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Re: Service Electric Cablevision News

@ cypherstream,

I think option 1 is more hopeful than option 2 but I see neither happening.
The X2 software looks a lot like Tivos since the XG1 platform was built around the Tivo experience.
The Comcast remote even looks like the Tivo peanut remote.
»x1.comcast.net/webportal/assets/···uide.pdf
»wwwb.comcast.com/x1#search_container
»customer.comcast.com/help-and-su···ote/?p=1

I did suggest to SECV that they also test the XG1 platform that was developed by Pace and Tivo but they seem to have a poor experience with Pace so they are overlooking it for the Arris.
The problem I see occurring with SECV is that they are going to ask the opinion of their employees about the Arris unit, but SECV employees usually get their cable services free so they only can see the difference to what SECV currently uses and not compare it to the Genie. Hopper, or Tivo. So even a stripped down version of the Arris whole home is going to be a lot better than the current SECV offerings. If I get a chance to test it I will be doing the comparison between the Genie, Hopper, and the Tivos as this is what the competition really is. My sister has Comcast and she is going to try out the X2 when it is available in central Pennsylvania. I think Arris and SECV better bring their A game with the Moxi setup if they really want to compete in this arena.

Arris will also be shipping set top boxes that can run the X1 experience.

The issue isn't on SECV's end (or any other member of the ACA for that matter). The issue would be Comcast's new wholesale division would have to offer it. While that is not off the table when asked at the NCTA 13' show, this will take some time. Comcast themselves want to work on finalizing their roll out of X1 (which will take the rest of this year), and then upgrade to X2. When that is finally finished they may take a look at offering the X platform to other operators, as they offer other hosted solutions in tandem with Motorola NASRAC or HITS. See comment here

What about SECV going directly to Tivo and offering the Tivo Premier Q much like RCN, Suddenlink, Charter, Cox, Comporium, Grande, Midcontinent, GCI, Mediacom and Northland communications do? Tivo just won yet another patent case and with all the extra funds they have, they seem pretty healthy. They worked with ActiveVideo to demonstrate their cloud based solution where they can offer the full Tivo experience on any device. A roku box was running Tivo at the NCTA show, running it nicely I might add.

Tivo's a pretty big name and I hope they don't forget to trial what they have to offer. I think now with most of this patent stuff behind them, they will accelerate their innovation. They offer tablet and mobile apps as well, which again adds value. Remember DirecTV and Dish have nice tablet and mobile apps. It's about bringing all that to the table to be able to compete in todays world.

I mean really, this looks really nice, Tivo on Roku:
»twitter.com/davezatz/status/3445···/photo/1

The other thing SECV needs to implement is sending out HD prioritized channel maps to HD set tops / HD-DVR's. Time Warner is now doing that in Syracuse and they plan to push it out nationwide throughout the year. This applies to both Cisco and Motorola based plants running ODN and i-Guide. Basically for example if ESPN is on Ch 45, if you type in 45 on a box that can do HD... it automatically shows you the full quality HD picture. Now if you have an SD box or DTA, it gets a different channel map where typing in "45" would show the SD feed (so there is no service interruption for SD customers).

The biggest problem I see is that people do not tune to the correct HD channel. DirecTV makes it easy, and feedback I've heard from TWC customers in NY are very enthusiastic and loving this change. See article here. It makes it simple to get the best quality picture and it makes the service look its best to even those who fail to scroll up to channels 500+ or memorize numbers over 100. I know they have that "watch in HD" button, but its problematic. It doesn't always show up, and it still requires end user intervention. I see people not ever click the button because they don't see it, or they think because it says watch in hd, they think what is on the screen right now is HD (when it is not). I guess many people mistake it for an "indicator" rather than a "button".

@ cypherstream,

I think going the Tivo route for SECV would be a smart move as the Tivo already does most of what the X1 and X2 platforms do. With the recent settlement Tivo got form Motorola, etc. Tivo indicated that this is the end of the lawsuits so now they are going to step up rolling out some of the ideas they have been working on.
I think that SECV is committed to the Arris unit though. I also can not get an indication if they are going to get a new guide so if they go with the Arris it maybe running the I Guide software. I am hoping that they don't as this is one thing they really need to change. This is the main reason why I am really considering with purchasing two Tivos.

Your points on tuning to the HD channels is spot on as most people don't understand it or think they are watching HD because their TV is HD.
Another HUGE problem in the Mahanoy system is SECO gave out one free digital converter box (Motorola DCT1700) to each customer starting back in 2001, so most customers do not want to give the box up. You would not believe the number of customers here that have these boxes hooked to the RF input of their HDTVs. The reason the customers always state is the HD channel package is $13/month and the HD converter box (RNG 110) is $4.95/month so they keep the old DCT 1700 to save money.
On top of this is if a customer gets cable service and doesn't specify or wants HD service, then the installer shows up with the DCT 1700. SECV must have a warehouse full of these boxes.
I did suggest that SECV should consider making the HD lineup standard and remove any SD duplicates because the RNG 110 can down convert the HD feed to SD. They would be first in the US to do this and they can reduce some of their operating costs also.

