the TV, and may also give a combiner or backward splitter a shot if the manual tuning doesn't work out. Gotta a funeral today, and start my work rotation tomorrow, so won't be back to the land of the living until Thursday (which might give me time to source a combiner.).

      This info is much appreciated!
      Knott, chances are, you're already getting everything you could receive OTA in your basic cable package. The FCC has some "must carry" rules for cable carriers to follow. If you want to confirm, check out TV Fool. Using your address and elevation, the site will display the direction, distance, display/real channel, and expected signal strength of your potential OTA reception.

      As has been hinted at once or twice, the main reason you can't switch back in forth is the different formats used. OTA is ATSC, while your cable company is using a combination of QAM and NTSC. Even if you're TV had two antenna inputs, it's likely that the Cable/Antenna choice in the setup menu would apply to both at once so you'd still be unable to do what you want. It's a little clunky, but your TV might remember the stored channels for each format (Antenna/Cable). The Vizio we got for my son's room this past Christmas does this as I learned in the wake of Irene...out of curiousity, I switched it over to Antenna and did a scan for channels while cable was out and when I switched it back to Cable all of the previously stored cable channels were remembered and didn't need rescanning.

      You can most likely get your local digital stations without a cable box via "in the clear QAM", although I'm not sure if this is part of the "must carry" rules or not. My provider, TWC, does so for my local network affiliates' (ABC/CBS/NBC/Fox/PBS) signals are all available in the clear on cable, including their subchannels. While the cable companies do provide a bit of compression to the signal when the bits are compared to the original OTA signal, I wouldn't want to bet a large sum of money I could reliably tell the difference.

      "Full HD", mentioned in a few posts, is simply marketing hype for 1080p display capability that's trying to suggest that 720p sets aren't really HD when 720p, along with 1080i, is part of the HDTV standard. No broadcaster is transmitting 1080p programming in the US...well, unless PPV programming counts. Digital broadcasters are using either 480i, 720p (Disney/Fox properties mainly and a few others like History, Speed), or 1080i (CBS/NBC properties, Discovery, and numerous others). You'll need to go to Blu-ray to get a 1080p source. FWIW, good old DVD is encoded as 480i.

      -Brent

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      • woodturner
        Veteran Member
        • Jun 2008
        • 2047
        • Western Pennsylvania
        • General, Sears 21829, BT3100

        #18
        Originally posted by wbsettle
        "Full HD", mentioned in a few posts, is simply marketing hype for 1080p display capability that's trying to suggest that 720p sets aren't really HD when 720p, along with 1080i, is part of the HDTV standard. No broadcaster is transmitting 1080p programming in the US...well, unless PPV programming counts. Digital broadcasters are using either 480i, 720p (Disney/Fox properties mainly and a few others like History, Speed), or 1080i (CBS/NBC properties, Discovery, and numerous others).
        It's also helpful to consider the size and resolution of the HDTV that will be used to view the program. The 1080i vs 1080p issue is really a non-issue. Without getting into the technical details, both are essentially the same effective resolution and quality.

        OTA broadcasts are typically 1080i in my area, though some stations are still transmitting 720p or analog. That will vary with the area and the stations though.

        The digital broadcast standard defines three "quality" levels:
        SDTV – Standard Definition TV – Resolution is 480i - this is essentially the quality of the NTSC analog stations (e.g. old standard)
        EDTV – Enhanced Definition TV – Resolution is 480i and 480p.
        HDTV – High Definition TV – Resolution is 720p, 720i, 1080i, and 1080p

        Technically, only the last is "HDTV", and companies can refer to any of these resolutions as "full HDTV".

        In spite of what some people claim on some of the "HD-phile" sites, for smaller sets, up to 32" or so, the human eye is incapable of detecting the difference between 720 and 1080 and between i and p. For larger sets, the difference becomes noticeable. For example, on a 40" HDTV, most people perceive a picture quality difference between 720 and 1080.
        Last edited by woodturner; 10-03-2011, 01:32 PM.
        --------------------------------------------------
        Electrical Engineer by day, Woodworker by night

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        • cabinetman
          Gone but not Forgotten RIP
          • Jun 2006
          • 15218
          • So. Florida
          • Delta

          #19
          Originally posted by woodturner
          In spite of what some people claim on some of the "HD-phile" sites, for smaller sets, up to 32" or so, the human eye does not have enough resolution to detect the difference between 720 and 1080, and between i and p. For larger sets, the difference becomes noticeable. For example, on a 40" HDTV, most people perceive a picture quality difference between 720 and 1080.
          When we viewed sets to purchase a 32", we saw a difference between 720 and 1080.

          .

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          • alpha
            Established Member
            • Dec 2003
            • 352
            • Owensboro, KY, USA.

            #20
            You can probably solve the issue simply by using a programmable remote. I have a "Philips Icon Remote" that I am certain would work. It has 2 buttons at the top, "his" and "hers". Set up the "his" channels for Cable and "hers" for the antenna. Once you know the channel numbers and the network for each channel you can program it into your remote. It has 5 buttons on each side. The last button takes you to a new screen so you can program as many channels as you need (9 channels per screen) for each source. When you want to change channels you just press the button by the remote screen. There are probably other programmable remotes that do the same thing. I think mine cost around 50 bucks.

            You would still have to switch from cable to antenna but that can be programmed into your remote too. This is probably your least expensive solution.

            Bob

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            • cwsmith
              Veteran Member
              • Dec 2005
              • 2737
              • NY Southern Tier, USA.
              • BT3100-1

              #21
              I didn't read through every word of all of the replies, so this may have already been said. So my apologies, if this is just a repeat.

              We are moving constantly between two houses (75 miles apart) and we carry a TV between the two and get very much the same issue that you have.

              Problem is that between your antenna and your cable, the channel frequencies are different. The cable company can basically "channel" any "frequency" anywhere it wants... but to actually broadcast over the air, requires a very specific "frequency" provided under license from the FCC. That frequency is assigned and does not change.

              So, your TV receiver when going thru the "setup" process, scans up and down it's range and finds any signals and logs them into memory which is then selected when you change channels.

              But when you switch between the "antenna" and the "cable" signals, all that changes. The TV will look to it's "memory" for the last setup and if the incoming signal (antenna or cable) is different, it simply won't match.

              Now in Painted Post and Binghamton, we both use Time-Warner cable... but the channels are different and thus we have a problem, much like yours. Only inexpensive fix is to run the setup everytime we move the TV between houses.

              I hope this helps,

              CWS
              Think it Through Before You Do!

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              • Knottscott
                Veteran Member
                • Dec 2004
                • 3815
                • Rochester, NY.
                • 2008 Shop Fox W1677

                #22
                Update

                Update:

                I combined the cable and antenna signals through a coax splitter (instead of the A/B switched splitter), then programmed the stations...this seems to do the trick as far as programming goes. There seems to be some signal loss on some of the cable channels, but I'll double check connections and see if it improves. Thanks for the help everyone!
                Happiness is sort of like wetting your pants....everyone can see it, but only you can feel the warmth.

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