The only way is by watching them to see if/when they identify themselves or, if you have a functional Rogers cable box, compare channels until you find the right one. It took me quite a while to do my initial list.

I am new to the forum and to HDTV. I presently get HD broadcasts on my PC using an HDTV tuner card (I have a 21 inch wide screen monitor so I get true HD and its great when the signals are strong). These signals are picked up via a UHF amplified antenna.

I have been looking at getting an HDTV with built-in QAM tuner. Daniel has made a great list of available channels that can be picked up without a set-top box. Do any of these ever broadcast any HD programs? I think I read in an earlier post that none are HD. This means that a QAM tuner is kinda useless at this time. I have asked both CRTC and Rogers if they will ever broadcast HD clear channels but I didnt very good answers from them. I have heard about HDTV's starting to include a cable card slot but this will incur a subscription fee when they are supported.

In conclusion, does anywone get any HD programming at all today or does anyone know if any of the cable companies will start broadcasting HD in the future (at least for the locally available over the air signals).

No, Rogers are not HD.

If you're in the US, you will get HD through QAM. It's a FCC Regulation.

No, it's not useless. You get a lot of free channels. Just not HD.

For HD, OTA is the way to go.

As mentioned previously in this thread, none of Rogers' open QAM channels are HD. You have to pay Rogers for those.

Hi everyone, n00b here to this forum and to HDTV really. I have been trying to read up on this QAM thing since i bought my LG LCD HDTV a few months back. Especially since i did a scan and accidentally found all the channels listed (thanks to Daniel).

I have 2 questions: first, my tv has an internal tuner, i receive all the channels listed, but there are many others that are black when i tune to them, and if i stay on the channel for a few secs, then a message floats around the screen saying SCRAMBLED. Is there a way to unscramble these channels (there are very many of them) WITHOUT subscribing to another tier or package from Rogers? I am currently on basic cable, and have removed the filter from outside myself to receive all channels (up to 73).

Q2. I receive the sportsnet channels (78.50-52) and they work fine, but when a hockey game is supposed to be played a message pops up saying that this channel is not available in your area or some b/s like that, like last night at 10pm as EDM visited VAN.

BTW, when i ordered Rogers cable, they sent me their digital box, but i dont have it attached to any TVs in the house since i think its garbage and just another tool rogers uses to control its users. And i believe i read on the rogers website that the sportsnet channels (timeshifting) are free to anyone with the box.

THX for the help.

=======================
After scanning for channels, I am able to get quite a few digital and several "free/promo" HD channels in Atlantic Canada using the built in tuner on my Sony TV. My question is around the HDTV sports:

On Sundays a FOX and an CBS HD channel opens up for the football games with great picture and sound. This is great! Every now and than there are other HD channels that come in for Baseall and Hockey but only the picture comes in and there is no sound. Why is this? Is there a way to get the sound to come in?

Thanks,
Perform

Hey Daniel,

I finally wound up getting a TV with a QAM tuner toda,y a SHARP LC 26SH20U. The thing is really nice and does QAM, ATSC and NTSC. Only problem is that it only has one input, so only have the NTSC and QAM going, may just get a standalone STP for the ATSC. Anyways, you are over in Markham, im over in Thornhill (Bathurst/Steeles area) and amazingly every single one of my stations comes in on a different station than yours. I figured you and me would be the same as on the Rogers website for analog, Markham is listed alongside of Richmond Hill and Thornhill. However, after looking a bit more into it, I am thinking it may be the QAM tuner as some of your stations are ##.#### (4 digits) where as mine is ##.### (3 digits). I can only type 3 digits in, so I wonder if it reads mine differently or not. THANKFULLY, my TV allows me to label the stations as I choose, unlike your Sony, so I can go and lable SNET or CBCV or whatnot, which I will do. Once I figure everything out and what I do and don't have, I will post the list here.

Interesting - I have two QAM tuners now, a Philips TV and the Sony DVR, and they both show the exact same channel numbering scheme.

Let me know how it goes.

Does anyone know why various HD channels would tune in but there is no sound? Perhaps this is a distance lmitation from being on the East Coast?

1. You can't get these stations without subbing. No such thing as a blackbox that they used to have for analog. In a digital era won't happen.

2. The reason you see that is because Sportsnet can only show the game in the teams local market and since you are not in thier local market, you can't get these stations. There is no way to get these stations as all Rogers is doing is putting an image up ontop of the real feed and distriubting that. I hear if you are on Expressvu, this doesn't happen as they just have a digital lock saying you can't see the game (unless you know how to get around the lock, at which point you can see it).

Hey Daniel,

So I finally got around to making my list. It still needs some work, I only had about 45 mins today to start it. Using the same format as you. Interesting to note that CLT comes in two times, but the second station I found it accidentally by typing in the station, as it did not scan in. That gives me hope for some stations I was not getting, although there are thousands of possibilities. All of the first digits are the same for you and me, but the sub-digits are different, I take that as the TV only being able to go to 3 subdigits and not 4...

