# Does your cableco remap HD channels?



## RGM1138 (Oct 6, 1999)

Cableone has, up until today, remapped my local channel HD signals to lower band channels 3, 5, 6, 8, 10 etc. They were working on an outage this morning, and when they finished, all of the channels which used to be HD are now SD.

Unfortunately, the Cableone TiVo phone tech for my area is in another state. They didn't even know that it was the practice to run HD signals to the TiVo in low band channels. The Senior Tech told me it wasn't possible to get HD on lower channels, even though I've been recording shows in HD on those channels for months.

Does anyone else get their local TV channels' HD feed on channels 3-10?


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## tarheelblue32 (Jan 13, 2014)

Yeah, TWC maps the HD and SD channels to the same channel number, and whether you get the HD or SD depends on whether your equipment is HD compatible or not. Try pulling out the card and pushing it back in. That might get it to reacquire the correct channel map.


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

RGM1138 said:


> Does anyone else get their local TV channels' HD feed on channels 3-10?


Never. Since my feed strips PSIP, even before getting a TiVo the locals were on higher channels. Before my feed went digital, the lowest numbers were analog. Then they went SD, with the clear QAM locals being UHF. Now with a cable card the HD starts at 502. You can check the DVR Diagnostics for Channel List Received = Yes, and a VCT ID being a number, not a "?". Otherwise, your feed will have to send the pairing data to your card again. This can happen if your feed changes hardware on their end.


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## RGM1138 (Oct 6, 1999)

JoeKustra said:


> Never. Since my feed strips PSIP, even before getting a TiVo the locals were on higher channels. Before my feed went digital, the lowest numbers were analog. Then they went SD, with the clear QAM locals being UHF. Now with a cable card the HD starts at 502. You can check the DVR Diagnostics for Channel List Received = Yes, and a VCT ID being a number, not a "?". Otherwise, your feed will have to send the pairing data to your card again. This can happen if your feed changes hardware on their end.


Thank you for that info. I did check CLR and it said No, and VCT ID had a number. I would have never known to look for those. And, apparently the phone CS people didn't either.

They were doing some maintenance earlier, and probably changed out some equipment. I have a service call scheduled for tomorrow, and they should be able to get my HD channels back.

Thanks again!


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

I think they do for their own equipment, but not for TiVo with CableCARD. I don't watch live TV ever, so I don't really care where the channels are. As long as the shows I watch show up in search I'm golden. I just unchecked all the SD channels from the list so I can ensure I get HD.


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## jsmeeker (Apr 2, 2001)

Yes


But with a recent major line up change for TW, they are also now in their normal, OTA channel number locations. But it didn't used to be that way.


Why they have them duplicated way up in the 1200 number range baffles me.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

They're not duplicated. They have an SD and HD version of each channel on a specific QAM frequency. The channel map links that QAM frequency to a friendly channel number. The same QAM frequency can be used for multiple friendly channel numbers, and can even be selected intelligently. So for someone that has an SD box entering channel 2 would select the QAM frequency for the SD version and for someone using an HD box it selects the QAM frequency for the HD version. They keep separate friendly channels for both so they can be tuned directly or for boxes that can't apply the intelligent logic.


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## tarheelblue32 (Jan 13, 2014)

jsmeeker said:


> Yes
> 
> But with a recent major line up change for TW, they are also now in their normal, OTA channel number locations. But it didn't used to be that way.
> 
> Why they have them duplicated way up in the 1200 number range baffles me.


After the national channel realignment on TWC, channel numbers below 100 still vary by local market, while channels above 100 are the national channel numbers. So, on TWC in my market, channel 9 is ABC, but on yours, channel 5 might be ABC. But in any TWC market, channel 1200 is always ABC.


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## jsmeeker (Apr 2, 2001)

tarheelblue32 said:


> After the national channel realignment on TWC, channel numbers below 100 still vary by local market, while channels above 100 are the national channel numbers. So, on TWC in my market, channel 9 is ABC, but on yours, channel 5 might be ABC. But in any TWC market, channel 1200 is always ABC.


in the Dallas/Ft. Worth/North Texas, the broadcast channels lines up. OTA channel == cable channel. And you get it in HD. I guess that is what I thought what we were talking about.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

I wouldn't mind if the "low numbered" ones defaulted to the HD version, but I'm one of the apparently few who does still want the *ability* to record in SD. (My 3 TB drive from IIRC last fall is nearly full after I then changed most of my SPs/now OnePasses to HD.. But I still record some things in SD, like news/documentaries, so I can download them and watch them in VLC. Mostly for file size reasons on the download..)


