US Cable Support > Charter Internet/TV > [CATV] Just got Charter Phone/Internet/TV today

[CATV] Just got Charter Phone/Internet/TV today

Charter's selection of HD leaves a lot less to be desired. Supposedly they said much more HD will be out this year. We'll see. That being said I'm not sure if QVC or HSN even offer their channels in HD. I think that would be a wste of bandwidth anyways. If you go to their websites they have live streaming of their TV channels.

»www.hsn.com/watch-hsn-live_xh.aspx

»www.qvc.com/onair/liveshow.aspx?rewrite=no

For the record HSN is avilable via OTA in St Louis on KPTN-LD and K38HD-D. Neither of which is HD either.

shoot on ATT Uverse.....both QVC and HSN were both in HD. ATT Uverse may be lagging in Internet speed....but they sure had a bunch of HD stations.

reply to STLCompGuy
Charter has great internet service (I have 100meg with them) but use uverse for tv and phone. Until Charter can even begin to compete HD wise I will stay with u-verse even though the PQ isnt as good. I would love to have charter tv service with a tivo but the HD line up is lacking too much as this time for me.

reply to STLCompGuy
Charter HD has always been behind most other competitors, but for me at least, I no longer have any SD channels that I am missing so I guess they are not doing so bad.

HSN & QVC would be a waste of bandwidth, that I think the majority of users would not care about being in HD. Maybe your wallet will appreciate your wife watching these channels less if she can not stand the SD quality .

The only SD channel I dvr from is TV Land. All the rest are on HD

reply to STLCompGuy
Bandwidth. Charter is behind in HD channels because every they try to kick SD channels to the curb, people start complaining.

Sooner or later, they will simply cut SD back to basic channels only, and move everything to digital and/or HD. And while many of us would be really happy, there will be a lot of moaning and complaining.
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reply to BF69
both QVC and HSN is a big hit at our house.....my wife (and myself at times) love to watch QVC for all of their bargains. We love to watch David in the Kitchen on Sunday mornings

And yes....both QVC AND HSN....broadcast in crystal clear HD 24/7. 100% of their content is beautiful 1080 content.

So yea it does matter for at least my family

reply to oneoone
wow 100 meg....is it really that serious?! I am all about ease of use, and simplicity...I am afraid my wife would kill me if I had 1 company for TV and another for Internet/Phone. But to me in all honesty.....if it saves a few pennies....I would have a different company for everything I have in our house

Charter I have come to find out can not compete at all with HD stations....at least compared to ATT UVERSE.

reply to STLCompGuy

once someone is spoiled with having almost every single channel under the sun broadcast in HD.....and you go back to analog......it just does not even compare.

its kind of like going from the early to mid 90s of dial up to broadband....

what I dont understand is....how is ATT UVERSE able to have all these HD stations....and Charter cant.....problably because ATT UVERSE has very few analog stations. Of maybe because ATT UVERSE spends their money on HD rather than spending it on Internet speed.

reply to BF69
I'm rather happy with Charter's HD lineup...the only channels I care about being in HD are:

ESPN
FOX NEWS
CNN
MSNBC
HISTORY
TRU TV
TLC
THE BIG TEN NETWORK
ALL MY LOCALS
FOX SPORTS MIDWEST
DO IT YOURSELF NETWORK
HBO

(thats all I can think of right now

Uverse doesn't have a bunch of people that are use to not needing a box. Charter should just tell everybody that every TV in the house will now need a box. Then they could move every channel to digital from analog, thus having more bandwidth for HD.

reply to STLCompGuy

actually...having had Charter now for about 2+ days....there are only a few issues I dont like with them:

1. MULTI-ROOM dvr sucks (at least compared to ATT Uverse)
2. HD selection sucks (again at least compared to ATT Uverse)
3. changing channels and going to On-Demand or from non HD to HD is lagging (not as fast or instantaneous as with ATT Uverse).

Numbers one and three can easily be answered. U-Verse is brand new and had to buy all brand new equipment. Charter has been around in tv forever so they arent forced to buy all brand new equipment, though the Tivo stuff is rolling out soon.

