QAM, ATSC, Comcast and TiVo

Things really start to get complicated when you get into HDTV, especially if you want a HD DVR.

The easiest and most expensive way to go about it is to just get Comcast with their HD DVR, which they will only let you have if you have digital cable ($65/month minimum, + $12/month for the DVR). Pricey and their DVR pretty much sucks.

If you want the basic HD channels, you can actually get them free over-the-air (OTE) if your TV has an ATSC tuner. Even though I live in the heart of the Silicon Valley, I can only get the Spanish station even with an OTE antenna.

If you have the cheapie basic cable (about $16/month) Comcast broadcasts HDTV channels unencrypted… but your HDTV has to have a QAM tuner. Most HDTV’s don’t unless it has a cable card slot.

If you have an HD TiVo (Series 3) it has a dual QAM tuner. Now here’s the kicker… it’s won’t map the QAM HD stations to their actual networks, so season passes, etc, won’t work. Manually recording works (making it like the free TiVo basic that some DVD-R TiVos had), but then what are you paying for?

Solution: Pay $1.50/month more to Comcast for each cable card (you need two if you want dual tuning). Cable cards map the QAM stations properly for the TiVo. Apparently TiVo might add a manual QAM mapping option so you wouldn’t need cable cards… but in the meantime you don’t really have a choice.