78.001 – Rogers Sportsnet East
78.002 – Rogers Sportsnet West
78.003 – Rogers Sportsnet Pacific
78.004 – CBC (CBUT Vancouver)
78.005 – CBC (CBNT St. John's)
82.001 - Viewers Choice Movie Preview
82.002 - Rogers Personal TV
82.003 - VoicePrint Canada Radio
83.001 – CTV(CKCO Southwestern Ontario)
83.002 – CBC (CHEX Peterborough)
84.001 – Music - ?
84.002 – Music - ?
84.003 – Music - ?
84.004 – Music - ?
84.005 – Music - ?
84.006 – Music - ?
84.007 - Music - ?
84.008 – Music - ?
84.009 – Music - ?
84.010 – Music - ?
84.011 – Music - ?
84.012 – Music - ?
84.013 – Music - ?
84.014 – Music - ?
84.015 – Music - ?
84.016 – Music - ?
84.017 - Music - ?
84.018 – Music - ?
84.019 – Music - ?
84.020 – Music - ?
84.021 – Music - ?
84.022 – Music - ?
84.023 – Music - ?
84.024 – Music - ?
84.025 – Music - ?
84.026 – Music - ?
84.027 – Music - ?
84.028 – Music - ?
84.029 – Music - ?
84.030 – Music - ?
84.031 – Music - ?
84.032 – Music - ?
84.033 – Music - ?
84.034 – Music - ?
84.035 – Music - ?
84.036 - Music - ?
84.037 – Music - ?
84.038 – Music - ?
84.039 – Music - ?
84.040 – Music - ?
84.041 – Canadian Learning Television
84.042 – Music - ?
84.043 – Music - ?
84.044 – Music - ?
84.046 – Canadian Learning Television
85.001 – Rogers Personal TV
85.002 - Star!
101.001 – My Network TV (WNYO Buffalo)
104.001 – RAI FM (Italian Radio)
105.001 – CTV/CKY (CJAY Winnipeg)
106.001 - Treehouse TV
108.001 – Miracle Channel
108.002 – CTV/ATV (CJCH Halifax)
108.003 – CTV/ASN (Halifax)
108.004 – Global (CHIF Fredericton)
108.005 – CTV (CIVT Vancouver)
108.006 – Global (CHAN Vancouver)
108.007 – CityTV (CKVU Vancouver)
111.001 - Omni 1 (CFMT Toronto)
114.001 - Food Network
118.001 – ? (Digital Signal Strength is low)
120.001 – CBC (?)
120.002 – CTV
120.003 – ?
120.004 – ?
120.005 – CityTV (CHMI Winnipeg)
120.006 – NTV (CJON St. John's)
120.007 – CH (?)
124.001 - Rogers Blue Jays Barker
124.002 - CPAC French

Interesting, it seems to be showing you the "real" broadcast channel, such as 78, 82, 84 etc, but then it renumbers the subchannel so that instead of getting 78.50, 78.51, 78.52 as I believe that Rogers uses internally, you get 78.001, 78.002, 78.003. It also seems to change all subchannels - from 1 digit to 4 digits - to a consistant 3 digits.

It *almost* seems to be renumbering in order of the original subchannel, but there's a few anomalies in there...

Ya, the ones with ? are mostly cause I havent had times to check which local or I missed the network call signs being presented... Ill fill those in as everyone else in the house has no idea what is on what station, and since we do not sub to Rogers Digital (Expressvu!) I cant compare any of the music stations, so that may take forever...

Just a rebuttal to a response posted by Daniel in August. There are QAM capable ATSC PCI cards for PCs. Unfortunately for the poster, none that I know of will run under Windows. The pcHDTV HD3000 and HD5500 cards are PCI card tuners which will accept both OTA ATSC (SD/HD) signals and cable ATSC (QAM-256) signals. There are drivers now built into the Linux kernel for these cards (together with a large number of other cards which are not QAM256 capable).

I have Rogers Mississauga cable and the present setup is about 28 unscrambled (but QAM256 encoded) digital channels on the cable. I have the Rogers extended package ($50.) which gives about 75 analog channels as well. I record those with a Hauppauge PVR500 card.
Both cards are run/controlled by Mythtv, a free linux DVR software package. EPG is available from Tribune Media under 'zap2it.com'.

The digital channels are denoted under Mythtv by the frequency and the serviceid (or ProgramID)of the stream (not to be confused with the VideoID and AudioID numbers, I believe that the Pid, Vid and Aid are available through the setup sections of some tuners/boxes.

Early last week, it appears that Rogers changed the PID numbers of all of the digital channels: I suddenly lost the ability to tune any channels with the HD3000 card. A test scan reveals that although channels with the same frequency, Vid and Aid as before are still there, the Pid's have changed! I strongly suspect that your tuners/STB's use the PSP information to track the channels, so this would have been invisible to you, or almost so. Not to me!

Two things which would make your channel listing more useful, would be the inclusion of the cable channel, and, if available, the PID (plus VID and AID too if possible). As it is, I am about to sit down and tune about 120 channels, and attempt to match the stream with something on the EPG....Of course, half the CBC system shows the same thing at the same time! so this is a little frustrating at times!.

If anyone has questions, or ANSWERS! my email is [email protected]