Cable TV to Mac

Chris Devers wrote:
> On Sat, 24 May 2008, Stephen Kawalko wrote:
>
>>> The catch, of course, is that when analog signals go away in the US
>>> in early 2009, then this approach isn't necessarily going to work
>>> any more.
>> ...[snip]...
>>
>> The end of analog signals in early 2009 only applies to broadcast TV
>> and has nothing to do with how cable companes provide their services.
>
> Then the Comcast people I was talking to were lying to me.
>
A lie is when you KNOW you are not telling the truth.

David

Slightly different ... but my son-in-law watches TV live in a little corner of his PC screen while doing work. HIs TV is not connected to his PC. Is there a way to do that on a Mac?

Kathie

On May 27, 2008, at 4:04 AM, Chris Devers wrote:

> On Sat, 24 May 2008, Stephen Kawalko wrote:
>
>>> The catch, of course, is that when analog signals go away in the US
>>> in early 2009, then this approach isn't necessarily going to work
>>> any more.
>>
>> ...[snip]...
>>
>> The end of analog signals in early 2009 only applies to broadcast TV
>> and has nothing to do with how cable companes provide their services.
>
> Then the Comcast people I was talking to were lying to me.
>
> (Actually, I find this completely possible to believe.)
>
> I think Comcast is using the FCC mandate for over-the-air analog to
> cease as a tool to encourage their own analog customers to upgrade so
> that they can free up some bandwidth to bundle in more overcompressed
> channels. I've got too many channels as it is though, and would be
> perfectly happy if 90% of them just went away.


While the cable companies do not have to stop using the analog
frequencies and signaling, I believe it is also true that they *can*
stop doing so. They shouldn't be telling you that any such change on
their system is government mandated.

Notes: I am not a lawyer. And while I have a high-level FCC license
in the broadcast arena, that doesn't mean I know anything modern
(hint: when I took the exams, one could choose between a set of tube
circuit diagram questions and a set of transistor circuit diagram
questions--I selected tube). [It doesn't really mean I knew anything
then, for that matter.]

    --John
For a lower-level license ca 1958: When an operator is told his voice
is distorting, he should (sorry ladies, that's what it said):
   a. Dismantle the modulator immediately
   b. Speak more softly for farther from the microphone
   c. Report the insult to the FCC
   d. <something else off the wall which I forget>

Tough questions. (The more technical questions were also harder than
that.)

On Wed, 28 May 2008, kstewart wrote:

> Slightly different ... but my son-in-law watches TV live in a little
> corner of his PC screen while doing work. HIs TV is not connected to
> his PC. Is there a way to do that on a Mac?

Again, this is the kind of thing that EyeTV does.

Normally it gets hooked up to a cable for a signal, but the different
models also have analog & HDTV digital tuners for over-the-air signals.

http://www.elgato.com/elgato/na/mainmenu/products/compare.en.html


--
Chris Devers

They're doing this to me, too. Comcast is changing over to a completely IP-based distribution. They want to free up bandwidth for pay-per-view, cable-on-demand, video classifieds, telephony, and internet. Also for more digital tiers of channels you've never heard of (The Tennis Channel, URGE TV). The only analog signals left in my installation are the local, full power broadcast TV stations. I'm not sure whether they will still be there after Feb'09. In the meantime, my cable bill has almost doubled, because I need 6 of their boxes and remotes which, of course, I have to rent from them. AT&T keeps making noises about introducing their own cable system but, so far, it's just noise, and there are no guarantees they will be any better.

<rant>

There are a couple of side effects to this that really rankle me:

1) The sound is frequently no longer synched to the video. It's disconcerting to see a speaker's mouth move in ways that don't match the audio. This does not seem to concern Comcast, as it occurs all the time.

2) You can have multiple TVs tuned to the same channel, and the signals arrive at each set at different times. So, moving between two rooms with a TV on the same channel can become disconcerting. If you are watching an over-the-air station, and have one TV on the cable and another on an antenna, the cable signal is delayed by several seconds, which is hugely annoying. Think instant replay in one case, or totally missing a crucial play in the other case.

