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View Full Version : I thought with comcast cable you did not need a box?



Steve knight
01-04-2010, 2:40 AM
my daughter moved back in with us and as part of her rent was her new hd tv. we got one of those converter boxes so our regular tv would work. well here we get a hd tv and it scans all the channels but it won't tune most of them in just the real basic ones. we only have basic cable but without that little box the hdtv will only bring in the real basic channels. mtv and such wont work without the little box. so I guess the box is just not a hd to regular tv box? and are the channels in hd or regular tv since the box converts them? I seldom watch tv so I have not seen a tv channel in hd yet.

ROY DICK
01-04-2010, 4:43 AM
http://www.crutchfield.com/S-RpNN3dSHkCn/Learn/learningcenter/home/tv_hdtv.html.
See if this will help you.

Roy

Cary Falk
01-04-2010, 5:02 AM
Which box do you have? They have several. Comcast really sucks sometimes. You probably have the digital box. The one they said you wouldn't need when the Digital conversion happend last year but then said that if you wanted to keep all you basic cable past CH 32 you need to get this box. We have a huge HD box to get the HD channels(the 700s) and have to purchase a different plan to view anything other than the basic HD channels. HTH

John Lohmann
01-04-2010, 7:23 AM
Don't forget HD programming costs more too!

Myk Rian
01-04-2010, 7:37 AM
You can also get a cable card instead of the box. It plugs into a slot in the TV, if there is one.
With the cable card you can get many HD channels free, as well as the music channels. We do.
You will not get the program guide or on-demand.

Joe Pelonio
01-04-2010, 8:00 AM
We just went through this when we got a HDTV for my mother-in-law (age 91) at the adult family home. We had to get a box that costs $6/month from Comcast. When the channels started going digital, I lost most of them on the little old TV in my shop, and had to get a little converter box from Comcast which is free. The reason it's free, is that they advertised "with Comcast you are ready for digital and won't need a box" which turned out to be false so they had to give the boxes out free or face legal action.

Al Willits
01-04-2010, 10:13 AM
We have the box, but the TV in the dinning room is just hooked up to cable, we get 1-99 or so on that one, we don't have HD though and not sure if that makes a difference, also you sure your TV channels go up far enough?

Al

Neal Clayton
01-04-2010, 12:09 PM
yep, you need a HD box for the HD channels. the cost isn't much, an extra 10-15 a month or so usually for the whole HD tier.

Steve knight
01-04-2010, 1:29 PM
Yes thanks for the info. I called today as my daughter wanted a dvr. that would cost her 25.00 a month and a second 15.00 but I don't watch tv enough to justify the cost. I usualy only watch movies and I could get netfix for less. I have a apple tv so I can rip dvd's and watch when I want .
so without the real hd box no hd. well that sucks but for me is not a big deal. I would cancel basic cable but then our internet would be slower and would cost about the same as keeping the basic cable so no point there.

Jim Becker
01-04-2010, 3:53 PM
Comcast, in most areas, no longer delivers analog channels on the cable, so either a box is required or you need a QAM digital tuner to get the local/basic channels without a box. Almost all cable providers have gone this route to reclaim bandwidth for more digital and HD stations. Analog channels take up a lot of space. Verizon's FiOS is the same way (STB or QAM tuner for basic, non-scrambled channels) and, of course, both DirectTV and Dish Network also require boxes on all sets for all channels including locals.

Eric DeSilva
01-04-2010, 4:21 PM
In addition to what everyone else has said, remember Comcast didn't build all its systems. A lot were acquired from third parties. So, there isn't necessarily any uniformity to how the systems work from locality to locality. My Comcast service in northern VA (and the STBs they use) are vastly different than my friend's, who is only 4 mi. away in DC.