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## tarheelblue32 (Jan 13, 2014)

mattack said:


> I wouldn't mind if the "low numbered" ones defaulted to the HD version, but I'm one of the apparently few who does still want the *ability* to record in SD. (My 3 TB drive from IIRC last fall is nearly full after I then changed most of my SPs/now OnePasses to HD.. But I still record some things in SD, like news/documentaries, so I can download them and watch them in VLC. Mostly for file size reasons on the download..)


Yeah that's the one disadvantage to mapping the HD and SD to the same channel numbers. You lose access to the SD streams.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

Are we talking about SD feeds being sent out with analog modulation, or two different digital versions of the same channel?


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## tarheelblue32 (Jan 13, 2014)

unitron said:


> Are we talking about SD feeds being sent out with analog modulation, or two different digital versions of the same channel?


Two different digital versions (HD and SD) of the same channel.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

We're talking about the HD version being mapped to the recognizable channel number. So if in your area NBC is channel 4 on most cable systems the SD version was 4 and the HD version was like 704. But recently they started mappjng the HD version to 4 on boxes that can handle HD and in some cases CableCARDs too. Some even do it with the HD version of basic cable channels so if you're use to CNN being channel 40 they will mapp CNN-HD to 40 for boxes that support HD.


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## RGM1138 (Oct 6, 1999)

Dan203 said:


> I think they do for their own equipment, but not for TiVo with CableCARD. I don't watch live TV ever, so I don't really care where the channels are. As long as the shows I watch show up in search I'm golden. I just unchecked all the SD channels from the list so I can ensure I get HD.


In my situation, we have several out of town network affiliates along with the local stations. And all of their HD feeds are between channels 3 and 11. But, only on TiVo. On the regular Moto digital cable boxes, all of those channels are SD.

And all of those channels fit on one page of the Tivo guide. It makes it easy to see if one station is pre-empting a show, I may be able to get it from another station. Also, I can check all of the late night shows at a glance to see if I want to record one of them.

On the downside, there aren't any SD feeds if I want to record news or something similar.

And the HD feeds in the high band channels are all over the place, from 411 to 499, including the secondary digital feeds.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

For us all the SD locals are repeated in the 200s and all the HD locals are in the 700s so you can record either if you want, regardless of which on your equipment tunes when you go to 2-13.


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## tomhorsley (Jul 22, 2010)

The SD/HD numbering is totally random with comcast here in Delray Beach, FL. It took me hours to track down all the SD versions of HD channels and remove the SD versions from the list. Only after all those hours did I discover that I could edit the channel list from the guide where I could also sort by channel name which tended to get the SD and HD versions together.


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## CharlesH (Aug 29, 2002)

tomhorsley said:


> The SD/HD numbering is totally random with comcast here in Delray Beach, FL. It took me hours to track down all the SD versions of HD channels and remove the SD versions from the list. Only after all those hours did I discover that I could edit the channel list from the guide where I could also sort by channel name which tended to get the SD and HD versions together.


That is what I discovered recently (sort by channel name). It makes getting rid of the SD channels real easy.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

For us all channels over 500 are HD, with the exception of a few SD premium channels, and all channels below that are SD. So it's pretty easy to disable all the SD channels.


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## jsmeeker (Apr 2, 2001)

Dan203 said:


> We're talking about the HD version being mapped to the recognizable channel number. So if in your area NBC is channel 4 on most cable systems the SD version was 4 and the HD version was like 704. But recently they started mappjng the HD version to 4 on boxes that can handle HD and in some cases CableCARDs too. Some even do it with the HD version of basic cable channels so if you're use to CNN being channel 40 they will mapp CNN-HD to 40 for boxes that support HD.


This is what Time Warner did in Dallas/North Texas

In addition to the local network affiliates being available at two numbers (say, 5 and 1203 for Channel 5 KXAS-TV, the NBC O&O station), cable channels are also available again. Like CNN is at 201 as well as being at it's old sub 100 channel number 40.

These days, for me, it's not even possible to get an SD version of a channel that's is available to me in HD. The only stuff I can get in SD is stuff that's only available in SD.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Yeah I think TWC was the first one to start doing this. Personally I don't care, but for older people like my Mom or non-technical people like my Sister, they'll continue to watch SD on a familiar channel rather then learn the new channel numbers for the HD version. I'm an HD snob so if a show/channel isn't in HD I simply don't watch it.


