Followup: Comcast HD additions Tuesday in West Seattle

| Utilities | West Seattle news

Four weeks ago, we wrote about Comcast‘s latest TV changes in West Seattle, including a plan to add HD channels on November 24th. The other night, “bl@ster” added a comment to that story wondering if that date – tomorrow – was still on. We checked with Comcast’s Shauna Causey (a West Seattleite), and she says the engineers confirmed to her that the channels should be up and running in WS by 9 am tomorrow. “If they have an HD TV, HD set-top box and a package that includes HD channels, they’ll automatically get the channels,” she adds. (What they are, was detailed here.)

Keith November 23, 2009 (3:45 pm)

I called Comcast last week to ask about Bravo TV in HD and was told “Oh, that doesn’t even exist yet.” I see from the previous report that it does!

David November 23, 2009 (4:14 pm)

It was astonishing to me that Comcast would charge $55 for Pacquiao-Cotto and not show it on HD. I sure hope they get their act together by the time Pacquiao-Mayweather rolls around (by which time they’ll probably be charging $75).

Lindsay November 23, 2009 (4:26 pm)

I’d love to know the answer to the Bravo HD mystery…has anyone found out if it is available and what channel it is?

west seattle golfer November 23, 2009 (4:32 pm)

Slight tangent :

Have any of you started seeing really noticeable artifacts when watching HD on comcast lately? Comcast’s HD picture used to be pretty good, but of late I’m seeing a lot of artifacts (jagged edges etc). They were very visible in all the football games on yesterday, almost too distracting to watch!

I wonder if this isn’t an unfortunate side effect of them trying to cram more HD into the limited bandwidth they have. I’ll likely call then tomorrow to inquire.

bl@ster November 23, 2009 (5:50 pm)

I need to get Top Chef in HD via BravoHD. So I’d like to know about this too. Shauna?

bl@ster November 23, 2009 (5:53 pm)

One other question for Shauna… are we going to get *only* the 33 HD channels listed in the middle of the link, or are we going to also get the HD channels at the bottom of it (such as CNN HD, Lifetime HD, etc)?

Thanks!

Russ November 23, 2009 (6:00 pm)

Comcast reps don’t know who gets which station. It’s useless to talk to customer service or technical support. They seem to be all mixed up and more confused than us. Bravo HD should be Channel 662. At least that’s what the Comcast.net web site indicates (by zip code). It’s on the channel line up, but it’s missing with about a dozen other HD stations in Seattle. I guess we’ll just have to take what we get when we get it and don’t expect any explanations. Not sure if it’s ignorance or secrecy on Comcast’s part. Other than forcing people to have a box in order to purchase PayPerView or ON Demand content, I’m not sure why a box is being required by the cable company. Sounds like regulators need to get involved. I’m sort of angry about this wait that’s taking all year (my folks in Shelton had ALL of these stations in HD back in 2008!!!)

Admiral Lady November 23, 2009 (6:13 pm)

Bravo in HD does indeed exist – over on DishNetwork and/or DirectTV. Several of my friends get it

S November 23, 2009 (8:41 pm)

My TiVo service has been offering directory service for a bunch of these HD stations for months now (I got a a TiVo message saying the channels had been added, and started seeing them in the TiVo directory, but the channels themselves didn’t actually work). I talked to a string of Comcast folks at the time who had no idea what was going on until a cable tech came to my house, did a bunch of calling around himself, and eventually told me I shouldn’t even be seeing those listings yet, that they wouldn’t be turned on for sometime. (“The only folks getting those now”, he said “are on Mercer Island.” I don’t know if that was true either, I don’t know anybody on Mercer Island.) Now I guess tomorrow’s the day they actually get turned on. Maybe.

According to my TiVo listings, Bravo HD is (will be) on 652. Other HD stations listed but not yet active include CNN, MSNBC, Fox, Fox B, CNBC, Comedy Central, TBS, AMC, IFC, a bunch of sports channels, and quite a few more.

Shauna Causey November 23, 2009 (10:12 pm)

Hi Bl@ster, As for the questions of which channels, it depends on which package you have so we’d need to look at your account. You can always call us at 1-800-COMCAST and we can look it up and let you know. Or, you can check out http://www.comcast.com and enter your zip code for a list of channels.