Wow the dct-1700, thats OLD! Older than the slow as molasses DCT-2224 / DCT-2000 series.

That's like what they gave out when they first launched digital 64QAM, and digital was just for multi screen premiums and PPV. They were one of the first to get rid of analog scrambling on the premiums in favor of more secure digital.

I would never consider SECV unless they had an HD prioritized lineup like TWC. HD box should only get HD signals. Type in Channel 3 and see channel 3 in HD. My wife and her parents, not to mention if my mom comes over, and our room mate and other guests that visit... they would never watch HD if we had cable. DirecTV makes it easy, thank goodness for them.

Bring on multiroom, new guide and auto HD tuning, then I'll consider SECV. You can tell them that too or point them to this thread.

Ah interesting. Did they still have that awkward loop through coax cable in the back? When Comcast first rolled out digital, I picked two Moto DCT-2224's and they had a small coax loop in the back and they told me do not remove it or the box won't work.

Those were the days of MTV-X and Music Choice was audio only.

I saw the low number and must of thought of the older General Instruments DCT-1000. I don't think that could do 256QAM... Only 64QAM. TCI had them in the mid 90's.

I wonder what that coax loop is for in the back? I know when my dad moved in his house, they had a C/Ku band dish and the Chaparral receiver had an IF coax loop. The manual said it was for an optional inline filter in case there was terrestrial microwave interference in C / Ku band.

So if there's some sort of interference, would they put a filter inline with the loop? Or is it for an external analog cable descrambler (gated / sync suppression) ?

jed, I'm happy with DirecTV except for the price. I would love SECV to modernize the user experience a bit and that would give me more viable options. Maybe I will email corporate and just let them know why I choose DirecTV over SECV for television service, along with what would make me switch. I care so much not only because its nice to have price competitive options for myself, but also its nice to pay a LOCAL company and help the LOCAL economy.

@ cypherstream,

If I remember correctly the loop aloud the audio to pass through if you turned the box off. I haven't had one of these boxes in my possession for a number of years so I can not be certain.

Telling SECV why you chose Direct TV would be a good idea. Personally I would not take a 6 tuner DVR with the I Guide either. The more people who tell them they want a better user experience the more likely they will readily invest in it.
The Pace RNG 200 is a really good modern DVR but it is the software that ruins the experience. Yes the I Guide gets the job done but the I Guide was built off a earlier version of TV Guide On Screen from at least a decade ago.
Also us Mahanoy customers had the Passport Echo guide before the transition so we took a step backwards when we went to SECV. They received a lot of complaints about the I Guide and how awkward it is.

I just ordered a Tivo Premiere 4 from Amazon for $189.99. I talked with Tivo and I am going to go with the lifetime subscription when the Tivo arrives. I should have no problem transferring the CableCard from my Kuro to the Tivo as SECV personnel are pretty good with CableCards. Since I own my two CableCards It doesn't cost me a monthly fee to have them running in Tivos.
If SECV decides to move to MPEG 4 encoding and or expands the bandwidth out to 1 GHz, the Premiere series Tivos have these capabilities built in where my 2 Kuros do not.

I will still try out the new 6 tuner DVR if asked and if SECV goes all the way and even gets new guide software and I like the moxi interface I will consider using the set up even though I have a Tivo. This will also give me an opportunity to see if the Arris offering measures up to the Tivo which is the best DVR interface going.

Jed, I did email both birdsboro office and corporate office on 6/14/11. I know that was awhile back, but I remember sending an email out and sure enough when I searched my gmail, I found it.

Fast forward 2 years later, I guess it wouldn't hurt to remind them. I'll PM ya the letter I sent just to not continue to clutter up this thread.

@ cypherstream,

I sent one last year about at least upgrading the guide software because us Mahanoy customers had the Passport Echo guide.
They never responded back so I do not know if they got the email or not. Hopefully they will respond to you.

They did, and hopefully whomever is responsible for their social media team creates an account on here and responds to this thread.

I also think they should create a twitter account. Do you know if they do?

Anyway, SECV is a great company. I hope they do start to offer some updated experiences and auto hd for customers. Then I would switch to triple play no problem.

@ cypherstream,

They do have an active Facebook page that they update but they do not have a twitter account.

I am glad that you did this as you are younger than me and you use social media more than I do. Sometimes I think I have over reached with my division but I am only trying to be helpful because if it wasn't for SECV there would probably be no cable service here as the population is aging and dwindling.
Even though I am near 50 I want the same solutions as you do as they need to stay in front of what the industry is doing and not two or three steps behind.

