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RE: need a cable box expert

Posted by DavidLD (A) on October 10, 2011 at 15:43:43

In Reply to: need a cable box expert posted by Joe Murphy Jr on October 9, 2011 at 17:20:24:

Some cable sytems have unscrambled clear channel TV channels (aka QAM) floating right down the raw cable before it gets to the box. Mine does, and there are a dozen or more channels I can pull off the raw cable before the box using the QAM tuner built into mine and most other digital TV sets. I can get a number of HD channels this way that come down the raw cable, the 4 broadcast networks, Discovery, WTBS, WGN. But all the channels that are on non-basic cable are scrambled. So I have elaborate A-B switching wiring that allow me to feed the raw cable directly to the QAM Tuner in the TV set if there is a QAM HD channel, but still use the non-HD cable box to unscramble it if the channel is scrambled.

I'm not certain what you are trying to do. It matters greatly what type of set you are trying to use the cable box as a tuner for. If the set you are trying to drive is a newer flat panel TV set that has a built-in QAM tuner you are better off trying a raw cable feed directly to the QAM tuner in the TV as I am doing. But you might be trying to use the cable box as a digital tuner for an older TV set that lacks an ASTC or QAM digital tuner. While the cable box is a QAM tuner if there are clear unscrambled channels on the raw feed, the QAM tuner in the flat panel fed directly from the raw cable will likely do better.

I suspect not all cable companies are like mine, which has some unscrambled raw feeds of both standard and HD signals besides the scambled signals. Some companies might scamble everything even local channels, in which case you are out of luck, because there is nothing on the cable feed that doesn't require descrambling from the cable box. I've also discovered that the government subsidized tuners are ATSC but not QAM, which means they will tune a non over-air channel from an antenna, but are worthless in pulling anything off a raw cable feed, even a local channel.

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