3) The cable system goes down for hours at a time. Sometimes it will go down for a day or more. Of course, when you call to complain, they insist everything is working fine. On a recording. Right before automatically disconnecting the phone call. When this happens it affects everything (except, presumably, the local channels that they are still providing in analog. I haven't checked those, but then, if that's all I wanted to watch, I wouldn't have cable in the first place).

4) Random digital freezes where the sound goes away and/or the picture pixelates for random periods of time ranging from seconds to minutes. In my experience, this happens much more on MSNBC than on Fox News, and it happens most often on Olbermann. I've never seen it happen on O'Reilly. I may be paranoid, but that doesn't mean they aren't screwing with it. It happens on other channels too, even during The Masters, for chrissakes.

</rant>

johnbaxterlistsmac.com wrote:
>
> On May 27, 2008, at 4:04 AM, Chris Devers wrote:
>
>> On Sat, 24 May 2008, Stephen Kawalko wrote:
>>
>>>> The catch, of course, is that when analog signals go away in the US
>>>> in early 2009, then this approach isn't necessarily going to work
>>>> any more.
>>>
>>> ...[snip]...
>>>
>>> The end of analog signals in early 2009 only applies to broadcast TV
>>> and has nothing to do with how cable companes provide their services.
>>
>> Then the Comcast people I was talking to were lying to me.
>>
>> (Actually, I find this completely possible to believe.)
>>
>> I think Comcast is using the FCC mandate for over-the-air analog to
>> cease as a tool to encourage their own analog customers to upgrade so
>> that they can free up some bandwidth to bundle in more overcompressed
>> channels. I've got too many channels as it is though, and would be
>> perfectly happy if 90% of them just went away.
>
>
> While the cable companies do not have to stop using the analog
> frequencies and signaling, I believe it is also true that they *can*
> stop doing so. They shouldn't be telling you that any such change on
> their system is government mandated.

Well around here (NC) Time Warner is telling folks all the time that they will NOT have to do anything when the switch occurs to get cable channels. But these same ads point out that for any over the air older TVs they need to get a box and should ask for the certificates.

I can't imagine cable companies missing this chance to NOT tee folks off.

David

> While the cable companies do not have to stop using the analog
> frequencies and signaling, I believe it is also true that they *can*
> stop doing so. They shouldn't be telling you that any such change on
> their system is government mandated.

The cable carriers are claiming that they will still broadcast analog
for the foreseeable future. But, as my son pointed out, a few
previously analog channels in our line up have recently switched to
digital only. Fortunately, we can still see them even though we don't
have a digital TV, but we did need a digital cable box in order to see
the new channels.

It looks like cable will start dropping analog channels one-by-one
until they're broadcasting only digital. You will need to upgrade to a
digital cable box if you don't already have one. But, even with a
digital cable box, you'll be able to view the shows on an older analog
TV.

--
David Weintraub
qazwartgmail.com

At 5:14 PM -0700 5/28/08, fritz wrote:
>2) You can have multiple TVs tuned to the same channel, and the
>signals arrive at each set at different times. So, moving between
>two rooms with a TV on the same channel can become disconcerting. If
>you are watching an over-the-air station, and have one TV on the
>cable and another on an antenna, the cable signal is delayed by
>several seconds, which is hugely annoying. Think instant replay in
>one case, or totally missing a crucial play in the other case.

I always assumed that this was an encoding lag.

I went to a baseball game this spring and sat in a fancy box, and
there were SD and HD sets in the suite.
The SD signal was about 1/4 - 1/2 second behind the live action, and
the HD about 1 second behind that.
[ Some of that is transmission time, too ]

However, in both cases, the audio was synchronized with the picture.
--
-- Marshall

On May 28, 2008, at 5:14 PM, David Ross wrote:

> Well around here (NC) Time Warner is telling folks all the time that
> they will NOT have to do anything when the switch occurs to get
> cable channels. But these same ads point out that for any over the
> air older TVs they need to get a box and should ask for the
> certificates.

Bill insert from local cable company (Broadstripe née Millennium
Digitial Media--decidedly NOT a major) arrived shortly after my post
making clear that we won't have to change anything (but that over the
air people do). I suppose the reason for the latter is that some
households have both cable and over-the-air for different purposes.
My guess is that the language is FCC "suggested".

