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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."
If you don't mind them all being tuned to the same channel, you only need 1 converter box per building. Might also need an RF amplifier to help with distribution since by definition splitting the signal attenuates it.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Get antennas and cheap converter boxes. Or get a Channel Plus 3025 and only buy one cable box per building and pay $3 a month per box forever.
If several TVs are tuned into the same channel in a building, you could use one box at the point-of-ingest into the building.
Hotels frequently have a bank of converters, each tuned to a different digital channel. The outputs of all of the converter boxes are put onto separate analog channels, multiplexed and fed through a distribution amplifier.
You would need a box for each channel you wish to receive. While this may work with a hotel where they own all of the premise wiring to the rooms it would be impractical for a widespread system across a city.
Tisha Hayes
and provides an alternative to Comcast digital cable?
Hmm, sounds like a book to me.
Why couldn't you get a few tuners for the channels you want to distribute - and then modulate them on analog/digital channels and run your own signal? I'm pretty sure this is what hotels/hospitals do.
Never cease to wonder. If you do you have become compliant with the world around you, and that is a very dangerous thing
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??
You may want to check the exact wording of the franchise agreement. Depending on how it's worded, if they are required to provide you free access to basic cable and they no longer offer that option, you may have some leverage with them. If nothing else, you may persuade them to give you the hardware at no cost.
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?
Get all of the police and firemen to go to the city council and demand they end the Comcast monopoly and while they are at it, have the city council ban encryption of the digital signal.
Without a doubt, Comcast will find a solution for you!!!
Get a converter for every digital channel you care about and retransmit on analog channels. Don't interfere with other channels. You can do this per-building or for the whole town if it's small enough.
Actually, don't, since that would cost too much for the little benefit you would gain.
Put just a few converters in each building and have a remote switch to pick your digital channel and analog channel.
http://www.vecima.com/products.php?line=1026&item=1083
It does the digital to analog conversion in one spot, and is used to handle doing so for large buildings such as hospitals or apartment blocks.
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.
If you use haft-inch and one inch do describe coax cables maybe your not the best guy for the job.
Half inch, 1 inch, and "625" (which stands for 0.625", or 5/8 inch) are all industry-standard ways to specify the different sizes of 75 Ohm CATV coax Mr. anonymous dumbass. Yes, I am a CATV engineer.
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
way to confuse the government mandated OTA switch from analog to digital with Comcast's decision to turn off analog cable. You even managed to sound like a pompous, condescending ass while being completely wrong.
Better advice: sue. The FCC is requiring cable providers to maintain analog cable until 2012 unless they provide converters for their customers. Unless I'm misunderstanding, charging their customers to rent the boxes was NOT one of their options.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
If you bothered to read the complete submission, you would have noticed it's free to their municipality due to an existing agreement.
"Being a municipality, we are entitled to free expanded basic cable as a part of the franchise agreement back in 1982."
At this point, he's trying to stop from using taxpayer money to pay for and run the cable boxes. Hence the point of the submission.
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.
Reasons for TV in a City:
City/Police/Fire - Weather Disasters
Fire - 24 hr shifts.
Never trust a man wearing a coat and tie!
Being a municipality, we are entitled to free expanded basic cable as a part of the franchise agreement back in 1982.
They are not 'paying' for the cable TV.
Analog broadcast to digital you mean, HD doesn't enter into it. If a station wanted to broadcast multiple SD channels instead of HD, they would have the FCC's blessing.
Sorry to nitpick, but too many people think the digital transition was all about HD, when it was in reality nothing to do with HD.
FC Closer
Being a municipality, we are entitled to free expanded basic cable as a part of the franchise agreement back in 1982.
Sounds like you may need to have a quick chat with your city's lawyer about whether Comcast is trying to do an end-run around that agreement. That section may make your problem their problem instead.
I am officially gone from
Enough of this shit. I want my cops & fire department on break to feel like they're well-trained and compensated, trusted professionals, not slave-wagers in the "all your base are belong to the company man" plan. (Also, I want tough and transparent oversight.) Otherwise you get the TSA.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
If the franchise agreement really says you get expanded basic in exchange for them getting the franchise, then I'd have a word with the township's lawyers. Depending on how the deal is stated, it's probably Comcast's problem to make this work, not yours. I suspect that if the town's lawyers had a word with Comcast's lawyers, then someone in Comcast's engineering department would sort things out right quick.
A thousand pounds of wood moving at 300 feet per minute. Don't get in the way.
