 tzbear
join:2006-01-11
Eau Claire, WI | [CATV] Charter Killing Public Access TV in Eau Claire, WI Well, it looks like Charter wants to kill the public access channels (PACs) here in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Charter is moving the PACs to a digital basic tier along with the CSPAN and the Wisconsin government channels. At least these channels are going to be sent out in ClearQAM. However, a number of shopping channels are being moved to prime positions in the analog spectrum. Futhermore, Charter is moving the expanded basic channels SoapNET, Lifetime Movie Network, and Toon Disney to the so-called digital expanded basic tier along where G4 and the Game Show Network were moved a year ago. More expanded basic channels are being moved to digital with no reduction in the rate for expanded basic service. Now basic service is now being shrunk!!
The PACs will die because most the viewers that watch these channels just subscribe to analog basic or analog extended basic service. Who wants to pay $6.95 plus the many taxes and fees just to watch the PACs with a Charter digital box? The other alternative is to buy a new TV with a QAM tuner to watch the basic digital channels. Most people here in Eau Claire don't even know what a QAM tuner is. On top of that, Charter charges almost a $2 a month tax to support the PACs.
Why doesn't Charter just kill ALL analog tv channels, including basic channels? |
|
Phatty
join:2000-05-10
Valley Park, MO Reviews:
 ·VOIPo
| said by tzbear:.......... Why doesn't Charter just kill ALL analog tv channels, including basic channels? It wants to... and will eventually... But their are too many analog customers to just cut service so you will continue to see channels get moved off the analog over to digital more and more as time goes on.. Hopefully Charter will stop raising rates for the analog customers meaning instead of the usual annual rate increase you will just get an annual channel number deduction instead.
I for one fully support Charter in this move as it does not make since to continue to support such old and ugly looking channels as the analog ones. Cable boxes in our area are 5 dollars and IMO it is worth having the guide data alone for the 5 dollars.. Little lone the access to PPV, On demand and the ability to add/remove channels as you wish.
I know some people will always prefer the no box hookup either out of old habits, or budget restraints but the fact is it hurts the cable providers to continue offering it up and wasting bandwidth on such services. |
|
| reply to tzbear
The problem is that some folks have 5 or more TVs and it use to work fine with basic. If you require a box for each location in the house but only two people live there and most times both watch at the same location. The you are just tossing money out the window.
In fact i had 4 TV but only one box for ten years. I spent 600 dollars in rent for that box. A few months ago i whet and turned it in as it was old style and did not work with VOD. I got two new small boxes. That is now 10 dollars a month or $120 a year. These boxes only cost 60 bucks retail. I will have paid full price for them in one year but will keep paying for them over the years.
I hear that now cable cards and clear QAM channels are no longer going to work for some cable companys like TW as they are changeing some thing on there network, so many more boxes will be needed again and the TIVO will no longer work so DVRs and FEEs to TW. |
|
 jeffro
join:2007-04-20
Bay City, MI | reply to tzbear
Comcast recently did that here in Holland and from what the Holland Sentinel (local newspaper) said no one even really noticed. Not saying no one does but I've never met one person who actually watches those channels. |
|
|
|
 eyetack
join:2002-09-05
Leicester, MA | reply to tzbear
The reason largely behind the move to a digital platform is to free up analog spectrum for additional services, including HD channels, and (hopefully) wide-band DOCSIS.
A single SD analog channel takes up about 6mHz of bandwidth. With digital compression, 10 SD channels can pretty easily fit in that same channel space. In the end, "basic" service probably will be the only thing clearly tunable with analog or ClearQAM. This will most likely be OTA broadcast channels, and certainly PACs ... also known as PEG channels in some markets.
In order to get even more bandwidth, almost every CableCo is implementing some sort of switched-digital system, and yes, this requires a digital receiver. You can think of that as a broadcast version of VOD. For instance, instead of transmitting 120 channels of digital video out to everyone, taking up 12 channel slots, there are 40 or 60 slots per VOD service group which will only have channels that people are actually watching. The process itself should be quite transparent to the end user. This also makes it easier to provide specialty channels and tiers of ethnic interest ... or any other "long tail" programming.
I'm interested to see where the Tru2Way standard will go with this, and until then, if the price of renting a digital box will fall and by how much.
IMHO, it beats trying to implement a dual-cable system which was much more common in some places back in the day.
And before anyone asks ... no, I don't own a television. |
|
tzbear
join:2006-01-11
Eau Claire, WI | reply to tzbear
Here is a link to a local newspaper article about this topic:
»www.leadertelegram.com/story-new···B64FCEBI |
|
| reply to mmainprize
As agentfrn was stating the reasons for the changes he also brought up "tru2way". if this technology works the way it should, the digital boxes will once again disappear. I believe this is the future for cable and it is also the best for the consumer.
here's one good link for the tru2way. there are many more out there.
»arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20···ech.html |
|
tzbear
join:2006-01-11
Eau Claire, WI | reply to tzbear
Perhaps people should realize that cable tv is no longer CATV (Community Antenna Television). It is time to go back to rabbit ears and rooftop antennas. With the transistion to DTV, more channels are available free over the air. Plus, the over the air signals are much more superior then the highly recompressed signals that cable companies send out on their systems. There is that old phrase "Everything old is new again". Many millions of US households don't need cable tv anymore. |
|
 MacLeechThe one and onlyPremium
join:2001-07-14
SoCal
kudos:3 | said by tzbear:Perhaps people should realize that cable tv is no longer CATV (Community Antenna Television). It is time to go back to rabbit ears and rooftop antennas. With the transistion to DTV, more channels are available free over the air. Plus, the over the air signals are much more superior then the highly recompressed signals that cable companies send out on their systems. There is that old phrase "Everything old is new again". Many millions of US households don't need cable tv anymore. What's the point of worrying about PACs then? They aren't broadcast over the air.
Are you defending the PACs or not?
As far as the whole analog to digital transition, it'll continue as long as customers demand more channels, especially HD channels. How long should cable companies wait for slow adopters while holding back services for the masses? DBS, FiOS, and U-Verse certainly aren't, most of them don't even have to deal with THIS issue. |
|
| reply to tzbear
said by tzbear:Plus, the over the air signals are much more superior then the highly recompressed signals that cable companies send out on their systems. There is that old phrase "Everything old is new again". Many millions of US households don't need cable tv anymore. That's your opinion. |
|
