# New Comcast SF Bay Area HD Channels Comming



## stream (Jul 25, 2007)

I noticed on my THD that there were a few new HD channels appearing in the program guide, but I couldn't tune them in, so I called Comcast and they said that the following new HD channels will be available starting April 15 in the SF bay area (peninsula):

736 SciFi HD
747 Food HD
751 Animal Planet HD
752 The Learning Channel HD
759 CNN HD
769 AMC HD


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## jlib (Nov 22, 2002)

Nice! Now if they would just stop there...


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## jbrasure (Jan 1, 2007)

Ahhhh SciFiHD. It's time for Battlestar in HD!


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## holmete (Aug 28, 2007)

I posted about finding the same channels the other day. I confirmed with a Comcast rep today the same go live date. She also said that they published the program guide prematurely and that the channel numbers could change. She saw that I just downgraded my service to Digital Starter and said that I will still get all of the new channels!!!

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=380705&page=3&highlight=Scifi+HD


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## wublet (Nov 30, 2006)

Anybody else on Comcast Oakland seeing a "Comcastic!" lineup change in channels 5xx?

Because it's not limited to HD channels, I put some details in this longer post over in the General forum:

http://tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=390562


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## wublet (Nov 30, 2006)

Resolved my issue by going through "Specify Channels I Receive", which put all the channels back in the right place. I assume the S3's channel map must have become corrupted at some point, though I don't know why, and expect I never will. 

One detail, just in case it's relevant to anyone with a similar issue in future: the S3's internet connection had failed at some point recently, maybe when I did a Software Update on our Apple AirPort Extreme (the S3 is Ethernet-cabled into an AirPort Express which bridges wirelessly to the AirPort Extreme which is Ethernet-cabled into the DSL modem). I had to power-cycle the AirPort Express to reconnect it to the AirPort Extreme before "Specify Channels I Receive" could complete. I don't know whether the lack of an internet connection contributed to the corruption of the channel map or not.


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## holmete (Aug 28, 2007)

So far I have everything except for SciFi HD  Animal Planet is on 862 (guide info no picture) but I am watching it on 751 which says to be announced. I guess they are still working out the bugs.


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## sfhub (Jan 6, 2007)

holmete said:


> So far I have everything except for SciFi HD  Animal Planet is on 862 (guide info no picture) but I am watching it on 751 which says to be announced. I guess they are still working out the bugs.


862 would be a bug with Tribune, TiVo's guide provider, not Comcast, so it isn't clear that Comcast aware of that at all. Comcast clearly is sending it out on 751 and as long as their guide data provider has it right, they probably won't be looking any deeper at 3rd party problems.


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## yunlin12 (Mar 15, 2003)

I got all the channels here in San Jose 95125, but the info hasn't shown up in the guide yet.


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## yunlin12 (Mar 15, 2003)

holmete said:


> So far I have everything except for SciFi HD  Animal Planet is on 862 (guide info no picture) but I am watching it on 751 which says to be announced. I guess they are still working out the bugs.


Maybe someone just shifted one number over when they were typing 751 into the computer.


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## holmete (Aug 28, 2007)

yunlin12 said:


> I got all the channels here in San Jose 95125, but the info hasn't shown up in the guide yet.


Wow...no guide information??? I had the guide information the same day I saw the channels including Animal Planet HD even though it was mapped to the wrong channel.


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## shady (May 31, 2002)

Mine is totally screwed up.
I see all the channels in the guide, but now I can't get channels that I used to get.
702, 705, 725 and 737 no longer work.
Even non hd channels 3, 6, 10 and 16 are broken (and probably more)
and 406 and 408 are unwatchable (pixilated)

phoning Crapcast now:

Update:
We spent 30 mins rebooting, sending signals, taking out cable cards, re-pairing etc.
No luck, in fact it's even worse now, because the conditional access screen shows the cards are not paired!!!


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## sfhub (Jan 6, 2007)

shady said:


> Update:
> We spent 30 mins rebooting, sending signals, taking out cable cards, re-pairing etc.
> No luck, in fact it's even worse now, because the conditional access screen shows the cards are not paired!!!


For your debugging, I would concentrate on 702/705. It should be easier to isolate them because they aren't encrypted, so broken pairing on your CableCARD won't affect them and if you have a QAM TV nearby you can have a second data source.

Usually if you can't get 702/705 it isn't a CableCARD problem. There are some CableCARD issues that could cause a problem with them, but they are more rare.

Try looking at the Diagnostic screens for frequency, signal strength, and error rates.


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## shady (May 31, 2002)

sfhub said:


> For your debugging, I would concentrate on 702/705. It should be easier to isolate them because they aren't encrypted, so broken pairing on your CableCARD won't affect them and if you have a QAM TV nearby you can have a second data source.
> 
> Usually if you can't get 702/705 it isn't a CableCARD problem. There are some CableCARD issues that could cause a problem with them, but they are more rare.
> 
> Try looking at the Diagnostic screens for frequency, signal strength, and error rates.


