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biglittlewil5
join:2009-04-02
Seattle, WA

biglittlewil5 to Georgia85

Member

to Georgia85

Re: [DTA] Can I change the TV channel without the DTA remote?

said by Georgia85 :

As for buying a DVR - I wish we could. I would rather paid a one time fee and own it then pay $15.95 a month to Comcast and have to return it when I was done.
You don't have to rent a DVR from Comcast. As I said in a previous post you can buy a Moxi or Tivo.
»moxi.com/
»www.tivo.com/
mahermusic
TRUMP LOST LOL
join:2001-07-06

mahermusic to Georgia85

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to Georgia85
said by Georgia85 :

As for buying a DVR - I wish we could. I would rather paid a one time fee and own it then pay $15.95 a month to Comcast and have to return it when I was done. However, DVR's are only provided by cable and satellite companies on a rental basis. Even if you bought one off of E-bay it would not be guaranteed to work because the DVR is also a de-scrambler for Comcast signals.

Of COURSE you can buy a DVR that works just fine with Comcast. You can choose to pay monthly, or do what I do and pay for the service outright. Actually the best DVR out there isn't even one of the crappy Comcast products... it's been around for years, and I own three of them, all with lifetime so I don't have to pay a monthly fee. They all use cable cards (so no monthly remote/box rental) and Comcast even CREDITS me $4.20 each for NOT renting a cable box/remote. I use the remote that comes with it. I can get beautiful hi-def channels, have it record one channel while watching another or record two different channels while watching an already-recorded third), get my Netflix movies streamed to it. Start one movie in one room, and finish in another, access thousands and thousands movies off of Amazon almost immediately, watch Youtube videos, play games, access my Mac, tell it to remotely record from a computer or my cell phone's browser.

It's called TiVo.
Audifan1989
join:2009-11-07
60174C

Audifan1989 to nick11

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to nick11
To all of the Comcast defenders, I think you are missing the point here. The key thing that Comcast is failing at is the TV viewing experience. Comcat is not "giving" its customers anything really. It is doing this ONLY to maximize its revenues. Yes, they are looking to reclaim bandwith but that is not the only reason they are doing this conversion and specifically doing it this way. The reasons they are doing it this way include the following:

1) Requiring a box for each television is a way of eliminating piracy of their cable. While this is an understandable goal, it requires this new ugly box with crappy remote. If the plan was just to convert to digital only, they could have had a single box at each residence and continued to allow customers to use their tv tuner to tune each station. They also want to sell you Pay-per-view. This could easily have been handled by blocking out several channels to broadcast those, allowing you to view them on any tv. Additionally, this conversion is not "free" as you say since you have to pay for each DTA beyond the three they provide at no extra charge. We all have to pay for the extra energy used by each of these devices which are on all the time and in many cases for a signal amplifier that needs to be installed.

2) They want you to pay for their DVR service and so far as I can tell nobody I know has been able to get their tivo to work properly with the DTA. Even if you are able to figure out a workaround, they sure have made it difficult for you The previous post about PIP requiring 2 sources is technically incorrect. The PIP needs a single source - it's just that the source needs to be unscrambled in order for the tv's tuner to tune the 2 channels simultaneously.

3) Many of the new "free" channels Comcast is "giving" you are leased crappy infomercial and other stations most people don't want - it's just more "spam" you need to surf through. You can't "delete" these channels from your tv's channel lline-up.

Most of what's being touted as was posted earlier by a Comcast critic will only happen in the future. Here is what is LOST right now.

1) You MUST use multiple remotes to control anything beyond a simple tv/cable box setup.

2) PIP - forget it. Same goes for any of your factory tv remote functions for that matter.

3) If you have more than 3 tvs you need to pay extra for those crappy boxes you never wanted in the first place.

4) Tuner response is quite a bit slower now.

5) The ONLY way to change the channel is with the new crappy remote. I hope your kids don't misplace it or you'll be stuck on the Disney channel.

6) Overall the tv viewing experience has been diminished, not enhanced.
CT3s
join:2009-10-05
Barrington, IL

CT3s to nick11

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Excuse me while I go take a shower and wash off the ignorance from this entire thread. Except for the Comcast employee actually trying to help nick11.

Generally I would help, although it appears the OP just isn't listening.

If you are honestly this frustrated by the entire situation then switch to a different provider. If you are in the city of Chicago then you should have RCN. Try Dish, or Direct TV. Lets see how long it actually takes you to come crawling back to Comcast.

Or you could just head over to Walmart and buy a OTA DTA, and incur no monthly charges.

/rant
Ph4r7
join:2007-01-11
Saint Clair Shores, MI

Ph4r7

Member

Agreed, I don't know why I kept reading this earlier. It's like a train wreck you just have to watch...

All these adjustments over half of the current populace has already made these and are now getting by fine, or many would say... better.

I see these things as opportunities, not failures. Just like whenever I start a home improvement job, I look forward to buying at least one new tool that will make this job and maybe future jobs easier. This is the same point, the OP could go to Walmart, K-Mart, Meijer, or other and buy a new $10 Universal remote that will work with the DTA, TV, VCR. If they even need to, as mentioned by the overly calm and helpful Comcast employee they could call Sony and ask if they have a code for the DTA that would at least get the Channel controls the OP is frustrated over.

