HD on TWC with no cable box

[racinehdlvr]

I recently bought a new Phillips 19" HDTV for my office. I plugged it in and connected to the cable direct. When I went to program it, it came up with channels like 103.1, and 85.12. These turned out to be the HD channels for WTMJ and WISN. Others are there as well. Is this something temporary or is that the way TWC gives you free HD? Does anyone have a channel mapping of these?

[basshive]

You are tuning QAM - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QAM_tuner

The locals are on un-encrypted QAM. You may notice your tv might detect a lot of channels but you cannot see them because they are encrypted. The locals are open and ready for your viewing pleasure. On my tv, not sure about others I have to let it do a complete scan before I can just punch in #s manually for these.

504 WTMJ-4 HD NBC - 1.4
505 WDJT-5 HD CBS - 58.1
506 WITI-6 HD FOX - 103.1
510 WPTV HD PBS - 116.1
512 WISN-12 HD ABC - 85.3
518 WVTV HD CW18 - 116.9
524 WCGV HD MY24- 77.1

Your mileage may vary. Those #s are from an old posting.


---------EDIT----------- Another listing found here

79.10 - TW One (1)
90.40 - WTMJ SDTV (4)
91.3 - Wisconsin on Demand preview channel
91.60 - WITI SDTV (6)
92.13 - Answers on Demand preview channel
101.4 - On Demand preview channel
103.1 - WTMJ DT (505)
103.2 - WITI DT (506)
103.15 - Weather Plus (104)
106.10 - WDJT SDTV (5)
109.5 - WDJT DT (505)
109.12 - WISN DT (512)
109.41 - WMLW (7)
111.7 - WHA (559)
111.10 - Time Warner Promotions
113.20 - MusicChoice Adult Alternative (918)
116.1 - MPTV HD (510)
116.2 - MPTV Later (550)
116.3 - MPTV2 Later (551)
116.4 - MPTV Kids (552)
116.5 - MPTV Create (553)
116.6 - MPTV Extra (554)

[basshive]

Welcome to the community by the way!

[nick3092]

I recently bought a new Phillips 19" HDTV for my office. I plugged it in and connected to the cable direct. When I went to program it, it came up with channels like 103.1, and 85.12. These turned out to be the HD channels for WTMJ and WISN. Others are there as well. Is this something temporary or is that the way TWC gives you free HD? Does anyone have a channel mapping of these?

TW will not tell you these channels are there, nor are they guaranteed to stay where they are currently.  You will never see this adveritised in their "Home of Free HD" claims.  You only see a footnote that says a cable box is required.  And depending on your TV's tuner, they may not match the lists above.

Example - My Sony sees CBS as 0.505, but my Westy sees it as 85.1 (the Sony's tuner must read some extra info to see the 505 that the channel normally is on a cable box).  For a while it switched from 85.1 to 58.1, but it has since switched back.  Also, NBC recently moved from 1.4 to 103.3.

So as you can see, YMVM greatly.  And every TV I have seen has to do a complete rescan every time TW moves these around.

[oz]

So as you can see, YMVM greatly.  And every TV I have seen has to do a complete rescan every time TW moves these around.

Agreed - these channel numbers seem to change monthly and it's a pain to rescan.