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## jsmeeker (Apr 2, 2001)

Dan203 said:


> Yeah I think TWC was the first one to start doing this. Personally I don't care, but for older people like my Mom or non-technical people like my Sister, they'll continue to watch SD on a familiar channel rather then learn the new channel numbers for the HD version. I'm an HD snob so if a show/channel isn't in HD I simply don't watch it.


IF you have a HD TV, I don't think you can continue to watch in SD. At least, not in the Dallas area. They have recently gone all digital. You need a STB

Only way to watch SD is to have an SD TV.


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## tarheelblue32 (Jan 13, 2014)

jsmeeker said:


> IF you have a HD TV, I don't think you can continue to watch in SD. At least, not in the Dallas area. They have recently gone all digital. You need a STB
> 
> Only way to watch SD is to have an SD TV.


If you connect an HDTV to one of TWC's STBs with composite cables, you'll get SD.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

jsmeeker said:


> IF you have a HD TV, I don't think you can continue to watch in SD. At least, not in the Dallas area. They have recently gone all digital. You need a STB
> 
> Only way to watch SD is to have an SD TV.


SD *is* digital. It's "low definition" digital.. Also, most (if not all) SD channels are 4:3, so unfortunately sometimes they cut off the sides, but IIRC most show a letterboxed image within 4:3. Yeah I know that kind of sucks, but as I said, with it being news/talk shows and such that I do SD nowadays (except a few shows last week where I purposely recorded SD when I wasn't sure if I was going to fill up my drive when I wasn't at home), it doesn't matter too much.

Actually, I'd probably record MORE in SD if it were simply full 16:9. I know that _sounds_ like I'm being the same as people who used to hate letterboxing, but I'm not really. I'm trying to see the show as originally intended (nowadays). Zooming in on a letterboxed-in-4:3 usually looks bad..

but again, I changed most recordings to the HD channels, which obviously uses a lot more space. (and yes, I'm culling OnePasses for shows I'm not watching too.)


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

mattack said:


> SD *is* digital. It's "low definition" digital.. Also, most (if not all) SD channels are 4:3, so unfortunately sometimes they cut off the sides, but IIRC most show a letterboxed image within 4:3. Yeah I know that kind of sucks, but as I said, with it being news/talk shows and such that I do SD nowadays (except a few shows last week where I purposely recorded SD when I wasn't sure if I was going to fill up my drive when I wasn't at home), it doesn't matter too much.


Slightly off-topic, but this month my feed is showing some sports channels in the clear. Of the channels that I would not get since they are on a tier I don't pay for, two are 1080i HD. A mirror of those two in SD is 480i SD 16:9 letterbox. One of those isn't really letterbox since the network logo is outside the box. Two channels are 480i 4:3 and both are shown with barn doors. One channel is 4:3 and trips my TV's logic to make it fill the screen. I surmise that nothing is predictable anymore. My INFO channel is postage stamp size at 480i. These are all observations without my TiVo in the feed.


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## tarheelblue32 (Jan 13, 2014)

JoeKustra said:


> Slightly off-topic, but this month my feed is showing some sports channels in the clear. Of the channels that I would not get since they are on a tier I don't pay for, two are 1080i HD. A mirror of those two in SD is 480i SD 16:9 letterbox. One of those isn't really letterbox since the network logo is outside the box. Two channels are 480i 4:3 and both are shown with barn doors. One channel is 4:3 and trips my TV's logic to make it fill the screen. I surmise that nothing is predictable anymore. My INFO channel is postage stamp size at 480i. These are all observations without my TiVo in the feed.


One thing that annoys me in this area is that there is no consistency across the 4:3 SD channels. Some are windowboxed, so that zooming in gives you the full picture in 16:9 and some are pillarboxed so that zooming in cuts off the top and bottom when in 16:9. I've even seen a 3rd style on a few SD channels where the picture is pillarboxed, but it is also squeezed so that you have to use the stretch setting rather than zoom in order to get an undistorted 16:9 image.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

I don't know why they don't just get rid of the SD feeds completely and just have boxes connected to SDTVs just downres and letterbox the HD channel. I'm guessing it's because they still have a bunch of boxes in the field that can't decode HD and they're too cheap to replace them. At the very least they could move all the SD channels to SDV so they can free up bandwidth for more HD or higher internet speeds.