I am going to go through this 5 times more complicated when I help my in-laws setup their new AV receiver, Component DVD Player, VCR, Cable Box, Surround Sound System over the holidays this year.
CT3s
join:2009-10-05
Barrington, IL

CT3s

Member

Well hopefully your in-laws are more understanding. While being able to comprehend that this is a good thing.

PogKing
@comcast.net

PogKing to nick11

Anon

to nick11
I guess I'm just not understanding why it's Comcast's fault that they are moving technology forward? Analog cable is old outdated technology, hell even OTA broadcasting isn't analog anymore.

owlyn
MVM
join:2004-06-05
Newtown, PA
Netgear CM2050V
Netgear RBRE960
Netgear RBSE960

owlyn to Audifan1989

MVM

to Audifan1989
I am on my township's cable TV advisory board. Residents may call the township to register complaints about their cable service, and these are reported to us. We have recently (Sept. 30) completed the all-digital migration, requiring everyone to have DTAs or better. Much to my surprise, we did not receive a single complaint. I was sure we would- we have a lot of senior citizens, and a lot of residents who complain about any little thing. Not a peep.
CT3s
join:2009-10-05
Barrington, IL

CT3s

Member

You my friend must have been eating horse shoes for a year. lol
Audifan1989
join:2009-11-07
60174C

Audifan1989 to PogKing

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The reason OTA broadcasts are digital-only is that they were required by federal law to do so. The RF spectrum is licensed by the government and the law applies to Full Power broadcast Stations. There is no requirement that the the cable companies either switch to digital or stop broadcasting in analog format. Up until last month Comcast was broadcasting in both digital and analog formats.

Comcast has been broadcasting in digital format for some time now and that's a good thing. However, it was not until recently that they made the decision to stop broadcasting most stations in analog. The fact that they decided to do this has NOTHING to do with any federal requirement. The bandwidth they "reclaimed" largely suits their own purposes. Again, there's plenty of bandwidth for the stations people want - just not enough for the leased stations and other stuff Comcast wants to bill you for.

Since a huge number of people still have analog tv's, it makes sense for the conversion to gradual, particularly for a company that several short months ago was touting that you didn't have to do a thing for the digital conversion.

Many people want access to certain stations and are not particularly concerned about the High-Def aspect at all. They want to be able to use the remote that came with their tv to control all of their inputs. This is no longer possible.

It's possible that my opinion of Comcast has something to do with many bad experiences with customer service in getting my parents DTA's up and running. They wasted lots of my time (which they don't mind doing. Several calls got me nowhere, they simply wanted me to wait for ever increasing periods of time before they said all of the channels would come in - the last thing they want to do is send a human being - that costs money). When the Comcast guy finally arrived 4 hours late it turned out the cable needed an amplifier which they charged them for even though it was previously working fine before the DTA's arrived.

I like the idea of having a hardwired system and I think it offers some advantages to be sure. I just think those advantages are being squandered because Comcast is more concerned with profit than they are about their customer's experience.

I appreciate the comments for the Comcast guy who I believe is trying to help. I'm not trying to shoot the messenger.

Some people don't mind paying a bit more to enhance their user experience by buying or renting additional equipment but many customers simply can't afford to cough up additional cash for something they had before Comcast changed it.

I feel fairly certain that this change was implemented with the idea of forcing tivo users to buy their dvr service and think it's likely that they could have used a very basic remote code set and mad it available to the manufacturers BEFORE making the change. When we are all using TV's with the equipment to properly decode the Comcast signals and can use a single remote again, I will happily embrace this change. Until then...I think this was a bad implementation.

As for owlyn's community - I'm glad you're not getting complaints about the conversion, however, in my community when you mention Comcast there's lots of grumbling. My sister-in-law has been waiting for weeks to figure out why she can only get 1 DTA to work in her house.

owlyn
MVM
join:2004-06-05
Newtown, PA
Netgear CM2050V
Netgear RBRE960
Netgear RBSE960

owlyn

MVM

said by Audifan1989:

As for owlyn's community - I'm glad you're not getting complaints about the conversion, however, in my community when you mention Comcast there's lots of grumbling. My sister-in-law has been waiting for weeks to figure out why she can only get 1 DTA to work in her house.
There are almost 40,000 people in my township, and there is plenty of grumbling about Comcast. That's another reason why I was surprised at the lack of complaints.

I found that my DTA is very sensitive to signal quality or strength. I couldn't get it to authorize at the outlet where I needed to use it. I moved it to a different outlet, authorized it there, and then moved it back. That worked, though I am not able to get a few channels, but in my case, these are channels I don't care about. You may want to give that a shot.

Northwest
@comcast.net

Northwest

Anon

owlyn... perhaps you should report your poor quality equipment/service to the TV Advisory Board....

I've never heard of a TV Advisory Board before, I'd love to find one in our community!

owlyn
MVM
join:2004-06-05
Newtown, PA
Netgear CM2050V
Netgear RBRE960
Netgear RBSE960

1 edit

owlyn

MVM

said by Northwest:

owlyn... perhaps you should report your poor quality equipment/service to the TV Advisory Board....

I've never heard of a TV Advisory Board before, I'd love to find one in our community!
but the problem is my wiring. Not Comcast's fault. Prior to the DTA,the PQ on that TV was pretty bad. Now it's excellent.

You probably do have a CATV Advisory Board of some kind. Check with your franchising authority.