COMCAST clearQAM

[mars396]

Comcast (Union, NJ) keeps changing their QAM lineup, which is a normal practice.

But this time, something weird is going on.

Whenever I ran the autoscan feature of my LG RC797T DVD recorder, it always found 0 digital channels. I worked around this by entering them in manually from the list from the following very useful website: http://www.silicondust.com/hdhomerun/lineupui?Cmd=LocationProgramsWeb&Country=US&Postcode=07065



Now when I run the autoscan feature, it finds a few digital clearQAM channels, the very same ones silicon dust lists with “hrc”. Unfortunately, if I let the autoscan find these, these are the only channels I can record from. For example, I can record the HD NBC 32-3 (hrc) just fine, but all channels not “hrc” on that list result in “no signal”. On the other hand, if I interrupt the autoscan, I can manually add and record any of the channels without “hrc”, yet adding the channels listed as “hrc” manually are then “no signal”.

Depending on which shows I plan to record that night, I need to either autoscan, or interrupt the autoscan and enter manually.

Does anyone have an explanation for this ?

What is “hrc” ?!?!?!?!?

[joecass]

I don't have Comcast so I can't comment on exactly what's going on, but..... HRC stands for Harmonically Related Carrier, it's a type of Cable transmission frequency that cableco's use. STD, HRC and IRC are different cable broadcast frequencies. If you do a Google search on Cable + HRC, you'll get all the info.
DVD recorder digital tuners all seem to work differently. I have an LG HD tuner and an LG Plasma TV with essentially the same tuner, both will receive unencrypted digital QAM channels from my cableco (Time Warner),
however when you do the channel scan, it gives you the option of STD, HRC and IRC. Only on the IRC setting
will I get all the available channels including the HD stations.
On my Philips DVD recorder 3575H, when I did a digital scan, it only came up with a few channels. I had to
manually enter the channels numbers shown on my LG HD tuner and then store them before it worked properly.
Recently I picked up an LG 897T recorder, this unit scanned all the available digital unencrypted channels without
any intervention from me. It worked right out of the box......but that unit was manufactured in 2008.
From my knowledge the 797T and 897T are very similar, what I suggest you do is enter all the channels manually, then go to the channel edit screen and "add" to the list. For example, if you enter NBC 32-3, and there
are more channels under base 32, the subchannels should appear in the LG channel edit screen, you'd have to
add a checkmark to each subchannel to get it to remain in channel memory.
It may be time consuming, but I would start with "1.1", "2.1", "3.1" etc. and go all the way up to 135, entering
all the channels manually and then storing them. You have nothing to lose by trying......
I suggest forgetting about the auto channel scan on the LG, do it manually once a week or once a month.

[edDV]

Unfortunately Comcast uses different clearQAM channel assignments in different neighborhoods so one must pool scan data from neighbors to find all the clearQAM channels that miss the scan, then enter the rest manually. Beyond that, some channels come and go during the day so require a new scan or manual entry.

Here the cable channels used for clearQAM are as follows.

74 converted local analog TV stations (ten subchannels)
75 HSN, QVC, community access subchannels
76 community college and gov't subchannels
80 On Demand
81 On Demand
84 Local DT subchannels
89 Local DT subchannels
90 Local DT subchannels
94 Local DT subchannels
103 Infomercials and shopping subchannels
104 Pay Sports Promos
105 CSPAN 1 CSPAN2
111 Local DT subchannels
113 Local DT subchannels
114 Pay Movie Promos
115 Local DT subchannels

[wabjxo]

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