Thanks, I'll do that tonight. They are sending out a technician on Thursday, but I'll gather as much information as I can beforehand.


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## sammydee (Sep 24, 2006)

I also got the new HD channels in 95119, but with no guide information.

The picture quality was...OK but not great. I spent some time switching back and forth between Food and Food HD. The picture on Food HD was MUCH better than on Food, but certainly nowhere near as good as, say, NBC HD on 704. Medium-Def at best. When I first started watching Food HD, I thought, "this isn't HD", but when I flipped to Food I could see that in fact Food HD was a bit better.

One thing that struck me was that the commercials on Food HD looked quite a bit better than the show I was watching - so I wonder if some of the issue isn't at Comcast's end, but rather was at Food Network's end?

I was also rather annoyed to see that on many of the new "HD" channels there was low-def content playing, or even worse 4:3 content that someone had bizarrely decided to stretch out to 16:9. When I tune to a channel and see that they are playing stretched 4:3, I ALWAYS immediately tune out, as I find it unwatchable. (I'm talking about YOU, National Geographic HD.) Maybe I'm alone in this. 

Finally, my daughter reports that several channels she likes to watch on our other Tivo HD have disappeared in the last day or two. Discovery Kids is one she mentioned; she says she gets a black screen when she tunes to it. Not sure if it's gone forever, or if it's moving around as part of this remapping and will reappear soon. Has anyone else seen this?

...Sam


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## faerie (Sep 1, 2003)

Sweet!! They're finally up and running. I just was able to tune into SCIHD and am now watching FOODTVHD. I am a very happy camper.


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## jlib (Nov 22, 2002)

Monterey has the new channels (had to manually add them to "Channels I Receive") but, as usual, no guide data or infomational messages yet.


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## Poochie (Dec 27, 2003)

I also have the new channels, yay! I have expanded basic + digital classic, and they all came in just fine once I selected them in the channel list. I'm in 94086 / Sunnyvale and was upgraded to 1GHz in early January.

However, the guide information is completely devoid of any info. Not only is the program schedule missing, the station identifiers themselves all appear as "????". I didn't receive a "lineup changed" style message in my Messages either, I just looked for these channels since I knew they might be showing up.

Does anyone know if the missing-station-identifiers thing will resolve itself, or do I need to do something w/Comcast and/or the TiVo to straighten that out?


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## VivaLasVegas (May 17, 2007)

When Comcast added the latest new channels in the Boston area (SciFiHD and AnimalPlanetHD), there was a day-or-so lag between the new channels appearing and the guide-data showing info.


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## sinanju (Jan 3, 2005)

faerie said:


> Sweet!! They're finally up and running. I just was able to tune into SCIHD and am now watching FOODTVHD. I am a very happy camper.


You'll think it's sweet until you see the rampant frame-dropping when you're trying to enjoy new episodes of Battlestar Galactica. They seem to have cleaned up a lot of the pixelation issues, but they can't shake the frame-dropping.


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## shady (May 31, 2002)

Poochie said:


> and was upgraded to 1GHz in early January.


Just out of interest, what does that mean?


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## Poochie (Dec 27, 2003)

Shady, this refers to the bandwidth of the cable system.

Many of us in the Bay Area were in older "550MHz" systems - which resulted in us having fewer channels than neighboring systems that were previously upgraded (to 750MHz or 860MHz).

Some are still in 550MHz systems - Comcast is still in the process of these upgrades. Folks in those systems would be quite unlikely to get these new channels until after their systems get upgraded. I pointed this 1GHz thing out to indicate I was not amongst those folks - some in Sunnyvale still are.

The actual value refers to the highest frequency used/supported in the cable infrastructure. And if I recall correctly, our equipment (QAM tuners in the TiVo or various other STBs/TV QAM tuners) really max out at 860MHz, but I could be wrong on this point or this might be changing with newer models - I'm not an expert here.


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## Peter Miller (Nov 28, 2001)

VivaLasVegas said:


> When Comcast added the latest new channels in the Boston area (SciFiHD and AnimalPlanetHD), there was a day-or-so lag between the new channels appearing and the guide-data showing info.


Been two days and the new channels still are not in the guida data. Really annoying.


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## shady (May 31, 2002)

Poochie,
Thanks for the explanation.


My problem is now completely solved. The technician just left.

The other day, after they tried sending signals to the cards, the cards were left unauthorized, however the next day when I looked, both cards were Authorized and the host validation was set to Valid (something that they had never been before) however, the problem was still there.

