Comcast bolstering HD lineup in Pittsburgh, PA

Late last year, we heard that Comcast was ready to drop some bills in order to improve its aging infrastructure in the Northeast, and while we can't say for certain that these new HD channels are the fruits of that labor, there's certainly a good possibility. Whatever the case, messages are now going around to set-top-boxes in the Steel City informing subscribers that a new slate of high-definition channels are coming on July 15th. Unfortunately, it seems that some parts of the city will see fewer newcomers than others, but the two lineups posted above and below (the break) should give you a good idea of what to look forward to.

[Thanks, Daniel]

[iHEARTbiff Posted Jul 3rd 2008 9:46AM]

They (Comcast) better pick up their game... FIOS TV is making/made it's way into several communities. Only bad part is that Verizon has a 6 month backlog on HD boxes.

[bull3964 Posted Jul 3rd 2008 10:05AM]

I live in the area, and yes it's the result of upgrades that were originally promised to be finished back around 2003 or so. Comcast head ends in Ross and Castle Shannon are going from an ancient 650mhz system to a new 1ghz system so we are finally going to get channels that everyone else in the area has had for about 9 months already (even though we always got to pay the same price) as well as a few newcomers.

Too little too late though as far as I'm concerned. I'm going to be moving in two months down the road to an area that has FIOS and I'm never going to look back. Even if FIOS has a lesser channel lineup than Comcast, Comcast has created too much bad faith with me over the years.

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 3rd 2008 11:17AM]

I'm sure this also has something to do with Verizon rolling out its new FiOS HD channel lineup (45 HD channels) in the Pittsburgh market on the 6th. FiOS still doesn't have Fox Sports Net HD though :(

[bull3964 Posted Jul 3rd 2008 10:09AM]

Oh, and it's not that some areas are receiving fewer updates than the others. The difference between the first and second list is the difference in channels that were already available in most of the other areas around Pittsburgh.

Stuff like Food HD, Scifi HD, and TBS HD (to name a couple), got launched in most areas around Pittsburgh around 9 months ago. There were just certain areas that didn't have enough bandwidth to get all of them.

[ombsz Posted Jul 3rd 2008 3:25PM]

It says 15 and 17. I don't know if that just means different areas are getting the channels on either date.

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 4th 2008 8:04PM]

The same kind of thing is happening in the Boston area (*except* for the City of Boston proper and Brookline, which already have less analog) on the same day (7/15). So the "rest of us" should get the new channels that Boston/Brookline got last month (Disney/ABC Fam/Science/AMC/TLC) not too long after. B&B also have had Weather Channel for awhile, so maybe we'll get that one too.