Sidestepping A-to-D Convertors For Town Government's Cable TV? 539
jake-itguy writes "I am the IT guy for a small town municipality. Comcast called me the other day and told me I had to have a digital-to-analog converter for each TV in the municipality, as Comcast is turning off analog cable in September. I did a quick count, and we have 32 TVs across 6 buildings (22 being in the police and fire departments). Most of the TVs are hung on the walls. I told Comcast having a box for each TV was not acceptable and wanted a different solution. Comcast told me there was no other solution." Read on for more details of the situation, and to see if you can offer Jake any advice for distributing cable service within his Indiana town.
jake-itguy continues: "They told me they have been putting these boxes on every TV in each classroom in each school. I laughed when I heard that. I said, 'Do you know how much electricity is going to be needed for each box?' They didn't know the answer. I was bumped up to the next guy in the Comcast hierarchy, who said there was no other solution and I had to pay $3 per month for each box. Being a municipality, we are entitled to free expanded basic cable as a part of the franchise agreement back in 1982.I know there is a solution, as hospitals and hotels don't have little boxes next their TVs. Unfortunately I haven't found a specific answer to this problem so I am asking Slashdot. Is there a box that can be put in the basement of the town hall that will convert the Comcast signal into a regular digital signal? Most of the TVs in the town have digital tuners per last years a2d conversion of the airwaves. I would be willing to replace the few analog sets with new ones if there is a good solution for this. Each building's cable feed is fed from the town hall. We have a nice big 1-inch cable coming into the building with some splitters coming off the line. Each building gets a 1/2 inch cable. Is there a box that will convert the Comcast signal to analog for the schools? I am sure the schools don't have TVs with digital tuners."
Are they all tuned to the same channel? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why do you need cable? (Score:3, Insightful)
Get antennas and cheap converter boxes. Or get a Channel Plus 3025 and only buy one cable box per building and pay $3 a month per box forever.
Place them "elsewhere" (Score:5, Insightful)
If several TVs are tuned into the same channel in a building, you could use one box at the point-of-ingest into the building.
franchise agreement (Score:5, Insightful)
Outlaw digital encryption (Score:4, Insightful)
Get all of the police and firemen to go to the city council and demand they end the Comcast monopoly and while they are at it, have the city council ban encryption of the digital signal.
Without a doubt, Comcast will find a solution for you!!!
Re:Are they all tuned to the same channel? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Cut the cable (Score:4, Insightful)
Reasons for TV in a City:
City/Police/Fire - Weather Disasters
Fire - 24 hr shifts.
In addition to the technical solution (Score:5, Insightful)
Being a municipality, we are entitled to free expanded basic cable as a part of the franchise agreement back in 1982.
Sounds like you may need to have a quick chat with your city's lawyer about whether Comcast is trying to do an end-run around that agreement. That section may make your problem their problem instead.
Re:Cut the cable (Score:5, Insightful)
Enough of this shit. I want my cops & fire department on break to feel like they're well-trained and compensated, trusted professionals, not slave-wagers in the "all your base are belong to the company man" plan. (Also, I want tough and transparent oversight.) Otherwise you get the TSA.
Re:Cut the cable (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:advice: (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem isn't with his employer, hence no point resigning. Me I'd rather have people in government who in the interest of reducing government expense would actually care enough to doubt what some kid at Comcast says and look for advice elsewhere, despite the hordes of idiots who would surely be jerks when given the opportunity.
Time to whip out the old "do not hire" list...
Name : Larry Bagina.
Reason: Quitter, can't read, anti-social dispenser of useless advice.
Re:Solution (Score:2, Insightful)
Missing the point entirely (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:disconnect the tv's (Score:3, Insightful)
Really? People need this explained?
Police and firemen are two kinds of jobs which can have different definitions of "work". Jobs in which you are waiting for a call (something to happen) often allow for personal time and even sleep such as in the case of firemen. Same deal for soldiers- you're always "at work", but not always on patrol.
Hell, I was a third-shift NOC guy for a while and there was very little actual work to do during a routine shift.
Re:advice: (Score:3, Insightful)
Then use four boxes to convert to analog and then amplify the signal into your own analog network.
The alternative is to just flip them the bird and forget about having TV at all on the premises and stick to using radio channels. NPR would do fine.
Life still goes on without TV.
Re:How many TV's?? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:franchise agreement (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Are they all tuned to the same channel? (Score:5, Insightful)
"For some people that's half a week's take home pay."
If someone is only making $170 a week in take home pay, maybe they should stop paying for fucking cable. There are bigger priorities at that point.
Re:Are they all tuned to the same channel? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you just need to tune to a local news channel for weather alerts and to a few public service channels, Channel Plus makes a nice looking (on paper anyway) four channel modulator for about $150.
