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Originally posted by inconspicuous

lol well heres a QUICK run down.

so the box has an access control chip and a digital decoder chip. this is actually a single chip. the signal comes in, the box syncs with the server. it then asks the server for permission. in doing this it submits the box id number, the box mac address, the box firmware version, and its location on the network (the node location). if the box is in the server it then finds which services it should have provisioned. it also checks to see if its an outdated firmware. if so it then updates silently and then around midnight resets. after provisioning you then have the channels you are subscribed to.

the reason black boxes havent existed in the digital age is because the access control/digital decoder chip. they arent able to be seperated so this prevented people from circumventing the access control.

you can block the uplink communication to get free paperviews but this doesnt truely work. when you leave the box still remembers all the paperviews that you watched and they always "hit" the box when you return it. it then downloads all the paperviews to your account and you get a final bill. with ALL the paperviews on your bill.

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Originally posted by gehzumteufel jan 1 2009 is the forced digital date. the ONLY way that ALL channels are digital is if they force ALL customers to have a box. as in you CANT just use straight coax into the tv. otherwise 0-99 are FULL analog. want to know more about how boxes work or the system itself? i can go deeper.

Yea i know, in tubulars case its analog... i was just stating some random information...


0-100 (120 in some cases) are analog, but if you have digital cable with a set top box 0-100/120 are digital as well since it makes no sense to have two different tuners in there.

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Originally posted by 47120-2 Yea i know, in tubulars case its analog... i was just stating some random information... 0-100 (120 in some cases) are analog, but if you have digital cable with a set top box 0-100/120 are digital as well since it makes no sense to have two different tuners in there.

silly digital.

remember when we had to get up and change the channel on the TV its self? by TURNING THE ROTARY KNOB!

my God when the second knob was introduced, and you got more than 13 channels....that was the best thing ev5r!

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Originally posted by tubularbills silly digital. remember when we had to get up and change the channel on the TV its self? by TURNING THE ROTARY KNOB! my God when the second knob was introduced, and you got more than 13 channels....that was the best thing ev5r!

at my old cabin we had a really old RCA set top box, totally analog that we had to use to change the channels (well it did have a remote but we broke it )

But yea, I used to sleep on the floor infront of it and I could turn it to any channel just by reaching up and mashing in the area i remembered the buttons in...

Good times... :\

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Originally posted by tubularbills remember when we had to get up and change the channel on the TV its self? by TURNING THE ROTARY KNOB!

I think we still had one of those sitting around here 'til about 3 years ago. We threw it out before we moved down here.

Funny thing is, the first time I went to visit one of my friends here, he had the exact same one sitting in his closet. Raaandom.

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Originally posted by 47120-2 Yea i know, in tubulars case its analog... i was just stating some random information... 0-100 (120 in some cases) are analog, but if you have digital cable with a set top box 0-100/120 are digital as well since it makes no sense to have two different tuners in there.

has nothing to do with 2 tuners. its the same tuner. ATSC is the format for both the "digital" and analog. its not really digital to be honest. its all analog...but the "digital" versions are higher bitrates. its pretty much the analog is scaled down from the "digital" version on the providers end. thats why theres only a slight difference. the digital thing is just for access control. to make people pay more per month

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Originally posted by gehzumteufel has nothing to do with 2 tuners. its the same tuner. ATSC is the format for both the "digital" and analog. its not really digital to be honest. its all analog...but the "digital" versions are higher bitrates. its pretty much the analog is scaled down from the "digital" version on the providers end. thats why theres only a slight difference. the digital thing is just for access control. to make people pay more per month

No, NTSC/ATSC is analog (well ATSC is digital, its just over the air, so its still a "analog signal").

NTSC is pure analog though, been around since the 1940's.

Digital TV (ATSC content included) is an MPEG2 bitstream.

The whole point of Digital TV is that you can compress more data into a smaller chunk of bandwidth then you can if its broadcast as analog. Thats why over teh air ATSC can have sub-channels in the same bandwidth space as one analog channel.


*edit*

Just to be more clear OTA ATSC uses a different modulation type than over-cable ATSC, and since ATSC over cable is still fairly low in its user base ATSC is commonly used to describe just the OTA signal (at least in things I have read).

too many acronyms.

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Originally posted by 47120-2 No, NTSC/ATSC is analog (well ATSC is digital, its just over the air, so its still a "analog signal"). NTSC is pure analog though, been around since the 1940's. Digital TV (ATSC content included) is an MPEG2 bitstream. The whole point of Digital TV is that you can compress more data into a smaller chunk of bandwidth then you can if its broadcast as analog. Thats why over teh air ATSC can have sub-channels in the same bandwidth space as one analog channel.

ok i just read a little bit cause you were confusing me with what i was informed of previously when i worked at a cable company.

so really its all digital but for whatever reason the "digital" channels are broadcast in EDTV mode and not SDTV mode. even though this doesnt necessarily yield any better picture becaust it all depends on your tv.

and its ALL ATSC now. hence the ATSC tuners in TVs. thats how they decode it.

OTA implies your using an antenna. ive only seen that in the mountains. for cable anyways.

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Originally posted by gehzumteufel ok i just read a little bit cause you were confusing me with what i was informed of previously when i worked at a cable company. so really its all digital but for whatever reason the "digital" channels are broadcast in EDTV mode and not SDTV mode. even though this doesnt necessarily yield any better picture becaust it all depends on your tv. and its ALL ATSC now. hence the ATSC tuners in TVs. thats how they decode it.

I know that Comcast still has a ton of DVB (an older digital broadcasting standard) out there because of just general legacy hardware constraints (too many users with older set top boxes that dont have HDTV's).

I also know that our local cable company (Click! here in Tacoma) is giving out DVB boxes to new customers still (we have an old old motorola DVB box and we just signed up last week!).

But yea, I should have been more clear. HDTV over cable (720p/1080i/p) is all broadcast in ATSC using QAM-256 if im not mistaking. I'm pretty sure ATSC decoders can handle DVB (since both are MPEG2, just with different wrappers), but older DVB decoders can't do ATSC.



DTV broadcasting is interesting stuff...

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Originally posted by gehzumteufel OTA implies your using an antenna. ive only seen that in the mountains. for cable anyways.

Around here at least a lot of people use OTA for HDTV as most local channels (ABC, NBC, CBS affiliates) broadcast ATSC OTA.

Our HDTV at our cabin uses rabbit ears to pick up the FOX affiliate in HDTV (and its all we can get since we are on the side of a hill and the FOX tower is the only one in sight). If only we could get Comcast or someone else to run cable out there...