Strange TV situation

[mmbt0ne]

My friends have an HDTV plugged directly into the wall jack. No box, no dish, nothing. However, there is some interesting stuff going on.

For one, they get a lot of HDTV channels, and they're kinda like subchannels. For instance, CBS is channel 46 on broadcast here. But, with cable ESPN is 46 and CBS is 10. But, to get to CBS in HD, you'd go to channel 46-1. Along with the main broadcast HDs, there are also collections of HD channels in the 83-x channels, and the 92-x channels.

All in all though, that doesn't seem incredibly odd since I remember hearing that all cable streams were supposed to be digital by some time. The weirder part is this: they live in an apartment complex and get the other units OnDemand channels.

Channels 85-x through 90-x are all random. No one has any idea what channel matches to what apartment, but if someone else orders a movie or PPV OnDemand, their TV picks it up. For instance, whoever is on 87-7 has the WWE 24/7 package and watches a bunch of old Wrestlemanias. Also, there's one person who comes home from work pretty lonely everyday and puts on some Cinemax porn. Of course he's courteous enough to fast forward through all of the talking scenes straight to the sex.

So yeah, they can't order anything and they never know when someone is going to be watching whatever, but if someone else decides to watch something it's viewable from this TV.

Anyone ever heard of this?

[blinden84]

Clear QAM.

Look it up and do some research, I'm not going to explain it.

[KOTLP]

I've heard of the ondemand thing. My bedroom LCD has no cable box and my channels are all goofy too, e.g. HD CBS is 169.1 instead of 201. I used to get all kinds of random stuff like images from the menu screens too.

[RunDownHouse]

The most I can help you with is that the area broadcasts are all going out in HD. That is, your local NBC/CBS/ABC broadcasts are sent out in HD from local TV towers. Supposedly they have "better" HD since the signal isn't compressed for cable, and they're free.

No clue how your neighbor's choices are being sent to your TV, but maybe blinden's super helpful post will point you in the right direction.

[mmbt0ne]

Yeah, I guess the only explanation is that the cable company only sends so many lines in to the apartment complex, so some units are going to be split off of the same line. I wonder if this happens in a standard subdivision as well, or is just an issue in high density areas?

[wadea]

This is a movie. Someone in the building is committing some heinous crime. Somehow, you detect this based on your ability to see what he watches on his television. You try to recruit help, but the police won't listen. Meanwhile, the crimes continue to your frustration. Eventually, you are the hero, catching him in the act, stopping him and saving lives. Subsequently, everyone who had previously ignored your warnings and pleas recognizes your heroism. You get the girl.

1. Have a buddy write a screenplay
2. Ask OOT what to do next
3. ???
4. Profit!

[wadea]

These channels are just windows into their current TV screen, right? If he has Showtime, but is tuned to ESPN, you can't see Showtime, can you? If you can see Showtime, you need to have an apartment meeting and figure out who subscribes to what such that each channel is covered by one tenant - everyone saves.

[mmbt0ne]

Unfortunately, we haven't been able t find any kind of HBO or Showtime channels. The only time we can see what is on another person's tv is when they are watching something OnDemand. Otherwise the channels don't even show up when scrolling through.

[blinden84]

okay, the basics is that you are picking up what is being sent over clear QAM. Your TV is just scanning to see what channels are sending.

On demand basically works by you requesting the start of some show or movie, and the cable company broadcasts it to everyone in your area, but only your box knows to look for it, your TV is tuning it in though because it's not encrypted.

There is a lot more to it then that, but look up clear qam if you want.

[XXXNoahXXX]

blinden,

you're a pretty big douche, huh?