[ale] OT: Comcast and digital TV

[Daniel Howard]

Actually, the off-air digital TV switchover and the loss of analog
channels on Comcast are not directly related, although Comcast's timing
makes them appear so.  The loss of the TV guide channel, history, etc.
on Comcast is due to something called 'analog reclamation' which means
Comcast is slowly converting analog channels into digital channels so
they can offer more broadcast HD channels to compete with Satellite and
telco TV (here in Atlanta, AT&T's U-Verse service).  Comcast will not
convert all analog channels to digital due to contractual requirements
(for local channels, community access, etc), but you'll see a big chunk
of them over time being converted to digital, and if you want to see all
those channels on all your TVs, then you either have to get the DTA
boxes (digital to analog converter) from Comcast for each TV, or you
have to find a way to pipe the output of your settop box to the other
TVs, but in the latter case you won't be watching independently on all
the TVs.  The Comcast model is similar to AT&T and Satellite's model
where you pay for additional settop boxes for each TV, so they're all
moving to the same model now.  Comcast also need the RF spectrum left
over from analog reclamation for offering even higher speed data
service, and you'll see DOCSIS 3.0 based cable modems offering 100+ Mbps
downloads shortly.
Best, Daniel