In any case, it doesn't sound to me like Comcast is acting in good faith (like any sane person would expect them to). Probably your best bet is to get your data together. Write up the information in a form that will make sense to an intelligent adult. No easy job. Some of the posts in this thread will give you an idea of the amount of stupidity you will encounter. Estimate current and ongoing costs to maintain your current level of service.
Armed with your whitepaper, your boss or your boss'es boss should sit down with the town attorney and decide whether to escalate to the state government and/or the Public Utility Commission. Assuming that the franchise agreement supports it, I'd have the suits argue to higher authority that Comcast is obligated to deliver you expanded basic service in analog (or replace your TVs) and how they do it should not be your problem. Comcast should be responsible for the engineering, installation, and maintenance of their solution whatever it is. Who knows, Comcast being possibly the second most despised company (after BP) in many parts of America. The PUC or whoever may see things your way.
Re:Are they all tuned to the same channel? (Score:2, Insightful)
I guess you have a point, however it totally ignores his point. He could read a book instead of enjoying his life the way he is used to enjoying it, but that all misses the fact that he has to change what he is doing because of someone else' greed.
And while I'm not one to generally bash corporations or businesses because they make money, when some corporations have legal monopolies and make changes like this because of their greed with the knowledge that their franchise agreement has given them the power to piss consumers off without retribution, then it becomes a notable problem. Whether they are scrambling it to force him to pay or if they are compressing it to get more out of their existing system which has the same effect is inconsequential at this point. Both boil down to unanswered greed that abuses the position they are in that was a direct result of pretending to benefit the public trust.
I can put it in a useless analogy if you want. I can even work cars into it if you want. The bottom line is that he has to change his way because of greed from a company that receives special treatment because they are supposed to be providing a certain service to the community that this move seems to undermine.
Re:advice: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Are they all tuned to the same channel? (Score:3, Insightful)
Why isn't Comcast using ATSC for "basic" cable? (Score:3, Insightful)
There was a local newspaper column about Comcast's switch to digital encoding for everything and the requirement that everyone have a cable box (shades of pre-cable ready TV again). As with all things local newspaper + technology, it was shockingly short of facts.
What I don't understand is why Comcast doesn't use in the clear ATSC digital encoding for their "analog to digital" conversion? I finally got a TV with an ATSC tuner and was surprised to see ATSC digital channels on the cable coming out of the wall without a box.
Of course I know the conspiracy angle is Comcast just wants to nickel and dime everyone as much as possible, but the ability to just connect a TV to cable without a box has been a strength of cable vs. satellite (along with a simpler wiring scheme). When the box becomes a requirement to get ANY TV, I think they lose a competitive advantage over satellite.
The article I read said they would be supplying 1-2 boxes for free to all subscribers. Given the relative stupidity of most people and the inherent added complexity this adds to cable, wouldn't it be more profitable in the long run to just encode via ATSC and not deal with all the nuisance of boxes and box support and box replacement, ad nauseum?
Re:Are they all tuned to the same channel? (Score:1, Insightful)
Have you considered that they are not "scrambling" the digital signal, but rather compressing it to save bandwidth, and that the TV's QAM receiver is incapable of uncompressing it?
If the TV is not capable of uncompressing it, then Comcast is still in violation of their contract until they provide them with TVs that do have that ability.
I seriously doubt the contract says Comcast is only required to provide service to the town hall for free right up to the point it is a luxury...
Re:Are they all tuned to the same channel? (Score:2, Insightful)
> ... Comcast really, really sucks when it comes to screwing-over the customer ...
Comcast is really, really good when it comes to screwing-over the customer ...
There, fixed it for you.
Maybe you're the one that wrote this backwards marketing copy [covingtoninnovations.com]
Re:IPTV over Multicast (Score:3, Insightful)
Neat stuff, but how does it eliminate the need for set-top boxes?
Re:So? (Score:3, Insightful)
Comcast hierarchy, who said there was no other solution and I had to pay $3 per month for each box. Being a municipality, we are entitled to free expanded basic cable as a part of the franchise agreement back in 1982.
It looks to me, like Mr. Government employee has a point, and that Comcast is contractually obligated to provide those "$3 per month" boxes for free - part of the cost of getting the franchise.
Maybe then you guys will learn to count and balance your budgets.
While the IT guy generally isn't responsible for balancing the budget, as you seem to think, he actually is doing a good job of it here by trying to get rid of unnecessary costs.
What would you have him do? Roll over and take the added costs lying down?
Re:Are they all tuned to the same channel? (Score:3, Insightful)
Nobody has a CableCard-capable TV. They were vaporware a few years ago, and now they're superceded by Tru2Way, which is also vaporware. Cable Labs (run by -- guess who -- Comcast, among other cable companies) gives lip service to developing these things, but really tries to avoid it as much as possible because the assholes in charge would rather everyone have to rent boxes.
Besides, even cable cards, which still entail a per-TV rental fee, are asinine compared to simply shutting off the fucking encryption and letting everybody use the perfectly good QAM tuners they already have!