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  1. Member
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    I have had this unit for over 2 years now and love it. I usually record on VHS but have sometimes used the dvd recording when it was more than 6 hours. My cable company is switching from analog to digital. This unit says it has a digital tuner but freezes when it gets to digital station 32. I have to pull the plug as the on/off switch freezes. Now I am stuck with a cable box and recording off of channel 3 so can don't more than one station unless I change the cable box channel. I wondered if anyone has had this problem or has any suggestions as to how to solve it.
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  2. Member edDV's Avatar
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    Up to channel 38 you are still on the analpg NTSC channels.

    The unit shows it has an ATSC digital tuner for over the air digital but says nothing about a QAM tuner necessary for digital cable. Check your manual for instructions on scanning QAM channels.

    Even if you have a QAM tuner, expect only the locals plus a few shopping channels to be available unencrypted. To get the encrypted channels you will need a cable box or DTA. Many cable companies offer a DTA or two free depending on your plan.
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  3. I can understand how frustrating this must be for you, but you need to brace yourself for the unpleasant truth: there is no good solution to this problem. You will have to learn to live with workarounds and possibly additional expenses. The botched DTV transition in USA created many more problems than benefits for most people, and over time has proved an outright disaster for most "boxless" cable TV subscribers. Largely because "free" or "clear" QAM turned out to be full of bugs and loopholes cable companies turned to their advantage to confuse recorder tuners enough to prevent any convenient operation. Their goal is to force you to subscribe to a more expensive service tier that includes the cable-supplied PVR/tuner box.

    The majority of USA cable consumers opted for these subscription recorders, this trend was what killed off DVD recorders as a popular product. Once cable companies saw what a gravy train the PVR was, and how quickly consumers became addicted to them, it was "game over" for no-box cable service that could be tuned by cheap independent recorders you could buy in a store. Cable companies found a regulatory loophole that allows them to screw with the "boxless" signal every which way from Sunday: all they need to do is provide you with a crappy bare-bones "free" digital tuner pod. The regulation only says they can't force you to pay for a box, it does not specify what PQ they must give you, nor does it require them to stay compatible with the multi-event tuner-timer of VCRs or DVD recorders.

    The short version: if you can't get a decent signal from off-air, and rely completely on cable, you're now completely screwed unless you cough up more money for an upgraded service plan. At the bare minimum you need to get the "standard" decoder box: these usually include a "reminder" feature that lets you preselect 8 different programs on different channels up to a week in advance. You click on the show or movie in the schedule grid display, then must also set the timer in your Panasonic. All recordings are made from the line output of the decoder box to the line input of the Panasonic: the DMR-EZ48V tuner is bypassed. Some cable companies have removed the reminder feature, in order to force you even further up the tiers: they require a PVR subscription to access the reminder/timer functions. At that point you'd use their PVR for everyday time shifting, and connect it to your Panasonic whenever you want a permanent DVD copy of something. Not nice, not cheap, but the reality of USA cable in 2012 and going forward. The only practical alternative is TiVO, which by threat of lawsuits forces cable to be compatible with it. TiVO can network to your PC for easy DVD or BluRay dubbing, but is also expensive ($199 + $19.95 a month, or $600 lump sum lifetime plan upfront).

    I notice you have posted this question in several forums. You will likely get 101 highly technical geeked-out answers of ways to trick the Panasonic DVD tuner into locking on the new cable signals. These tricks may or may not work for you, for an indeterminate amount of time. A lot depends on how rabid you are about not knuckling under to cable tyranny: many on forums would go to any lengths, any effort to prove their independence. Frankly I think its ridiculous: when an enemy holds all the cards, you pick other battles. Re-scanning the channels three times a week, constantly resetting the recorder from scratch, constantly futzing with partial dangling installation of the cable wire... not really practical. The cable company will always be one step ahead, altering frequencies and specs and channel mapping at whim. You will lose your mind eventually if you insist on fighting them. Either accept the limitations of the "free" tuner they offer (recording one show at a time), or upgrade your plan to include a standard box with scheduling functions.