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

tarheelblue32 said:


> One thing that annoys me in this area is that there is no consistency across the 4:3 SD channels. Some are windowboxed, so that zooming in gives you the full picture in 16:9 and some are pillarboxed so that zooming in cuts off the top and bottom when in 16:9. I've even seen a 3rd style on a few SD channels where the picture is pillarboxed, but it is also squeezed so that you have to use the stretch setting rather than zoom in order to get an undistorted 16:9 image.


Yes, it's a challenge. I love it when commercials come on, I switch to My Shows or something, and go back to live TV and see the same commercial but it's now in 4:3. Some people just don't bother with the wide screen bit and since there is no bit the TiVo will leave it alone. It happens a lot on my feed. I have SD mirror channels that are not enabled, but sometimes at night I will select one just to kill my subwoofer. A talk show in SD doesn't give up much in the way of quality anyhow.


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## HarperVision (May 14, 2007)

mattack said:


> SD *is* digital. It's "low definition" digital.........


Not necessarily "is" digital. More like, "can be" digital too. In my system they still have all the analog SD channels 2-70 because this island is so rural and behind the times by about 20 years in many ways.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Most cable systems are converting to all digital. I bet analog is gone in 2 years, max. Analog is so inefficient. The amount of bandwidth required for one analog station can hold about 10 digital SD channels. Plus requiring a box at every TV generates more money for the cable company.


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

HarperVision said:


> Not necessarily "is" digital. More like, "can be" digital too. In my system they still have all the analog SD channels 2-70 because this island is so rural and behind the times by about 20 years in many ways.


I'm sort of rural also. My TV says NTSC for analog and 480i SD for digital. I have 5 analog test patterns left and one clear QAM left. The rest are encrypted except for weekend specials. Your point is valid, but I like SD for digital too.


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## jsmeeker (Apr 2, 2001)

Dan203 said:


> I don't know why they don't just get rid of the SD feeds completely and just have boxes connected to SDTVs just downres and letterbox the HD channel. I'm guessing it's because they still have a bunch of boxes in the field that can't decode HD and they're too cheap to replace them. At the very least they could move all the SD channels to SDV so they can free up bandwidth for more HD or higher internet speeds.


Yeah... I agree.

Even now, it seems that for me, I get a lot of channels in HD TWICE. That doesn't seem efficient from a bandwidth perspective .

I had not thought about a digital STB connecting to a HDTV with composite as a way that someone with an HDTV would still get stuff in SD. But I suppose it's possible if the cable company doesn't provide an HDMI cable with the set top boxes they are giving to those people who lost analog signals.


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

jsmeeker said:


> Yeah... I agree.
> 
> Even now, it seems that for me, I get a lot of channels in HD TWICE. That doesn't seem efficient from a bandwidth perspective .


But it looks good on the web site to show how many HD channels a feed provides. I get three HD CW channels since I live between NYC and Philly. Sometime the feed has to blackout one channel during primetime. I don't watch anything on CW either.


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## RGM1138 (Oct 6, 1999)

Well, I still don't have my HD feeds back on channels 3-11 yet. Cable guy came out yesterday, but he didn't understand the situation and had to call the chief engineer at the head end. The CE understood what was happening, sort of, but said the system had to recycle through to update the feeds.

Whatever.

Anyway, I've since gone through my huge To Do list and reset my SPs for the important shows to the high channel HD feeds. I left some on the SD feeds, (news, some shows I'll watch once and never again [Odd Couple], etc.

Now I'm starting to warm up to the idea of having SD feeds from my local channels, because I didn't have them before, and had no choice but to record everything in HD.

And high def recording does take up a lot of space. And even though I have a 1 TB expander, my Tivo is usually at 98-99% capacity all the time.

Of course, by the time I get comfortable with the changes, they'll probably change things back to the way they were.