2) U-Verse does have more HD channels with a few caveats. A LOT of their HD channels arent actually HD, but rather upconverted to HD. Most of the channels that Charter does broadcast in HD looks better than the U-Verse HD version of it.

Like someone has said before. It is all about bandwidth. For example a Charter cable system may have 870 MHz of bandwidth they can use for all services. from 5-42 MHz is the return path for internet, on demand, telephone. Charter uses multiple frequencies for DOCSIS downstream channels (internet) to allow for channel bonding.

Not to mention what most people have mentioned earlier in the thread. Charter still broadcasts analog channels (usually 60ish) to customers so they will not need a box or digital tuner to pick them up.

Charter has freed up a ton of bandwidth with the launch of switched digital and that allowed them to add a nice handful of HD channels in the last few months.

They also rolled out simulcast, which essentially means that all of the analog channels are also sent out in a digital format for the people that already have boxes on televisions.

I would just about bet that in the next 6 months or so that the analog channels will dwindle down to the first 21 channels or so, and everything else will be moved to all digital. This is what Comcast did as their initial step toward moving to all digital. Eventually the entire lineup will be digital only.

Basically one analog channel takes up one 6MHz allocation of channel bandwidth where as you can fit 2 or even 3 HD channels into the same 6MHz. If you take 60ish analog channels and remove them to free up the bandwidth you will see the ability to add something like 120 or more HD channels.

One thing you can be sure of is that Charter is working hard to free up bandwidth for more HD, but it isnt as easy as flipping a switch.

My short response turned into a long wall of text, but hopefully i have helped you understand a bit more why other services may offer more HD than Charter

yeah it is all about bandwidth and charter will catch up in time Im just not willing to go without during the process. My ATT Uverse bll is $160.00 a month and that is for U450 with Sports Pack and HD Ultra (All Premiums 1 HD DVR and 3 HD STB's) + Phone (unlimited local and long distance).

My charter bill is 77.00 a month for 100 meg (I own my modem and router)

So that comes out to 244.00 a month which is about 10 more then Charter's best offer to be for TV, Phone, Internet with same package (all channels)

The HD channels I watch the most are: The preiums HBO, HBO Family, HBO Signature, Starz, Starz Edge, etc. and NBA TV, Tennis Channel HD, TV Land HD, CNN HD, MTV HD, Big Ten Network HD, History HD, H2 HD, Planet Green HD and that about it so there are quite a few I watch that Charter doesnt carry but like everyone said in time they will catch up.

actually we would have stayed with ATT U VERSE but ATT screwed us bad....

we recently moved from a condo into a house......it took ATT UVERSE about 1 week to install the UVERSE in the new house. I dont know why...but they had to use all new equipment....we could not use the equipment we had in our Condo. I had to schlep the old equipment to a UPS store and send it back. Anyway, ATT UVERSE was working great in our house for about 3 months. In late November our Uverse Phone stopped working. We called a UVERSE tech to come out to the house and he could not fix it. He said that ATT mistakenly ported over....or whatever they call it....where our UVERSE phone line was not a part of our ATT UVERSE account anymore. Anyway, ATT said it would take weeks to port it back over to the ATT UVERSE side again on our account. Anyway, it was early January and still it was not done. So we called to cancel. The next day, an actual ATT phone tech guy came out to the house to fix our phone. Apparently what was going on was that the old home owner did not have his VOIP ATT set up right so when the ATT UVERSE guy came to install it in the house once we moved in.....he must not have one it right either. In any event, the ATT phone guy fixed our phone...but only half way....it was working great as an old style ATT PHONE LINE but they ATT UVERSE was still not able to port it over to our ATT UVERSE account. Bottom line is that we had Internet and TV working on our ATT UVERSE account but we had the old fashioned ATT phone line. I did not want that....so we switched to Charter.

anyway....we signed a 2 year "agreement" so lets see how long I will stick with Charter. Hopefully if I do decide to cancel them I wont get charged a penalty fee or whatever.

I had the same thing as you had with ATT Uverse....and my bill was about $150 when everything was working right. But I only had 1 HD DVR and 1 HD STBs. I had U450 and Sports Pack and HD Ultra.

with Charter regardless of how long the agreement is for you have 30 days to cancel with no fee. Just to keep in mind.