   --John

At 4:28 AM -0700 5/29/08, Marshall Clow wrote:

>At 5:14 PM -0700 5/28/08, fritz wrote:
>>2) You can have multiple TVs tuned to the same channel, and the
>>signals arrive at each set at different times. So, moving between
>>two rooms with a TV on the same channel can become disconcerting. If
>>you are watching an over-the-air station, and have one TV on the
>>cable and another on an antenna, the cable signal is delayed by
>>several seconds, which is hugely annoying. Think instant replay in
>>one case, or totally missing a crucial play in the other case.
>
>I always assumed that this was an encoding lag.
>
>I went to a baseball game this spring and sat in a fancy box, and
>there were SD and HD sets in the suite.
>The SD signal was about 1/4 - 1/2 second behind the live action, and
>the HD about 1 second behind that.
>[ Some of that is transmission time, too ]
>
>However, in both cases, the audio was synchronized with the picture.

Our daughter has DirecTV HighDef, and occasionally the audio will go
out of sync with the video. The Standard Operating Procedure
according to the user's manual on their receiver is to turn the
receiver off and back on again; in other words, re-boot the box.
Sounds like Windows to me.
--
Roger
Lovettsville, VA

Marshall Clow wrote:
> At 5:14 PM -0700 5/28/08, fritz wrote:
>> 2) You can have multiple TVs tuned to the same channel, and the
>> signals arrive at each set at different times. So, moving between
>> two rooms with a TV on the same channel can become disconcerting. If
>> you are watching an over-the-air station, and have one TV on the
>> cable and another on an antenna, the cable signal is delayed by
>> several seconds, which is hugely annoying. Think instant replay in
>> one case, or totally missing a crucial play in the other case.
>
> I always assumed that this was an encoding lag.
>
> I went to a baseball game this spring and sat in a fancy box, and
> there were SD and HD sets in the suite.
> The SD signal was about 1/4 - 1/2 second behind the live action, and
> the HD about 1 second behind that.
> [ Some of that is transmission time, too ]

Transmission time is not really measurable. I saw a writeup years ago about how a home view hears the crack of a bat on a ball before someone in center field. :)

Most all live TV runs through a TiVo like DVR setup these days. Allows for instant replay. Putting up a still if the feed goes down, bleeping, etc... This induces a slight delay. Based on what you noticed the HD encoding takes a bit longer than SD.

I have the same issue with TiVo. The live feed is about 1/2 second ahead of "live" Tivo.

David

David Weintraub wrote:
>> While the cable companies do not have to stop using the analog
>> frequencies and signaling, I believe it is also true that they *can*
>> stop doing so. They shouldn't be telling you that any such change on
>> their system is government mandated.
>
> The cable carriers are claiming that they will still broadcast analog
> for the foreseeable future. But, as my son pointed out, a few
> previously analog channels in our line up have recently switched to
> digital only. Fortunately, we can still see them even though we don't
> have a digital TV, but we did need a digital cable box in order to see
> the new channels.
>
> It looks like cable will start dropping analog channels one-by-one
> until they're broadcasting only digital. You will need to upgrade to a
> digital cable box if you don't already have one. But, even with a
> digital cable box, you'll be able to view the shows on an older analog
> TV.

After watching the discussions here, reading about Comcast in the news, and hearing from people with contacts inside TWC, I'm coming to the conclusion that Comcast is stuck in the mode of being the replacement for the phone company that doesn't care. Time Warner has a few dozen warts but they seem to want my business and offer me features for the prices they keep raising. Comcast doesn't seem to care.

Comcast seems to have read this play book:
<http://www.hulu.com/watch/4163/saturday-night-live-ernestine>

If the link doesn't work search <hulu.com> for "Ernestine".

David

Has any one connected the signal from a Dish as opposed to cable to a Mac?
Eye does not discuss dish signals.

AT&T just rolled out their 'alternative to cable' solutiion in our
area (Anaheim, CA). According to an article in the city paper, we are
one of about half of a dozen areas where they area currently doing
test roll outs. The issue I see from reading the info about it is that
it actually is not any different from Time Warner in our area.....ie
just as expensive, locked into 'packages' of one or two channels we
actually WANT to see with the other 30 crap channels, you still need
decoder boxes for each TV, etc......


