why wont my hd channels come back now that i have a little black comcast cable box?

Question

ok so i used to have reg cable, no box or anything and got hd channels. i have a sylvania 22 inch tv, and hd definitely used to work. then comcast was lame and made me get a little black box. not the big one that looks like a dvd player, its only like 4 inches. ever since i got it my picture quality got worse than my dieing tube tv down stairs. the dieing tv doesn't even fill the screen, but has better picture quality than my brand new HD tv. whats up with that? please help because ive just about had it with comcast

so what im asking: is there any settings i need to mess with? is there any one who has had this problem and resolved it with out having comcast interfere? ... just want the free hd channels i once had.

thanks!

Answer 1

your HD channels were probably free thru the new digital broadcasting services if the TV is ATSC capable. Having the box probably changed the method that the signal comes to your TV. I'm not a fan of Comcast and it seems that their boxes dont seem to help much unless you get the "super duper" packages. i've noticed the same thing from several people.

Answer 2

You were getting your HD channels with your TVs 'clear QAM' tuner. By law, if you pay for cable, the cable companies must transmit the local HD channels 'in the clear' or unscrambled. But I'm guessing you got the box because comcast scrambled so many channels, that you were down to a small number, it happened to me too.



The new little box, a digital migration box has only a coaxial output if I remember correctly, either way it has no HD output. And it's not a violation of any law to not support HD with this box, the law states they need to transmit HD locals in the clear, and since they haven't stopped there's nothing you can do.



So if you don't want to pay the extra 10 bucks or whatever for the HD box, you can do this. Get a splitter, run the cable into that. Now run one coaxial straight to your TV, run the other into the new little box you have, and then if you have a basic composite (or any other) connection, run that to the TV.



So when you want to view HD, choose the basic cable/coaxial input, when you want to see the other channels that have been scrambled, choose the other input to view what the box is unscrambling.



It's a pain in the butt, but it's your only option to get back what you had without paying a few bucks more.

Answer 3

It could be settings are off. Make sure you are set on 480i resolution on your tv and any set-top boxes you may have. Also check your screen format and make sure that your tv isnt stretching a standard sized picture on your (assuming) widescreen tv. So that you dont have to change the resolution as you change back and forth between HD and STD def, turn on native mode on your tv set or on a set-top box. Native mode will automatically put the resolution in whatever resolution the programming is showing in. Do not set native mode on both the tv and set-top box as it can cause problems with your picture. Then just set the tv or set top box (whichever IS NOT in native mode) into the highest resolution your TV supports. STD def pic will always be worse than HD though, but it shouldnt look bad. If it continues, call Comcast.