From: brown@vidiot.UUCP (Vidiot)
Newsgroups: rec.video.cable-tv
Subject: Re: Why can't I use the neat features on my new TV?
Date: 22 Dec 92 19:50:36 GMT
Reply-To: brown@vidiot.UUCP (Vidiot)
Distribution: usa
Organization: Vidiot's Hangout

In article <1h5plgINN6u0@gap.caltech.edu> paulr@hubble.ccsf.caltech.edu (Paul Ray) writes:

Oh Boy, a neophyte :-)

<I just got a new TV with lots of nifty features like PIP, favorite
<channel recall, etc...  But my cable company (Cencom) is one that requires
<a box to tune the channels for you and the TV is always left on 
<channel 3.  This means all my TV does is act like a monitor with
<a volume control.

This is one of the problems that is supposed to be taken care of by the FCC
as a result of the new cable law.  There have been many complaints about this
very thing.  TVs and VCRs have all of these neat features are they are all
useless with the damn cable boxes.  That is why I don't have one in my house.
(Yes, I have cable).

<Being the curious type, I plugged the cable directly into my TV, bypassing
<the cable box.  Now I get many of the basic cable channels, but displaced
<down one channel, and HBO (which I pay for anyway).  The other pay channels
<like SHOWTIME, MTV, CNN, and Pay-per-view are scrambled, but have audio
<intact.

OK, so far so good.

<Now, why can't the cable company give me a box that descrables the channels
<I want, but allows my TV to act as a tuner, instead of remapping all the
<channels onto channel 3 for my TV?  And why is HBO unscrambled before
<it gets to my box?  If they can decide which channels I should get
<and send them to me unscrambled then why do I need the awful box
<anyway.

Such a box doesn't exist.  It is way too expensive for the current technology
used to deliver cable channels.  As for HBO, they probably do on your system
what they do on my system...send HBO down the line unscrambled.  If you don't
pay for HBO, they use a filter in your line to trap it out.  They don't send
you the scrambled channels unscrambled, the cable box unscrambles them for you.
BTW, scrambling is an incorrect term.  More later.

<Can someone make this make sense to me.  Maybe then I won't clobber the
<next cable company employee I see.  I think my box also prevents me
<from getting a nifty new VCR with VCR+ built in since the VCR can't change
<cable channels either.

If you cable box has a remote control, i.e., not mechanical, then the VCR+
is supposed to be able to change that as well.

<Maybe someone could explain scrambling too me as well.  The sound is there
<and the picture is there, it just wobbles around a lot as if it has lost
<the horizontal sync signal.  It seems that it would not be all that hard
<to descramble, but yet my cable box is packed full of electronics.  Is
<that mainly to deal with Pay-per-view?

You are correct.  It is the horizontal sync that is played with.  The video
isn't actually scrambled.  By moving the horizontal sync to a different level,
the TV can't lock onto the video, so the colors are wrong and the picture
wobbles, just like you see.  All of the electronics in the box are used to
receive the instructions on what you are allowed to see and restore the
horizontal sync pulse for those channels that you are allowed to view.

Hope this helps.
-- 
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