Is time warner cable combinig local atsc off air channels ?

[jorb]

I recently helped my neighbor with a Time Warner cable box problem.
When I arrived on the scene there was a analog cable box hooked up to a Sony 50" hi def tv 16x9.
The box was not channging channels and was stuck on channel 3.
So I unpluged the box and was able to get it to function properly.

But I was wondering why did Time Warner hook-up a analog box to a hi def tv. According to my nieghbor he had it for 5 years and was paying $7.99 / month. I figured the reason was ppv that he never used.

I told him he could save $7.99 / month and just go directly into the rf cable f-connector port and dump the box, he agreed.

I scanned for channels and the tv locked on to the normal cable channels, but it also locked onto the local off air atsc digital channels. The tv displayed them as c2 ,c2.1 ,c2.2 ,c2.3 ,c3 ,c4 ,c5 ,c1.5 ,c6
,c7 ,c8 ,c9 ,c10, c11 ,c11.1 ,c12

The channels with the points are local off air atsc digital channels the others are cable channels.

I called the cable company and they told me that they did not combine local off air atsc digital channels with cable channels.

Is the coax cable acting as a antenna? I don't think so.

Does'nt the cable company have to send out a unscrambled QAM signal for a QAM tuner in the tv to pick-up the signal and display it as c2.1 Which is a local off air atsc digital channel.

jorb

[scooper]

Not sure they HAVE to send Clear QAM, but many do . That's what you're seeing - not ATSC over cable (unless you have a very different TVC local division)

He might want to keep that cable box, BTW. Cable companies have a nasty habit of moving clear QAM channels around - thus requiring rescanning.

[Stewart Vernon]

He should probably get a new HD converter box to replace that old analog one... as Scooper said, Time Warner does move those around.

Also... they sometimes mess up the mappings so you might not get them on your expected local channel # but some odd looking number.

[Cholly]

Depending on your neighbor's likes/dislikes, it might be to his advantage to trade the old cable box for a new one. Even if he doesn't choose to subscribe to any of the extended packages, he'll get a ton of SD channels to replace the analog ones. Then, too, he might choose to spend the extra bucks to get the HD package(s).
It's worth looking into.

[BattleZone]

Cable companies are required to retransmit, unencrypted, any OTA broadcast channels they use on their system, yes.

[jorb]

Cable companies are required to retransmit, unencrypted, any OTA broadcast channels they use on their system, yes.

Then they are retransmitting duplicate local station signals.

c2.1 ,c2.2 ,c2.3 which are clear QAM channels the last two being subchannels of the same station.

c3 is the same as c2.1 but is a down converted 4:3 ratio signal. I think they do this for analog NTSC tuner tv customers without set top boxes. If this is true that means QAM tuners can also see analog signals. I thought a tv with a QAM tuner means it has a digital cable ready tuner, meaning only capable of seeing digital signals.

jorb

[jorb]

He should probably get a new HD converter box to replace that old analog one... as Scooper said, Time Warner does move those around.

Also... they sometimes mess up the mappings so you might not get them on your expected local channel # but some odd looking number.

I informed him about getting a hd box which he mite do. The thing is he has been watching 4:3 ratio content in wide scaled mode for so long he can't tell the difference between 16:9 and 4:3 ratio content. They should of never put scalers in hd tv's it really screwed-up people in that they are not looking at how old camera lens were and how new camera lens are. As far as a wider field of view goes.

jorb