Jeff Pearson

At 3:47 PM -0700 5/29/2008, Jeffrey Pearson wrote:

>AT&T just rolled out their 'alternative to cable' solutiion in our
>area (Anaheim, CA). According to an article in the city paper, we are
>one of about half of a dozen areas where they area currently doing
>test roll outs. The issue I see from reading the info about it is that
>it actually is not any different from Time Warner in our area.....ie
>just as expensive, locked into 'packages' of one or two channels we
>actually WANT to see with the other 30 crap channels, you still need
>decoder boxes for each TV, etc......
>

Jeff:

AT&T uverse is also available in my area of Orange County, Calif.
There are a big differences from TW:

1) You can only watch or record one HD program at a time or up to 4
SD programs on same box.

2) If you are using for internet, the DSL is likely to be slower than
TW or not depending on price level.
<https://uverse1.att.com/un/LSSelectStateForDMASwitchingAction.do>
shows speeds down ranging from 1.5Mbs down to 10Mbps down, 1.5 Mbps
up.

AT&T uses fiber to the curb and then your old copper wires from box
to home. In my case it would be 500 feet of copper vs. well over a
mile with old DSL system. Those old copper phone wires are not as
good as newer cable coax.

There may be some confusion here on cable TV boxes. Comcast and TW
are moving toward requiring everyone to have digital boxes. However,
my digital HD DVR has component, DVI and S-video outputs. My digital
non-HD box has RF and composite outputs. These are labeled Comcast
boxes by Motorola running on a system that TW accquired form Comcast.

--Jim


--

Jim Carr
jimcarrmac.com
---------------------------------------------------------------------

I switched to AT&T U-Verse (presumably the system to which you refer) from Comcast and Earthlink DSL. Internet and TV are bundled with U-Verse, and I don't think there's an option of only one or the other.

The upsides: Saves me money over the Comcast/DSL duo. It's an all fiber-optic system (except to-the-house), Internet is much faster than Earthlink. TV picture is generally really good, though with the occasional weird digital pixellation which also occurred with Comcast. Customer service is terrific, most likely because they're trying to get people to switch to U-Verse and thus have customer service on the front burner for the moment. The master box is a wireless 802.11g box, which also provides a home network (though I had them turn off their wireless and connect my 802.11n Airport Extreme via ethernet, and I use that for my wireless). One DVR and all the boxes are included in the price, no box rental fees.

The downsides: The boxes are BIG! The default email is the fairly dreadful Yahoo mail. The AT&T/Yahoo Web swamp...I mean...Web site...is almost inconceivably badly designed. You get no 'Local-on-the-8s" forecasts on the Weather Channel, only "National-on-the-8s". There are no local community access channels included, which wouldn't break my heart except that one of the omitted channels is University of Michigan Television, which sometimes has interesting programming (and used to include the Steve Jobs keynotes, but no longer). No option for unbundling Internet and TV, and no option for including AT&T landline (or cell) phone service in the package (for legal regulatory reasons, they claimed).

On May 30, 2008, at 5:33 AM, SteveJ1 wrote:

> I switched to AT&T U-Verse (presumably the system to which you
> refer) from Comcast and Earthlink DSL. Internet and TV are bundled
> with U-Verse, and I don't think there's an option of only one or the
> other.
>
> The upsides: Saves me money over the Comcast/DSL duo. It's an all
> fiber-optic system (except to-the-house), Internet is much faster
> than Earthlink. TV picture is generally really good, though with the
> occasional weird digital pixellation which also occurred with
> Comcast. Customer service is terrific, most likely because they're
> trying to get people to switch to U-Verse and thus have customer
> service on the front burner for the moment. The master box is a
> wireless 802.11g box, which also provides a home network (though I
> had them turn off their wireless and connect my 802.11n Airport
> Extreme via ethernet, and I use that for my wireless). One DVR and
> all the boxes are included in the price, no box rental fees.
>


I have U-Verse Internet (no TV) in Oakland, Ca. While you cannot
order Internet only, you order a full package and then drop the TV
portion. Since, most areas have a free trial period, there is no
additional cost for doing this. When I had U-verse installed, the
installers laid Cat-5e cable between my computer room and home theater
setup. When I dropped the TV service and sent back the TV box, I
redirected the cable to run between my computer router and a gigabit
switch in the living room, providing a solid high-speed network
connection to my Airport Express and TiVO.

