Why does Comcast cable not have HD channels?

Why wont my hd channels come back now that i have a little black comcast cable box?

• ok so i used to have reg cable, no box or anything and got hd channels. i have a sylvania 22 inch tv, and hd definitely used to work. then comcast was lame and made me get a little ...show more

• Answer:

  You were getting your HD channels with your TVs 'clear QAM' tuner. By law, if you pay for cable, the cable companies must transmit the local HD channels 'in the clear' or unscrambled. But I'm guessing you got the box because comcast scrambled so many channels, that you were down to a small number, it happened to me too. The new little box, a digital migration box has only a coaxial output if I remember correctly, either way it has no HD output. And it's not a violation of any law to not support HD with this box, the law states they need to transmit HD locals in the clear, and since they haven't stopped there's nothing you can do. So if you don't want to pay the extra 10 bucks or whatever for the HD box, you can do this. Get a splitter, run the cable into that. Now run one coaxial straight to your TV, run the other into the new little box you have, and then if you have a basic composite (or any other) connection, run that to the TV. So when you want to view HD, choose the basic cable/coaxial input, when you want to see the other channels that have been scrambled, choose the other input to view what the box is unscrambling. It's a pain in the butt, but it's your only option to get back what you had without paying a few bucks more.