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## jsmeeker (Apr 2, 2001)

The one problem I have with what Time Warner did is that TiVo now doesn't think any of my channels are in HD, except the local channels/network affiliates that are listed up in the 1200 range. There is no more CNNHD or ESPNHD or AMCHD. Just CNN and ESPN and AMC. (of course, that also caused some issues with a lot of my season passes)


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## tarheelblue32 (Jan 13, 2014)

jsmeeker said:


> The one problem I have with what Time Warner did is that TiVo now doesn't think any of my channels are in HD, except the local channels/network affiliates that are listed up in the 1200 range. There is no more CNNHD or ESPNHD or AMCHD. Just CNN and ESPN and AMC. (of course, that also caused some issues with a lot of my season passes)


It's not that TiVo doesn't think they aren't in HD, it's that your TiVo does not realize that "CNN" and "CNNHD" are the same channel. That's not really a TWC issue, that's more of a Tribune Media/TiVo guide data issue.


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## jsmeeker (Apr 2, 2001)

tarheelblue32 said:


> It's not that TiVo doesn't think they aren't in HD, it's that your TiVo does not realize that "CNN" and "CNNHD" are the same channel. That's not really a TWC issue, that's more of a Tribune Media/TiVo guide data issue.


But I don't have a "CNNHD" anymore

I would think t her would be a better way to tell if the channels is in HD than having "HD" on the call letters. And really, wether it's a Tribune guide data issue or an artifact of the lineup change done by Time Warner Cable, it doesn't matter. The end result is the same. TiVo doesn't think any cable channel is in HD. The werird thing is when I play back a show, I can tell if it's in 720p or 1080i. It says it right on the full information display


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## HarperVision (May 14, 2007)

Dan203 said:


> Most cable systems are converting to all digital. I bet analog is gone in 2 years, max. Analog is so inefficient. The amount of bandwidth required for one analog station can hold about 10 digital SD channels. Plus requiring a box at every TV generates more money for the cable company.


You're preaching to the choir Mr. Haddix!


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## HarperVision (May 14, 2007)

jsmeeker said:


> Yeah... I agree. Even now, it seems that for me, I get a lot of channels in HD TWICE. That doesn't seem efficient from a bandwidth perspective ..........


Those channels aren't actually broadcast twice though. It is one QAM channel that has more than one remapped channel pointing to the same QAM.


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## tarheelblue32 (Jan 13, 2014)

jsmeeker said:


> But I don't have a "CNNHD" anymore
> 
> I would think t her would be a better way to tell if the channels is in HD than having "HD" on the call letters. And really, wether it's a Tribune guide data issue or an artifact of the lineup change done by Time Warner Cable, it doesn't matter. The end result is the same. TiVo doesn't think any cable channel is in HD. The werird thing is when I play back a show, I can tell if it's in 720p or 1080i. It says it right on the full information display


I'm not sure I understand what you mean when you say "TiVo doesn't think any cable channel is in HD". What specific features aren't working properly as a result of not having "HD" in the channel name?


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

jsmeeker said:


> But I don't have a "CNNHD" anymore
> 
> I would think t her would be a better way to tell if the channels is in HD than having "HD" on the call letters. And really, wether it's a Tribune guide data issue or an artifact of the lineup change done by Time Warner Cable, it doesn't matter. The end result is the same. TiVo doesn't think any cable channel is in HD. The werird thing is when I play back a show, I can tell if it's in 720p or 1080i. It says it right on the full information display


Comparing the TiVo to the TMS data on Zap2It, and having a feed that mirrors HD with SD, all HD channels end with HD or DT, and Zap2It has a space before the HD. Otherwise, despite having the channels numbers different it's clear what is supposed to be HD by checking the channel list. So I agree with you I guess. But channel number or network name aside, the banner shows the resolution. If that can be trusted.


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## andyw715 (Jul 31, 2007)

TWC (Wilmington NC) did the remapping summer 2014. Except they mapped the local to the "old" analog channel numbers instead of using the real channel numbers.

i.e. OTA 3 is mapped to TWC 10, 
OTA 6 is TWC 7, OTA 26 is TWC 9


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

A lot of those stations still use their old analog channel number in their names and promos. Especially their news. So they may have requested to be at those channel numbers.


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## tarheelblue32 (Jan 13, 2014)

Dan203 said:


> A lot of those stations still use their old analog channel number in their names and promos. Especially their news. So they may have requested to be at those channel numbers.


Not only that, but the virtual channel number you find their digital OTA channel at is usually their old analog channel number.


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## jsmeeker (Apr 2, 2001)

tarheelblue32 said:


> I'm not sure I understand what you mean when you say "TiVo doesn't think any cable channel is in HD". What specific features aren't working properly as a result of not having "HD" in the channel name?


