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Sidestepping A-to-D Convertors For Town Government's Cable TV?
jake-itguy writes "I am the IT guy for a small town municipality. Comcast called me the other day and told me I had to have a digital-to-analog converter for each TV in the municipality, as Comcast is turning off analog cable in September. I did a quick count, and we have 32 TVs across 6 buildings (22 being in the police and fire departments). Most of the TVs are hung on the walls. I told Comcast having a box for each TV was not acceptable and wanted a different solution. Comcast told me there was no other solution." Read on for more details of the situation, and to see if you can offer Jake any advice for distributing cable service within his Indiana town.
jake-itguy continues: "They told me they have been putting these boxes on every TV in each classroom in each school. I laughed when I heard that. I said, 'Do you know how much electricity is going to be needed for each box?' They didn't know the answer. I was bumped up to the next guy in the Comcast hierarchy, who said there was no other solution and I had to pay $3 per month for each box. Being a municipality, we are entitled to free expanded basic cable as a part of the franchise agreement back in 1982.
I know there is a solution, as hospitals and hotels don't have little boxes next their TVs. Unfortunately I haven't found a specific answer to this problem so I am asking Slashdot. Is there a box that can be put in the basement of the town hall that will convert the Comcast signal into a regular digital signal? Most of the TVs in the town have digital tuners per last years a2d conversion of the airwaves. I would be willing to replace the few analog sets with new ones if there is a good solution for this. Each building's cable feed is fed from the town hall. We have a nice big 1-inch cable coming into the building with some splitters coming off the line. Each building gets a 1/2 inch cable. Is there a box that will convert the Comcast signal to analog for the schools? I am sure the schools don't have TVs with digital tuners."
I know there is a solution, as hospitals and hotels don't have little boxes next their TVs. Unfortunately I haven't found a specific answer to this problem so I am asking Slashdot. Is there a box that can be put in the basement of the town hall that will convert the Comcast signal into a regular digital signal? Most of the TVs in the town have digital tuners per last years a2d conversion of the airwaves. I would be willing to replace the few analog sets with new ones if there is a good solution for this. Each building's cable feed is fed from the town hall. We have a nice big 1-inch cable coming into the building with some splitters coming off the line. Each building gets a 1/2 inch cable. Is there a box that will convert the Comcast signal to analog for the schools? I am sure the schools don't have TVs with digital tuners."
Couple of points - a "regular" signal is defined as digital! The other is that I would imagine that if you are only watching "basic" cable, then your digital tuners should cover the same frequencies. So there likely isn't any conversion for the digital TVs you already have.
As for the Dig to Ana converters - remember the ads the cable TV folks ran - "You won't have to change a thing if you have cable because we'll keep the analog signal around." Well - Comcast lied! I have to rent 6 (*^#(#^^ boxes for my house!
Have you compiled your kernel today??
I witnessed, many many years ago, a satellite setup for an apartment complex that used a Big Ugly Dish that muxed into a matrix of little individual tuner devices, the signals were recombined and then fed into the local F-type cable netwok, with repeater/amps behind that most likely. I wish I could tell you the brand names of these devices but I just don't remember. Let it be said; Comcrap is not the way to go, you could do much better with Dish/DirecTV (or anyone else's) service, I would suspect, and those companies would be much more helpful than your current "provider." Don't let your F-type cable go to waste, ditch Comcast and mux in the channels to your cable network from another vendor.
This is the NSA, we're gonna geet U h@x0r5! Also, what is a h@x0r5?
What you want is IPTV over multicast. A number of universities have done this - one is the University of Wisconsin at Madison, which has a pretty bare bones approach using IP multicast and Apple Quicktime. They are also pretty good about giving technical clue if you run into trouble and ask nicely. If you want to spend more money, there is the HaiVision Video Furnace, which is used by, e.g., Brown University.
I have no idea if your contract with Comcast will let you do this, but I believe that the Universities do it by restricting use to only people on campus, so you might be able to do the same.
In the US, afaik, no, they use QAM encoding, same as cable modems. However, many TV's can tune 'Clear' (unencrypted) QAM and ATSC, and all channels that are available over the air (OTA) should be unencrypted on Cable (I believe it's a legal requirement, but cable co's continueally 'accidently' encrypt channels
In the summary it says: "Being a municipality, we are entitled to free expanded basic cable as a part of the franchise agreement back in 1982." Ditching basic cable will save the tax payers a whopping $0. Comcast signed a deal ... their town granted Comcast a monopoly on cable infrastructure, in return for free service.
Now, it looks like the municipality is learning the joys of monopolies. They don't like Comcast's new policies, yet their own policies prevent competition from stepping in and offering them a solution. Now, they have to come to Slashdot for help.