U.S. digital cable is not ATSC (8-VSB modulation) over-the-air broadcast signal compatible. Instead, the main MPEG2 payload is carried in 64-QAM or 256-QAM modulation, within RF channels that fit the usual US-standard 6 MHz spacing. Alongside this, are one or more "out-of-band" carriers that use a different modulation format and lower data rate, that carry channel maps and other administrative information. Finally, there is an upstream (settop box to head-end) channel in RF bands lower in frequency than the downstream RF, that is used for administrative purposes and for pay-per-view.
The signal structures are described in published standards freely available from SCTE. The out-of-band and reverse channels have two different standards, reflecting the original developments by General Instrument (now Motorola) of one standard, and by Scientific Atlanta (now Cisco) of the other.
Much (but not all) of the content is covered by "conditional access" (encryption), the details of which are of course unpublished.
...who said there was no other solution and I had to pay $3 per month for each box.
About the third line of the second quoted section.
The problem isn't with his employer, hence no point resigning. Me I'd rather have people in government who in the interest of reducing government expense would actually care enough to doubt what some kid at Comcast says and look for advice elsewhere, despite the hordes of idiots who would surely be jerks when given the opportunity.
Time to whip out the old "do not hire" list...
Name : Larry Bagina.
Reason: Quitter, can't read, anti-social dispenser of useless advice.
Well, the analog over the air signal was phased out already. OTA should be digital now. The federal government gave coupons for free D-A converters for older TVs. That does not affect cable. Cable has capacity for both analog and digital; however, if a cable operator decides to switch to all digital, then that's a dispute between the cable operator and its customers.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Exactly where in the 'article' is the information about Comcast charging? It's not.
Last time I used cable, the box came free with the service. If you wanted a better box, you paid more. ($10 more for HD, or DVR, or HD-DVR. Yeah, they were all the same.)
You are partially correct. Comcast charges a per box fee past 4 boxes. If you only have 4 TVs, no extra fee.
Not necessarily. The boxes are 24/7 vampires unless they're breakered every night at a strip or wall. My gym had to get a box from comcast last week for EVERY cardio machine that had an integrated TV. This meant 35 boxes. Each one runs warm, and also requires a remote control (no controls on the box). So in addition to 10-20 watts per box times 35, there's also 2X AA's times 35 once a year or so. If you're conservative with the numbers, that's 8.4 KWh a day of power draw that didn't exist before, regardless of a TV being on or not.
I actually work for a TV company... might be able to give a little insight.
Most headends for hotels, hospitals and the like are comprised of a rack of STBs, each tuned to a specific channel. The output is modulated as an RF signal and combined with all the others, so the incoming digital signal is effectively converted to analog for redistribution on the local coax network.
So, if you're wanting to display more than 32 services, you'll need at least that many STBs at your analog headend. You'll also need to manage the infrastructure to distribute it to the six buildings, which would probably mean running underground cables underground, and if there is any sort of distance you'd need some RF amplifiers. You might be able to get around some of that using something like a slingbox over IP, but again, added cost.
Finally, there's the management aspect. What happens if a channel moves to another channel number? You'll have to retune the box. If a box goes down for any reason, you'll have to replace it as the channel will be knocked out. And one of the less fun aspects of managing a TV system is that people treat it as a utility... if it's down, expect to get a call, even at 3AM.
If I were you, I'd push your cable company to donate STBs in order to keep your relationship rosy. That way, no $3/month fee (which does seem wrong based on your agreement), and none of the buildout/management headaches.
Best of luck.
Still not dead.
Wasn't part of the statement of problem that they are wall-mounted analog-only TVs, and therefore can't have boxes at the site of the TV? "Free boxes or my lawyers will eat you" doesn't help solve the problem, and city lawyers have better things to do than this. In any event, from the description of the situation Comcast is certainly not trying to "get around" anything; they are still providing basic cable for free. It's just not analog; the city has to go digital like everybody else. FCC mandate. The question is how to do so without converter boxes at the TV itself, not who to sue.
Everybody gets what the majority deserves.
Yeah, because keeping guys working 12's with plenty of downtime entertained is such a waste....
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Really? People need this explained?
Police and firemen are two kinds of jobs which can have different definitions of "work". Jobs in which you are waiting for a call (something to happen) often allow for personal time and even sleep such as in the case of firemen. Same deal for soldiers- you're always "at work", but not always on patrol.
Hell, I was a third-shift NOC guy for a while and there was very little actual work to do during a routine shift.
Last year, to support CableCard / mCard / Tru2Way [the technology has been renamed several times] deployment, we tried to get a Panasonic Tru2Way television for our development lab.
The distributor refused, as the local Cable company [that would be us] did not support Tru2Way
Caution: Do not stare into laser with remaining eye.
Then use four boxes to convert to analog and then amplify the signal into your own analog network.