IF you wanted to use the "record in HD only" option on a One Pass, it wouldn't work. Also, the shows don't get flagged as "HD". If you used the My Shows grouping feature and selected "HD Shows", it wouldn't show anything. Except shows that were recorded off the network affiliates.

Really, it's not a major thing for me. I really don't ever want to record anything in SD. And since I really can't tune an SD version of a channel that's available in HD, it's basically kind of moot for me. But I can see how it may be more of an issue for others.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

jsmeeker said:


> IF you wanted to use the "record in HD only" option on a One Pass, it wouldn't work. Also, the shows don't get flagged as "HD". If you used the My Shows grouping feature and selected "HD Shows", it wouldn't show anything. Except shows that were recorded off the network affiliates.
> 
> Really, it's not a major thing for me. I really don't ever want to record anything in SD. And since I really can't tune an SD version of a channel that's available in HD, it's basically kind of moot for me. But I can see how it may be more of an issue for others.


That's all data. They're probably being told by TWC that it's SD. You could setup a 1P for the HD only duplicate up in the 1200s and the "record HD only" option would work. Or if you set a 1P to "all channels" and "record HD only" it should pick up the shows on the 1200 channels. As long as you don't have them unchecked in the channels I receive section.


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## jsmeeker (Apr 2, 2001)

I really don't use the "all channels" option. And I don't really need to use the "Record in HD" option since I am usually specifying the channel directly. It's just weird to select a show like "Mad Men" from "My Shows" and not see the HD bug over on the right hand side underneath the description. But when I select say "Nashville", it's there.

Mad Men is certainly in HD. The banner when playing it shows 1080i


I guess the only way it may be a problem is if I setup a WishList type of thing for some program and had it look across multiple channels and that program happened to air on a channel that was actually only in SD. I think if that channel was lower numbered it would pick it up in SD. But I haven't ever run into that. I don't really use wish lists much. And where I do, all the channels it could be on are in HD for me.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

Dan203 said:


> I don't know why they don't just get rid of the SD feeds completely and just have boxes connected to SDTVs just downres and letterbox the HD channel.


I sort of theoretically agree with you.. but since disk space isn't unlimited, and also for some things like documentaries/news shows where the video quality doesn't really matter (especially for some that I literally *listen* to as if they were podcasts and don't watch), it's useful to still have them. (Heck, a very few shows, like Frontline, actually do have audio podcasts, that are just the audio from the show in many cases.)

But yeah, I think it's for hardware reasons... with absolutely no stats backing it up, it will probably be a long time before all non-HD-capable decoder boxes go away.


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## qz3fwd (Jul 6, 2007)

Dan203 said:


> I don't know why they don't just get rid of the SD feeds completely and just have boxes connected to SDTVs just downres and letterbox the HD channel. I'm guessing it's because they still have a bunch of boxes in the field that can't decode HD and they're too cheap to replace them. At the very least they could move all the SD channels to SDV so they can free up bandwidth for more HD or higher internet speeds.


If they elimenated the SD channels, how could they justify the bogus "HD technology fee" we see on bills?


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## ej42137 (Feb 16, 2014)

qz3fwd said:


> If they elimenated the SD channels, how could they justify the bogus "HD technology fee" we see on bills?


Are you kidding? _(Yes, I know you are, but let me run with it.)_ Then they could just charge everyone the fee; it would save bookkeeping because they would no longer have to keep track of who has HD or not. If they had to justify any costs on their bills in any way, would we have seen cable bills continue to creep up year by year with steadily declining service? How did they "justify" those increases?


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## LoadStar (Jul 24, 2001)

It's a weird mix here. Some of the HD channels are re-mapped to their SD channel slots, but other ones aren't. Just as an example:
2 - WTMJ HD
3 - TBS SD
4 - GSN HD
5 - WDJT HD
6 - WITI HD
7 - WMLW SD
8 - Univision SD
9 - WGN America SD
10 - WMVS HD

And so on, and so forth. I can't figure out any pattern behind what channels have their HD channels mapped and the ones that don't.

Even above 100 (the digital channels) they do the same thing; some have the HD channel mapped down to the SD digital slot, other ones don't.


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## jsmeeker (Apr 2, 2001)

I just discovered that one cable channel on my lineup is actually marked as HD. Smithsonian Channel. It's call letters are SMTHHD. It's the only actual cable channel in my lineup that still has the HD suffix in the call letters.

No idea why that one kept it.


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