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Why do cable systems still carry SD and HD feeds of the same channel?

R

RonM

......especially since HD is so ubiquitous these days. Seems like a total waste of bandwidth to me. Is it simply for additional revenue purposes?
 
Revenue is my guess. HD is an extra $7 per month from my cable company - a $7 per month surcharge that I don't pay.
 
It's not because they want to; the FCC added in a three-year cushion for cable companies to get their customers to switch to HD and has them keeping local stations in analog until December 12 this year. After that they can pull them off and go digital-only and not have to maintain their analog system any longer.

Many cable companies provide the HD channels for free now (though HD equipment has the additional fees, as usual).
 
I guess as a follow-up to my original question, when will cable systems offer ONLY the HD feeds of channels, and completely do away with the SD ones?
 
nomadcowatbk said:
another question, why do some OTA stations have a bandwith wasting SD subchannel of the same programming?
Click to expand...

In some cases, one I'm familiar with being KSAZ-TV Fox 10 Phoenix, it's because the HD channel (RF 10 in this case) is not receivable over the entire metro and they put an SD feed on a UHF sister station (KUTP/45, RF 26 in this case, with a PSIP channel number of 10.2 rather than 45.2). If Fox was smart, they'd move KSAZ to 26 and KUTP to 10.

I think Fox does this in New York as well, with an SD feed of WWOR/9 on WNYW/5.2 and vice-versa.
 
On my Sanyo's QAM tuner and no cable converter, I get out-of-market WGBY-TV (PBS) channel 57 of Springfield, MA in both HD and SD, with both displaying as "57-1". I've deleted the redundant SD feed, which is about a second behind the HD feed. I have also deleted the cluster of the local "X-1" feeds in SD, since I get every one of them in HD as well.

The exception is The Weather Channel. I get the national feed on on QAM channel ("74-?") in HD, but in SD on another channel with the local Connecticut radar and conditions.
 
KeithE4 said:
nomadcowatbk said:
another question, why do some OTA stations have a bandwith wasting SD subchannel of the same programming?
Click to expand...

In some cases, one I'm familiar with being KSAZ-TV Fox 10 Phoenix, it's because the HD channel (RF 10 in this case) is not receivable over the entire metro and they put an SD feed on a UHF sister station (KUTP/45, RF 26 in this case, with a PSIP channel number of 10.2 rather than 45.2). If Fox was smart, they'd move KSAZ to 26 and KUTP to 10.

I think Fox does this in New York as well, with an SD feed of WWOR/9 on WNYW/5.2 and vice-versa.
Click to expand...

Another example of an HD and SD feed in Phoenix is Telefutura station KFPH-CD, broadcasting in HD on their LP channel, 35.1, but also in SD on full-power KTVW 33.2, which, if I watched Spanish-language TV, would be good for me because, despite living barely 5 miles from the TV towers with a clear view of them, I often cannot receive 35.1.
 
dhett said:
Another example of an HD and SD feed in Phoenix is Telefutura station KFPH-CD, broadcasting in HD on their LP channel, 35.1, but also in SD on full-power KTVW 33.2, which, if I watched Spanish-language TV, would be good for me because, despite living barely 5 miles from the TV towers with a clear view of them, I often cannot receive 35.1.
Click to expand...

I'm 5 miles SE of the towers and have never been able to receive 35.1.
 
The primary reason both feeds are carried is because there are still many people out there who have SD boxes and don't have HD tv's. It is very costly to the cable companies to switch everyone over to an HD box. I believe some companies are no longer offering SD boxes to new customers, so eventually they will be phased out.
 
ansky212 said:
The primary reason both feeds are carried is because there are still many people out there who have SD boxes and don't have HD tv's. It is very costly to the cable companies to switch everyone over to an HD box. I believe some companies are no longer offering SD boxes to new customers, so eventually they will be phased out.
Click to expand...

So based on this comment, is it likely that, eventually, cable companies will carry the HD-only feed of cable channels sometime in the near future?

I hope that is the case; I feel that this is the reason that some cable companies (mine included) have been slow to transition to all-digital. Hopefully we will see faster internet and more HD channels when this occurs and all of the SD channels are phased-out.
 
RonM said:
ansky212 said:
The primary reason both feeds are carried is because there are still many people out there who have SD boxes and don't have HD tv's. It is very costly to the cable companies to switch everyone over to an HD box. I believe some companies are no longer offering SD boxes to new customers, so eventually they will be phased out.
Click to expand...

So based on this comment, is it likely that, eventually, cable companies will carry the HD-only feed of cable channels sometime in the near future?

I hope that is the case; I feel that this is the reason that some cable companies (mine included) have been slow to transition to all-digital. Hopefully we will see faster internet and more HD channels when this occurs and all of the SD channels are phased-out.
Click to expand...

I think you are confusing the issue. There are two of them here. One is the carrying of digital SD feeds, and the other being the carriage of analog channels. Many systems haven't shut off analog because it is VERY costly to do so. Basically, to do that, you need a (usually free) converter box on all TV's, digital or not. Since most people have secondary TV's that may not have a cable box on them, this means a large up front investment to buy boxes for all these people.

With regards to dumping SD all together, that is going to be a LOONG time coming, considering that all DTA's are analog, and that is what cable companies that go all digital are giving out. With regards to how much bandwidth you'd recover by turning off the simulcast of SD, it's not that much. Most cable companies squeeze 12 SD channels per QAM, so if you end 120 simulcasts in SD, you only regain 10 QAMS out of 75-100 depending on the system. By contrast, the most you could fit in for HD per QAM is 3-4, so you'd get 30-40 additional HD channels, max by removing the SD simulcast. At this point, I'm not sure there even are 30-40 additional HD channels worth adding.

I know Comcast in my area already carries around 100, and they are waiting until the end of the year to turn off the remaining 20 analog channels. Once those go, they could add 60-80 more, but I think they are only looking to add maybe 10 more.
 
Frankly I wish DirecTV still did.

I have an HD set in my living room, and 2 old-school picture tube sets elsewhere in the house.
On those most of my programming now appears only in letterbox format. Pretty darned annoying.
I keep hoping DirecTV will add a zoom function to their converters.
 
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