The alternative is to just flip them the bird and forget about having TV at all on the premises and stick to using radio channels. NPR would do fine.
Life still goes on without TV.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
More like Fire and Ambulance guys that live in the fire house. You work 12 hours on, only a small fraction of that will typically be active duty so filling the rest or the time with entertainment is fine. It's the price you pay for faster response times than a volunteer department that has to rush to the fire house before heading out to the fire.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
First, disclaimers. I don't work for Comcast, but I do consult to them. I don't speak for Comcast in any way. I am under NDA, so I can't give you the sort of specific technical information you need. There may be any number of reasons why this thing wouldn't work in your circumstances, or why Comcast wouldn't choose to provide you one.
Having said all of that, you might want to look into the MDTA. It's the "solution" you're sure exists ;-)
It is POSSIBLE that one of these could be connected to your 1 inch (probably 850) hardline. But be aware that it doesn't mix with digital video services, though CableModems and MTAs work fine when hung off of it.
-Peter
>>>Isn't digital cable ASTC compatible if it is not encrypted?
Yes and no. ATSC chips are designed for the dual purpose of interpreting both the 8/16VSB and QAM signals. The question is whether or not the engineer enabled the QAM capability. In most cases the answer is yes but not always.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
"There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now."
Comcast: That'll be $12 per month please.
"pr0n": An anagram of "porn," possibly indicating the use of pornography. - www.microsoft.com
As someone noted upthread, this is probably going to see the most use in fire/EMS stations, where you have to pay guys to stand around and wait 24/7 even if nothing's going on. I'm pretty hard on government waste, but a thousand dollars a month so the firemen can have cable... it's a benefit that costs very little but provides them a great value.
There was a local newspaper column about Comcast's switch to digital encoding for everything and the requirement that everyone have a cable box (shades of pre-cable ready TV again). As with all things local newspaper + technology, it was shockingly short of facts.
What I don't understand is why Comcast doesn't use in the clear ATSC digital encoding for their "analog to digital" conversion? I finally got a TV with an ATSC tuner and was surprised to see ATSC digital channels on the cable coming out of the wall without a box.
Of course I know the conspiracy angle is Comcast just wants to nickel and dime everyone as much as possible, but the ability to just connect a TV to cable without a box has been a strength of cable vs. satellite (along with a simpler wiring scheme). When the box becomes a requirement to get ANY TV, I think they lose a competitive advantage over satellite.
The article I read said they would be supplying 1-2 boxes for free to all subscribers. Given the relative stupidity of most people and the inherent added complexity this adds to cable, wouldn't it be more profitable in the long run to just encode via ATSC and not deal with all the nuisance of boxes and box support and box replacement, ad nauseum?
I read a funny post recently from a New Comcast subscriber.
Well it would have been funny if it had not been so sad.
Quoting from memory:
"They said they would take care of us when the Analog switched off. Just pay $10 a month and you'll get all your local stations with your old set. So I signed up. Great deal. Now less than a year later they are telling us we need to rent boxes for $5 per set, per month, if we want to keep getting our local stations. Thanks a lot Comsucks. Had I known that we would have bought the $40 converter boxes with those $40 coupons instead. Now it's too late."
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
When Comcast announced they were switching all these old ladies in assisted living over to digital I just knew it was going to be a disaster. Sure enough, the residents keep forgetting how to use them, and keep grabbing the old TV remote to change channels (which won't work duh).
They've tried hiding the old TV remotes in drawers but then the residents get mad and want to know who stole them.
In some places, it isn't so much that there's encryption than that the signal is slightly out of specification such that typical authorized devices work fine but that most editing tools can't access the video signal. Fox prime-time programming seems to be a consistent problem. For example, a recorded stream from a Firewire port on a cable box won't decode properly in MPEG StreamClip, but a TiVoToGo transfer can be extracted and converted to editable HDV using Roxio Toast Titanium. (MPEG StreamClip though is still needed to extract the 5.1 audio; Roxio's software only exports stereo.)
This is separate from broadcast-flag problems where you can record a Copy-Once program but you're not allowed to play it back (on a computer). I've been seeing Copy Once asserted on Fox and ABC, but not both ABC affiliates in the same area for the same programming, yet the TiVo be completely immune from this flag.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
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.
It looks to me, like Mr. Government employee has a point, and that Comcast is contractually obligated to provide those "$3 per month" boxes for free - part of the cost of getting the franchise.
Maybe then you guys will learn to count and balance your budgets.
While the IT guy generally isn't responsible for balancing the budget, as you seem to think, he actually is doing a good job of it here by trying to get rid of unnecessary costs.
What would you have him do? Roll over and take the added costs lying down?