HD and SD on the same channel?

[scooterspal]

Can someone explain this to me?

How is the station able to send their now HD 1080i signal out and still have it received in SD on a plain old TV set?

Is it the $40 digital off-the-air set-top box that does the conversion or, if on cable, is it done by the cable provider?

[PaulF]

Originally Posted by scooterspal

Can someone explain this to me?

How is the station able to send their now HD 1080i signal out and still have it received in SD on a plain old TV set?

Is it the $40 digital off-the-air set-top box that does the conversion or, if on cable, is it done by the cable provider?

Comcast in Portland has reduced the number of channels that an analog TV can receive down to channels 31 and below. They broadcast SD versions of all channels on frequencies not assigned to channels 2-31. Comcast has converter boxes that convert digital to analog . If you don't have cable, you can buy a different type of digital to analog converter for an antenna with the $40 FCC coupon.

[TomXP411]

Originally Posted by scooterspal

Can someone explain this to me?

How is the station able to send their now HD 1080i signal out and still have it received in SD on a plain old TV set?

Is it the $40 digital off-the-air set-top box that does the conversion or, if on cable, is it done by the cable provider?

If you're using an antenna, you need a converter box. If you're on cable, the cable company is converting the signal to analog and feeding it to you.

[phareous]

I believe the set-top box does the conversion

[PaulF]

If a picture is worth a thousand words, here are a few thousand:

Sample HDTV Transport Streams

[josephz2va]

How is the station able to send their now HD 1080i signal out and still have it received in SD on a plain old TV set?

There are three signal broadcasts cable and satellite. Analog, Standard Definition and High Definition. If you are currently watching a digital channel, an SD is identifiable by the left and right corners blacked out. HD is represented by widescreen broadcasting.

Is it the $40 digital off-the-air set-top box that does the conversion or, if on cable, is it done by the cable provider?

At current, most cable providers are broadcasting it to your analog television either through a cable box or you can put it direct feed. If you are feeding the cable directly to your computer, you are either using an analog tuner or a QAM tuner. Unfortunately for people such as myself, I only can receive CW, NBC, FOX, ABC, CBS, and MyTV (formerly named Paramount/UPN). Also the foreign channels which I'm not inclined to add to my cable lineup.

Some have mentioned the cut off date is August 25th for Analog Cable in which you either need to have a cable box or an adapter module mentioned in other posts to watch television. You may be able to watch QAM broadcasts without either one which are the limited channels mentioned unless you use a cable box. You could always tie a supported tuner, cable box, and an IR blaster.

Hopefully down the road, CableCARD support will be allowed to record the rest of the channels and import to the iPods and iPhones out there.