Note that U-verse delivery of TV service is fundamentally different
from cable. Cable delivers all (or almost all TV signals if you have
Switched service) to your cable box and the tuner there selects (and
possibly decrypts) the picture and sound for delivery to your TV or
recorder. With U-verse, the U-verse box communicates with a central U-
verse server which then sends the selected channels (up to 4 regular
or 1 HD and 2 regular) to that box (the box also functions as a
recorder). This makes channel changing a bit slower and also prevents
the use of a TiVo HD DVR as the TiVo HD replaces a a cable box (unlike
earlier TiVos that controlled the cable box).

Alan Forkosh Oakland, CA
aforkoshmac.com

At 2:59 AM -0700 5/31/2008, Alan Forkosh wrote:

--snip--
>
>Note that U-verse delivery of TV service is fundamentally different
>from cable. Cable delivers all (or almost all TV signals if you have
>Switched service) to your cable box and the tuner there selects (and
>possibly decrypts) the picture and sound for delivery to your TV or
>recorder. With U-verse, the U-verse box communicates with a central U-
>verse server which then sends the selected channels (up to 4 regular
>or 1 HD and 2 regular) to that box (the box also functions as a
>recorder). This makes channel changing a bit slower and also prevents
>the use of a TiVo HD DVR as the TiVo HD replaces a a cable box (unlike
>earlier TiVos that controlled the cable box).
>
Alan:

In addition to cable DVR, I have a TiVo HD DVR which is only
connected to roof antenna. My location gets all the Los Angeles area
stations. Anyone near a large city may find it a nice addition. Or
maybe all they need besides a fast Internet connection.

As for the pixelization and glitches some have reported--I see those
on cable and I see them on over the air. Sometimes it may be a cable
issue but if it happens before cable or U-verse or satellite gets the
feed, it is not fault of your provider.

--Jim

--On June 1, 2008 5:23:40 AM -0700 Jim Carr <jimcarrmac.com> wrote:

> As for the pixelization and glitches some have reported--I see those
> on cable and I see them on over the air. Sometimes it may be a cable
> issue but if it happens before cable or U-verse or satellite gets the
> feed, it is not fault of your provider.

Sometimes it is the providers fault. The cause of the pixelization,
glitches and audio dropouts are because digital streaming signals can not
rebroadcast dropped packets and the compression of the signals.

Because of compression a single byte of data can represent a large swath of
data on screen. If that byte is dropped or corrupted the digital receiever
can't request the missing data be resent and has to fill in what is
missing, usually from pixel values around the missed data. This causes the
large pixel blocks. On audio it doesn't really have a way to guess the
missed data so it just drops the sound until the signal is clean again
(this is the most annoying part to me.)

The way current video compression works is it only sends the parts of the
frame that change, typically this is the moving part of the picture, the
part you typically want to watch. So corruption is most likely to occur in
the areas you are paying attention to, making bad signals very noticable.

Dropped data can occur from the station to the cable company, between the
cable company and your cable box (or in your cable box, or between your
cable box and TV if using a digital connection to the tv). Also many cable
companies re-compress signals before sending on to their cable networks (to
save bandwidth). This can cause small glitches in the over-the-air signal
to become large glitches on the cable network.

I live in downtown Kansas City fairly close to the TV stations over-the-air
broadcast antennas. I get better reception of those digital stations via
antenna then I do from my cable provider.

I believe the crappy quality of most digital signals I'm seeing are going
to drive people to download media instead of streaming. You just don't see
as many issues with stuff bought over iTunes (and *cough* bittorrent
*cough*). I think of the 10-20 movies I've rented I've seen one occurance
of pixelation and it was very brief with no dropped audio. Probably caused
by a glitch on the machine that originally encoded the video.

This is the issue I have with the new Netflix box. It streams with very
little or no buffer (I'm not sure about the buffering part)

Kevin

watches TV live in a little corner of his PC screen while doing work. HIs TV is not connected to his PC. Is there a way to do that on a Mac?

>>this is the kind of thing that EyeTV does.

Has anyone tried the TubeStick to watch TV on an iMac?