    Direct boxless connection of the cable wire into your own private recorder for cheap convenient multi-event timer recording is now a relic of the past, like tube televisions.
    Last edited by orsetto; 15th Mar 2012 at 13:32.
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  4. Member edDV's Avatar
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    The botched DTV transition in USA created many more problems than benefits for most people, and over time has proved an outright disaster for most "boxless" cable TV subscribers.
    The cable companies' transition from analog to digital is largely independent of the government transition from NTSC to ATSC broadcast although some of the FCC decisions forced cable companies to devote more "channels" to local broadcasters*.

    If anything, the FCC delayed complete cable analog to digital transition until 2012** by requiring that cable keep analog channels for "must carry" locals and PBS. In cases of "cable company hardship" they force cable companies to provide "free" cable boxes (DTA's) for basic cable customers.

    The people like the OP who have purchased extended basic analog service (cable channels on anaolg channels 21 to ~70) are the ones who lost the analog option. This had nothing to do with the government. Blame the cable company for this.

    The cable company would say the majority of their customers were demanding more digital channels for high def, sports, foreign language and premium services. The fifty analog channels were using too much of the system bandwidth since each 6 MHz analog channel can be converted to carry 10 std def or 3 high def digital channels (or 500 SD or 150 HD channels or some combination for the 50 channels converted). This came at a time when direct satellite was converting to add dozens of mpg4 HD channels. Someone had to lose out and that was the "extended basic" customer. It is true that all paying cable plans lost access to those analog channels but the digital customers gained hundreds of additional digital channel choice in return.

    The "extended analog" customer has nowhere to go since analog broadcast has ended. Options are over the air digital, digital cable, digital satellite or digital DVD rental.

    Such are the facts.


    * FCC required all "must carry" locals be carried by cable in both analog SD and unencrypted HD. The cable industry as a whole agreed to do the same for the primary PBS channel plus carry all the PBS subchannels in digital.

    ** The FCC will be reviewing all the interim digital transition rules in 2012 (presumably after the election).
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  5. Corrections appreciated as always, edDV. You are much more clued in to the specifics of broadcast vs cable DTV migrations than some of us. In such discussions I do tend to lump the cable and broadcast problems together, because the issues users complain about coincided during the same period.

    My primary point was that traditional flexible boxless cable service tunable by independent recorders has come under siege, and will effectively be eliminated in most urban and suburban neighborhoods with the next couple years. Once your particular cableco begins offering the "free" DTA converters, its lights out for your recorder unless you're willing to live with the chintzy DTA box or move up to a more full-featured box (the channels available on the bare wire become vestigial at best and a nightmare to tune at worst). Part of the problem lies in the inherently kludgy design of the DTV tuners built into recorders, as opposed to televisions. For reasons known only to electronics mfrs, the recorder tuners are still "first generation" versions that get flummoxed by the slightest signal issues, while the fourth-generation tuners built into new televisions can roll with the punches, handling rapid changes in broadcast and cable signals with no intervention or glitches for users.

    I've combed thru hundreds of posts on various threads devoted to this issue, and it really does blow my mind the lengths some people will go to get around it. Most solutions end up being very involved, very tedious, and very temporary: they require so much handholding of the hardware that there really is no advantage to be gained unless you sit in front of your gear all day and absolutely cannot find a way to pay the additional surcharge for a "standard" decoder with unattended timer function. At a certain point, how much is your time, effort and frustration worth to you? I have even less patience when I have less money: in a bad economy, I have more important things to worry about than whether the cable company has found yet another way to screw me. They've been doing it for years now: the other day I found a 2006 cable bill behind a bookcase, and was pretty horrified to be reminded TWC rates have literally DOUBLED in New York since then. If anything, I have dropped optional features since 2006, but the rates (and hidden taxes) still skyrocket anyway. You can try to hold onto "cheap" boxless service by the edge of your fingernails, and resist getting the full decoder box until you turn blue, but your rates will still go up regardless. If recording to DVD gives you enjoyment, and your cableco switches to signals that prevent that without a box, rip the BandAid off in one clean shot and just opt for the least expensive step-up plan you can get that includes a reminder/schedule function in the box. You'll sleep better.
    Last edited by orsetto; 16th Mar 2012 at 14:47.
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  6. Member edDV's Avatar
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    Down to 26 analogs here (locals+CSPAN). At the end of the year the FCC may withdraw the analog requirement. At that point, a user is down to clear QAM, DTA or cable box.
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