The technician arrived, and I explained the problem, and he played around for a bit swapping out splitters in the garage etc. He then tested the signal strength and he said

"Wow, it's not surprising this thing (pointing to Tivo) doesn't work, you have a signal strength of 16, it's supposed to be between 3 and 4.

He spend some time bringing down the signal strength, but to no avail, then eventually he said he would have to send a maintenance man round to lower the signal from the pole. Nothing will work properly until that's done. I asked how come it worked up until now, but he chose to ignore that one.

Just before he left I just happened to say "This room is fed from a spliltter on the other side of that wall." He raced into the other room, and sure enough, there was a splitter with an open end. He put the cap on the open end and everything is working now INCLUDING I get my Encore Channels (ok, the wife's Encore channels) that I've already had 3 phone calls in the past to fix and they never could.

So before he left I asked, How about the high signal strength problem. To which he answered "Oh, don't worry about that, it doesn't matter if the signal strength is too high" 

Anyway, I'm happy now, the wife is happy now and the cats can go back to watching sunrise earth in the mornings!


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## jaredmwright (Sep 6, 2004)

I can confirm that I received many new channels as well and a few extra not listed in the first post. I live in the 94531 Zip code which is the East Bay Antioch area.


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## sommerfeld (Feb 26, 2006)

Peter Miller said:


> Been two days and the new channels still are not in the guide data. Really annoying.


Same here - wasn't there in San Jose last night. I submitted a lineup update ticket.


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## yunlin12 (Mar 15, 2003)

I'm in SJ 95125, submitted tickets on Tue am after seeing the signals go live. I still haven't seen the new channel info yet as of last night.


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## jbrasure (Jan 1, 2007)

sinanju said:


> You'll think it's sweet until you see the rampant frame-dropping when you're trying to enjoy new episodes of Battlestar Galactica. They seem to have cleaned up a lot of the pixelation issues, but they can't shake the frame-dropping.


Dang. I just watched Battlestar in HD, and the compression was terrible. There was a lot of pixelating during fast action and during scene changes. If Comcast has to compress the heck out of stuff in order to get more HD channels, then I'll eventually consider switching to DirecTV.

Oh wait, I can't stand DirecTV's DVR. Uggh, now I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place. Do I want my Tivo and a crappy Comcast picture, or a good picture from DirecTV and a crappy DVR. Wah!


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## bizzy (Jan 20, 2004)

Just checked last night (while BSG was recording in SD, doh!) and we're now getting SciFi HD on 736 in SF.


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## zalusky (Apr 5, 2002)

Well in Cupertino BSG wasn't pixelating but it wasn't UHD quality either it was as mentioned before DVD quality.

When are going to get guide data. Arrgh. I don't remember it ever taking this long.


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## shady (May 31, 2002)

zalusky said:


> Well in Cupertino BSG wasn't pixelating but it wasn't UHD quality either it was as mentioned before DVD quality.
> 
> When are going to get guide data. Arrgh. I don't remember it ever taking this long.


We have guide data a few miles north in Belmont.


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## coltrane (Mar 20, 2007)

In Richmond on Comcast with cable cards, we got the new channels last week however now have lost the Nat Geo channel. It is still in the guide, still on selected channels but when we select it we are getting a black screen and a message saying we do not have it available.
We also show SciFi in the guide but nothing but a black screen there too.

FWIW, we are getting the Food Channel (as well the others mentioned) but as with TBS HD the aspect seems to be 4:3 stretched to the 16:9 signal and resolution seems the same as std definition.

Anyone else have the same issues? 

(I am loathe to contact Comcast as I've seen issues like this get handled over time and the kind contact folk on the phone usually are completely clueless.)


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## vutng103 (Apr 20, 2008)

Came home drunk from the Kanye West concert late last night around 1 am, powered up my TV and to my amazement, all the channels and shows are listed for the new HD channels. So all is good here in SJ...

Now if Comcast can just get us up with FX and SPIKE, I'll be one happy customer...


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## holmete (Aug 28, 2007)

jaredmwright said:


> I can confirm that I received many new channels as well and a few extra not listed in the first post. I live in the 94531 Zip code which is the East Bay Antioch area.


What extra (not listed) channels did you get?


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## [email protected] (Dec 1, 2007)

The new channels turned up in South San Jose (95123) this weekend.

One thing I've noticed - SCiFiHD appears to be on the Eastern time zone. This means that programs we record using a wishlist will generally record off ScFiHD, as the program shows up there 3 hours before it shows up on ScFiP.

Now I want Speed and BBC America in HD ...


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## yew (Mar 29, 2003)

I am in Cupertino. foodhd and cnnhd just showed up on the channel guide this weekend.

Yes, I want Speed HD too!


