Public Channels in HD Coming Soon

Soon you'll be able to watch Council meetings (and a lot of other good programming) in HD. Montgomery County’s community cable PEG (Public / Education / Government) television stations will take a big step in bringing in-depth local information to residents on October 1 when they add broadcasts in high definition to subscribers of Comcast and RCN services.

Under newly approved franchise agreements, you can continue to get broadcasts of the community stations on standard definition channels, but now you'll also get four HD station with a fifth HD community station to be added in 2018. If you subscribe to Verizon, you will continue to be able to view the community stations only in SD formats.

HDTV is a digital TV broadcasting format where the broadcast transmits widescreen pictures with more detail and quality than found in a standard analog television. HDTV is considered to be the best quality digital television format available. HDTV, which requires an HDTV tuner to view, provides the most detailed format of 1080i.

The PEG channels that will be available in HD are:

• Public access Montgomery Community Media (MCM—will broadcast on HD Channel 995 on Comcast, HD Channel 1055 on RCN).
• Government channel County Cable Montgomery (CCM—will broadcast on HD Channel 996 on Comcast, HD Channel 1056 on RCN).
• The community channels of the cities of Rockville and Takoma Park and of the Montgomery Municipal Channel will combine as the Municipal Broadcast Network (MBN—will broadcast on HD Channel 997 on Comcast, HD Channel 1057 on RCN).
• The combined education channels of Montgomery County Public Schools and Montgomery College (MCPS/MC—will broadcast on HD Channel 998 on Comcast, HD Channel 1058 on RCN).