Computers & Electronics

Few open digital channels on Rogers? Is it normal? Some sort of free preview?

  • Last Updated:
  • Jan 12th, 2016 8:02 am
Tags:
None
Deal Expert
Jan 17, 2009
24232 posts
43261 upvotes
ONTARIO

Few open digital channels on Rogers? Is it normal? Some sort of free preview?

I don't have Rogers cable TV. I haven't had them in about 8 years. I do have Distributel internet though, which uses the rogers cable running into the house.

For years I haven't bothered to plug in the coaxial cable behind the tv because what would be the point? I dont subscribe to any tv service.

Anyway, earlier when I was messing with the TV, out of curiosity I decided what the heck? I plugged in the cable and ran a channel scan.
It found about 50 channels, which I thought was crazy.

I started going through the channels and the first 3 were all identical. Some weird fish tank channel :lol:
However after that I was surprised to find Game of Thrones playing. Not just some trailer, but a full episode. I'm thinking it must be HBO.
I went up further to find an actual movie playing (The House Bunny). Not sure what channel this is, but quality was fantastic.
Next channel was Global TV. After that was a TV show Sons of Anarchy. All these channels playing in 1080i.

That's where it ended though. Everything after that was music channels and some Rogers preview channels (something called Rogers Grid?).

Is this normal? Some sort of free preview? If I knew about this, I could have been watching these channels years ago.
10 replies
Deal Fanatic
Aug 29, 2011
9926 posts
7090 upvotes
Mississauga
It's normal to have some clear QAM channels. But they're usually useless - like the fish tank one.
Deal Expert
Dec 4, 2010
19536 posts
2260 upvotes
Quarantine Bubble
mrweather wrote: It's normal to have some clear QAM channels. But they're usually useless - like the fish tank one.
I rather have a Fire place one. The gold fish one pisses me off because my real ones died recently, lol.
Deal Expert
Jan 17, 2009
24232 posts
43261 upvotes
ONTARIO
Another thing that was strange was 2 channels close together (forget the actual channel, was like 73-212 and 73-217 or something around there), were playing the exact same TV show, but just at different parts of the episode. When the TV show ended on one, a movie came on. The other channel though when it ended, it simply went black. No loss of signal, just a black screen.
Deal Expert
Dec 4, 2010
19536 posts
2260 upvotes
Quarantine Bubble
BobSagget wrote: I don't have Rogers cable TV. I haven't had them in about 8 years. I do have Distributel internet though, which uses the rogers cable running into the house.

For years I haven't bothered to plug in the coaxial cable behind the tv because what would be the point? I dont subscribe to any tv service.

Anyway, earlier when I was messing with the TV, out of curiosity I decided what the heck? I plugged in the cable and ran a channel scan.
It found about 50 channels, which I thought was crazy.

I started going through the channels and the first 3 were all identical. Some weird fish tank channel :lol:
However after that I was surprised to find Game of Thrones playing. Not just some trailer, but a full episode. I'm thinking it must be HBO.
I went up further to find an actual movie playing (The House Bunny). Not sure what channel this is, but quality was fantastic.
Next channel was Global TV. After that was a TV show Sons of Anarchy. All these channels playing in 1080i.

That's where it ended though. Everything after that was music channels and some Rogers preview channels (something called Rogers Grid?).

Is this normal? Some sort of free preview? If I knew about this, I could have been watching these channels years ago.
You sound like me when I was 15 and I found scrambled porno channels, lol.


Yeah, my TV set found a few but most of them are digital radio stations.

I wished TV was so severely crippled like this. It use to be that you could climb the electrical pole and syphon / splice your neighbours connection to yours, haha.


Now they have safe guards like identity locked modems and tv boxes, boo.
Deal Expert
Dec 4, 2010
19536 posts
2260 upvotes
Quarantine Bubble
BobSagget wrote: Another thing that was strange was 2 channels close together (forget the actual channel, was like 73-212 and 73-217 or something around there), were playing the exact same TV show, but just at different parts. When the TV show ended on one, a movie came on. The other channel though when it ended, it simply went black. No loss of signal, just a black screen.
It's how they can advertise 2000+ channels. Have useless crap like digital radio stations or a looping video of fish and fireplace. WTF?


Back when I was in high school my rich friends would have HUUUUGE dishes in their backyards and could legitimately claim to have 1000+ channels.. They were all legit, too!
Deal Addict
Jul 23, 2013
3038 posts
1059 upvotes
A small town north o…
This stuff was always there. I last tried it in November 2014 when we switched from Rogers to a third party ISP. Just tried it again and it all looks the same.
Deal Expert
Jan 17, 2009
24232 posts
43261 upvotes
ONTARIO
So weird. I just checked the channels again and now there's at least 8 that are working, playing TV shows/movies.
That first one that had Game of Thrones in HD on is now playing the movie "The Break Up" in SD quality. Global is still global (HD), but there's like 3 more channels that are playing Game of Thrones in HD and SD quality. Plus another channel has "The Little Rascals" movie on in HD.

Seems weird that they would have these airing in the clear and not scrambled.
Deal Expert
Jan 17, 2009
24232 posts
43261 upvotes
ONTARIO
Okay so I am pretty positive I figured out what it is. I think for whatever reason I am seeing what people are watching on SHOMI. I think when someone starts something on Shomi the channel comes in. Otherwise I get the "no signal".

At one point I saw a purple shomi menu. Also a new game of thrones episode started playing on another channel and the intro screen was literally being fast forwarded.
This is funny stuff.

In the middle of an episode of some global TV show, the screen went black and then a kids tv show on Treehouse started playing.
Deal Expert
Mar 23, 2004
35606 posts
18999 upvotes
I think it depends on your area. Where do you live? In the GTA I believe most areas Rogers has encrypted the majority of channels including ROD/Shomi type stuff. Not sure as I haven't checked in a long time.

Back in like 2007 in Brampton area, I used to be able to get several channels like you plus stuff people were watching on ROD/PPV in my area (including porn at times LOL) but later on (I think around 2010ish?) everything was encrypted and has been, to my knowledge, since.

I'm guessing in your area, for whatever reason (probably due to outdated equipment switching/providing cable), you still have unencrypted QAM channels available including ppl's on-demand/PPV/Shomi stuff.
Deal Expert
Jan 17, 2009
24232 posts
43261 upvotes
ONTARIO
ES_Revenge wrote: I think it depends on your area. Where do you live? In the GTA I believe most areas Rogers has encrypted the majority of channels including ROD/Shomi type stuff. Not sure as I haven't checked in a long time.

Back in like 2007 in Brampton area, I used to be able to get several channels like you plus stuff people were watching on ROD/PPV in my area (including porn at times LOL) but later on (I think around 2010ish?) everything was encrypted and has been, to my knowledge, since.

I'm guessing in your area, for whatever reason (probably due to outdated equipment switching/providing cable), you still have unencrypted QAM channels available including ppl's on-demand/PPV/Shomi stuff.
Barrie.

I am guessing the same thing. Pretty funny. It seems that when more people are watching, more channels become available. When I first checked it yesterday there was 3-4 working (all in the 71-xxx to 74-xxx range). Then last night there were literally 8 or 9 signals coming through. I didn't have to rescan anything either. They just popped up (like 71-283, then 71-851 would appear, or something like that).
I am curious to see how many channels are working on a friday/saturday evening.

Top