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## stream (Jul 25, 2007)

[email protected] said:


> The new channels turned up in South San Jose (95123) this weekend.
> 
> One thing I've noticed - SCiFiHD appears to be on the Eastern time zone. This means that programs we record using a wishlist will generally record off ScFiHD, as the program shows up there 3 hours before it shows up on ScFiP.
> 
> Now I want Speed and BBC America in HD ...


I've noticed that on many of the HD channels, in the evening the shows are on both an east coast and west coast schedule (show that normally airs @ 9 PM, will air @ 6 & 9 PM, for example).

Also want Speed in HD! And Spike.


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## Kenji (Jun 29, 2003)

coltrane said:


> ... with TBS HD the aspect seems to be 4:3 stretched to the 16:9 signal and resolution seems the same as std definition.


Welcome to Comcast "HD". Sadly, cable TV's bitrates seem to be falling as they cram more channels into a fixed-bandwidth pipe. Even the mainstream media seems to be taking notice.


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## stargazer_guy (Apr 21, 2008)

Yeah, the picture quality of Battlestar was aweful this weekend. I would have preferred to watch a high quality SD version rather than this crappy HD version. If Comcast doesn't improve things soon then I'll bail.

On a brighter note, I watched "I am Legend" in HD on my Apple TV this weekend. Holy cow! The quality was excellent. I'm glad to see that Apple doesn't compromise on picture quality. Let's hope they get Battlestar on Apple TV soon.


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## Evilmonkee (Sep 8, 2007)

coltrane said:


> In Richmond on Comcast with cable cards, we got the new channels last week however now have lost the Nat Geo channel. It is still in the guide, still on selected channels but when we select it we are getting a black screen and a message saying we do not have it available.
> We also show SciFi in the guide but nothing but a black screen there too.
> 
> FWIW, we are getting the Food Channel (as well the others mentioned) but as with TBS HD the aspect seems to be 4:3 stretched to the 16:9 signal and resolution seems the same as std definition.
> ...


I am in Richmond as well(out by the marina). NGHD is showing black for me, as well as UHD(739). SciFiHD and the other new HD channels are all working fine, although AnimalPlanetHD initially showed up in the 800s in Tivo, but didn't work. I found it at channel 769. It's working there but there is no guide data or channel identification for it.

Just before the 15th I had a technician come out to check why UHD wasn't working when it should. He determined that although my residence is in Richmond, I should have been on the El Cerrito lineup. He had the head office change some info on my account and hit the box. That worked and UHD began working again. A couple days later it stopped working again. I called Comcast again and they said they would send another hit to my box but it was backlogged by a half hour or more. I don't think it ever made it or if it did, it didn't work. Such a PITA.

Something else of note. We were originally on the Digital Silver package but I guess they went through a naming/restructure change at some point. We had HBO/Encore as part of our package. I think when they made those changes to our account they put us in one of the newer packages because now we are getting all the Starz channels as well. I'll have to keep an eye on our next bill to see if they are charging us any more.


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## sammydee (Sep 24, 2006)

I watched SciFiHD's first-run Battlestar last Friday in zip code 95119, and the picture quality really sucked. 

Whenever the camera panned across the screen, everything got amazingly fuzzy. When the camera was still, things usually looked OK.

But every once in a while I'd get nearly horizontal streaks of wildly mis-colored macroblocks across the screen. These were in the original bitstream - I could single-frame through the sections and the artifacts were there on every playing.

For this next week, I will record Battlestar both in HD and SD. If the HD isn't any better, then I unfortunately may just record the SD version in the future - the artifacts were THAT bad. I can live with the fuzzy panning, but not with the streaks.

...Sam


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## stargazer_guy (Apr 21, 2008)

Uggh. Battlestar picture quality was just as bad this week. Does Comcast really think we don't care? They greatly under estimate the need for a high quality SciFi channel.


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## CharlesH (Aug 29, 2002)

But the marketing target is "we have more HD channels than <insert competitor here>". The picture quality is irrelevant in this context.  :down:


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## sammydee (Sep 24, 2006)

Yeah, the picture quality for Battlestar in HD in 95119 wasn't any better this week. Fortunately this week's episode of Battlestar sucked so badly that my anger was directed towards the writers, not towards Comcast. 

I'll give it another week. But the streaks of corrupted macroblocks were still there this week, big time. 

Actually, Food HD is starting to bug me even more. On several Food shows - Guy's Big Bite in particular - panning literally makes me nauseous. There is a fisheye lens effect to pans ... the outer edges of the screen pan faster than the center. Has anyone else noticed this? I don't notice this behavior on other HD channels. So long as the camera doesn't pan things look good. The effect occurs for either horizontal or vertical pans.

...Sam


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## steinercat (Nov 16, 2007)

Getting all the HD channels clear in 94404.

Just wondering though....does Comcast throw in Starz for a period when you get HBO?

I don't remember signing up for Starz....but its there.


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