S, We’ve been doing these upgrades across Western Washington on a community-by-community basis. Here’s the initial coverage from the WSB: https://westseattleblog.com/blog/?p=19046 (I hadn’t heard that before about the TiVo listing. The good news is they’ll launch in West Seattle in a few hours.) :)

rw November 24, 2009 (8:54 am)

Shauna,

I just checked comcast.com’s channel listings for 98116, and it still appears that most or all of the channels that are supposed to be added are described as “Coming Soon” — so rather than check a list that is probably out of date, I think people should just check their TVs later. We will get whatever HD channels Comcast chooses to give us. In my case I just hope that today’s additions include AMC, IFC, and CBUT.

mike November 24, 2009 (9:25 am)

Woot! All of them are turned on here in the Admiral District!! Finally!! IFC and some of the others look like they need the aspect ratio fixed – they’re a bit stretched and looking like they are more like 2.35:1 instead of the normal 16:9. But hopefully that will get fixed soon. So glad we are now getting all the channels that we’ve been paying to get for quite a while. :)

Now of only my Tivo will notice that I have new channels. There are quite a few that were not listed in the “Channels that I receive” list, and I had to manually turn them on. None of those have any program data, yet.

mike November 24, 2009 (10:02 am)

Ok, for those others out there with a Tivo, the channels are in there, but you may need to redo the Guided Setup. I’m in the middle of it, but it looks like it may have done the trick. All I needed to do was pick a different “provider”. When you get to that step, select “Comcast King County Jerald” from the list. That seems to have all of the new HD channels in their correct location. At least, it’s what seems right to me.

If you want to double-check for yourself before going through the Guided Setup, just go here and change the location to the above Jerald option for 98116, http://www3.tivo.com/tivo-tco/tvlistings.do.

Also, note, after running the setup, you’ll need to reset any channels that you don’t want showing up in the Channels I Receive. Unless of course you need to see shopping channels in HD. :)

bl@ster November 24, 2009 (1:58 pm)

W00t! Got BravoHD. Finally!

Richard November 24, 2009 (2:37 pm)

When specifying a TV channel lineup (on a TiVo or a TV listings web site), the most accurate one is currently “Comcast Roosevelt – Seattle (Digital – Rebuild)”. You don’t need to redo the complete TiVo guided setup. Go to the “Settings” screen, then select “Channels” and then “Channel List”, press Enter (as indicated at the bottom of the screen), and follow the instructions. When you get to the provider selection screen choose “Comcast Roosevelt”, then on the next screen press Enter to go to the advanced setup and then select “Digital Rebuild Extended Basic”.

jeanie November 24, 2009 (3:00 pm)

Comedy Central? I want my Jon Stewart and Steve Colbert!

bl@ster November 24, 2009 (4:06 pm)

Yep, Comedy Central HD is in there too. Sadly though, I don’t think they film the Daily Show in HD yet. Who knows why not…

Admiral Lady November 24, 2009 (5:47 pm)

Ah, what a relief! BravoHD! FINALLY!

Shauna Causey November 24, 2009 (7:42 pm)

RW, Thanks for letting me know! We’ll get the channel availability fixed for 98116.

Michael Elias December 2, 2009 (8:02 am)

The rollout of the new channels has totally screwed up my HD Tivo that uses a cable card.

I no longer get get channels 8 (Discovery), 31 (ESPN), 53 (FXP), 60 (Com), TNT HD is for some reason showing up as E!. I’m sure there are others I haven’t discovered yet.

I live in Crown Hill near Blue Ridge, zipcode 98177

Kurt Shull December 20, 2009 (11:10 pm)

I just finished a chat with a Comcast guy. Apparently the new channels don’t get automatically provisioned. So, he had to reset the cable-cards in my Tivo remotely. He said it is a known issue and the reset will fix it. Tivo owners should leave their boxes unplugged for 45 minutes. This is the standard time that it takes for the new lineup to get provisioned on Comcast’s side. After 45 minutes, plug the Tivo back in and the new new guide data should be available. I’m trying it now…can’t confirm it works or not, but it makes sense.

Sorry, comment time is over.