QAM Card Doesn't Recognize Clear QAM Channels

[pcostanza]

The FCC has granted waivers to some cableco's that allow them to encrypt all QAM, even locals.

Martin

The FCC are commies! We are slowly loosing all free tv. This is not the place for this discussion but once one company gets this waiver, they'll all be asking for it.
LewE, please let us know what you find out if you can get Verizon to even tell you the truth.

[LewE]

I just spent close to an hour on the phone with Verizon's Tech Support. After convincing the first level person who answered the call to get someone more knowledgable (a Tier 3 support person and a Network Tech)on the phone, eventually they said that Verizon has done nothing to block the ClearQAM of local stations and that it couldn't be blocked just by the ONT (Optical Network Terminal) at my residence. They eventually wrote up a trouble ticket and will supposedly get back to me in 24 hours. I won't hold my breath waiting.

[mvallevand]

Optical networks aren't like analog though, on smart fibre systems they can even distribute just the channel you are receiving.

Martin

[whurlston]

Do you happen to have a TV with a QAM tuner in it and does it get any channels?

[whurlston]

The FCC are commies!

Nope, just (future) employees of the cable/telecom companies.

[ga_mueller]

I'd like to chime in with a (surprising) kudo for my local cableco (Comcast). In their infinite wisdom, they unencrypted Tennis HD during their last channel move... just in time for the French Open!!!! It's the only sports channel I'd be willing to pay for.... now for free!

[johnsonx42]

From memory, that's normal. I'm pretty sure this screen showed ATSC, regardless of whether you're doing ATSC or QAM.

PVRX2 definitely did always correctly show the tuner type as ATSC; QAM tuning is indicated by the 'flavor' of the driver chosen for "Device Type".

ATSC is the signal format, and allows for both 8VSB and QAM64/QAM256 signal modulations; 8VSB is used for broadcast digital, while QAM is used for cable. These days everyone uses the term "ATSC" to mean north american broadcast digital tv, but QAM is every bit as much ATSC as broadcast digital is.

[LewE]

When I first asked about ClearQAM disappearing, a Tier 3 tech and a Network Tech both looked into it and told me that Verizon wasn't doing anything to prevent ClearQAM from working at this time.

Today I called Verizon because they didn't respond about my trouble ticket and after a half hour on the phone they told me that ClearQAM is going away to make room for more bandwidth so that is why I no longer received it. This sounds like an easy excuse for something they didn't have an actual answer for. What it means for me is that while I used to be able to record 3 local HD channels and 2 SD channels at a time, I now have to rent more STBs to replace what I could do before without an STB.

Unfortunately, I have no choice but to use Verizon FIOS for cable or go to a satellite service.

Has anyone else in Southern California run into the same problem of ClearQAM no longer being broadcast by Verizon?