The Cable Industry's Transition to Digital

The Cable Industry's Transition to Digital

Now that the over-the-air digital transition is over, here comes the cable industry’s version. The fight between cable and satellite, especially in the HD area, is pushing cable to phase out its analog channels. There is only so much capacity on a cable feed and most of that has been used up. Because of new compression routines, three High Definition channels will fit in the space now used by one analog channel. So it makes sense to get rid of the old analog and replace them HD. Of course the big loser in this is the people with older TV’s who plug their cable coax directly into the TV. They will now have to get a newer TV or opt for a digital cable box.

Comcast is the first to launch the digital transition. They will continue to offer the “basic” channels (usually the local channels) in analog but all other stations will be digital. These will only be accessible through Comcast’s digital cable box or by using a ClearQAM tuner. All the premium channels will be encrypted and a cable box or cablecard will be required to watch them.

So what will you need to do? If you have older TV’s it’s either rent cable box for each TV or buy a digital tuner that supports QAM or buy a new TV. By the way, the cheap analog/digital converters sold for over-the-air transition will NOT work. All TV sold today in the U.S. have digital tuners and most support QAM. If you are in the market for a new TV, be sure and check that the tuner is "QAM Capable" if you plan to use a cable feed. Unless you want premium channels, you'll just need to connect the cable coax to the TV and do a channel scan. No cable company tuner box required.

For those with PC Media Centers, you will also need a QAM capable tuner to receive digital cable channels. You can check which ones support QAM HERE. The digital cable transition is of course, a win-win-win for the cable companies. They can offer more HD channels and hence get more customers, charge higher prices for the service, and they get to lease more cable boxes. Even though Comcast is the first major cable company to transition, the others will soon follow. So if you have cable, expect to hear about the “big news” in the next year or so.

For more info on QAM, go HERE.

For info on a PC Cablecard Tuner, go HERE.

SBI!