I will try sending corporate an email also and see if I can get some traction here.

I got my TiVo this week and I was considering of keeping the Pace DVR or downgrading to the Pace RNG 110 just so I have access to VOD. I went to check the rate schedule and I noticed a change in the cost for the HD tier. The price used to be $13.00 and now it is $0.00. There is a small 11 next to the package and at the bottom of the rate schedule it says this:
11. Rate does not include 3D/HD technology fee of 13.00.

I did call SECV late Friday and they weren't sure if my bill will rise by $13/month. They were not aware that this changed. I told her is must of happened Wednesday or Thursday because I was looking at the rates earlier this week.
My bill should be available for viewing tomorrow or Monday so I will know if my bill will rise by $13/month. This will be on top of the $7.43/month rate hike last month. $3.43 of that was for the Broadcaster Retransmission Fee which is not listed on the rate schedule.
This appears in the Taxes and Fees section of my bill so I guess this is where the 3D/HD technology fee will be.
This will be incredibly stupid move considering how bad the economy is around here. I am wondering what they will charge for the 6 tuner DVR when they release it.

If this is true then SECVs equipment goes back on Monday and I will purchase another TiVo for the bedroom TV.

Here are the rate cards for the SECV divisions:
Mahanoy City
»www.secv.com/cdocs/rate_card_mah.pdf
Birdsboro
»www.secv.com/cdocs/rate_card_birds.pdf
Hazleton
»www.secv.com/cdocs/rate_card_hazl.pdf
Sunbury
»www.secv.com/cdocs/rate_card_sun.pdf
CATV Services
»www.secv.com/cdocs/rate_card_catv.pdf

I saw that too and it's confusing. Oh when can we get past these stupid HD technology fee's. in 2013 HD should be the standard. We're well past the digital transition and HD has been around for more than 10 years now.

I got to view my new bill online and there is no change on the bill and the monthly cost is the same. I can only assume three things right now.
1. The change to the rate card for the HD tier is only a play on words, which means the bill will stay the same. This will give the illusion that HD is free for those who don't bother to read the fine print.
2. They have not completed the change to the rate schedule in time for this billing cycle.
3. It was to late in the billing cycle to show the change on the new bills and will show up on the next bill.

I will try not to speculate but I see no reason for SECV to start using cryptic language to confuse their customers. I get this from practically everybody who is billing me or trying to separate me from my money. People who proclaim they are going to save me money on my electric bill come to mind right know.
I always held SECV in higher standing because their billing was straight forward and easy to understand, which to me indicates honesty. I guess they think competing means doing what the competition does.
I just looked at an add for Direct TV and the fine print was light grey on a white background and there was no spacing between the words. I had to use a flashlight and my reading glasses and hold it a certain angle to even read the print. The more I read the more variables come into play. At the end of the fine print I had no idea what I would be paying.

I wish they had a package builder on their website where you could select exactly what you want and get a real time updated price with link to authorized channels and services. You should be able to put in how many HDTV's you have, how many DVR's you want, premiums, TV package, phone and or Internet speed tier, then get a calculated price right there.

That would also save loads of calls coming in on pricing inquiries as well. Sure it may cost some dollars to develop that level of interactivity on the web site, but think of the man hours saved in the call center or phone reps who could be on other more important calls or actually making sales. Also a place on the website once logged into your account to send a refresh signal to your equipment. That's another big part of call volume that could be deferred to "self service" methods through the website or even automated telephone prompts.

I think one of their problems is a lot of SECV customers don't even know that they have a website so they CSR's get used heavily.

Also if you look at some of the peoples complaints on their Facebook page concerning SECV prices compared to Comcast's, The customers do not realize that Comcast generally have between 10 to 20 dollars worth of taxes and fees that are not listed in the price to compare.
On my bill there is $9.65 in taxes and fees.
1. PA sales tax $5.06
2. FCC regulatory Fee $0.08
3. PA Relay tax $0.08
4. 911 Fee $1.00
5. Broadcaster Retransmission Fee $3.43
None of these prices are listed on their website and are not quoted by the CSR's when you call them. You will not know what the total cost is until you get your first bill.
In my case if you add up the services that I subscribe to it comes to $202.75 but when the fees and taxes are added it then totals $212.40.
The borough of Frackville does not have a franchise tax on the cable but places like Mahanoy City and Girardville does. I think they are around the $8/month range.
This is why I am concerned about this 3D/HD technology fee as I suspect it will be in the tax and fee portion of the bill.

I know that the hardware they rent and the premium channels have a 6% sales tax on them. I also think that there is a 6% sales tax on the internet.
My sister pays a total of $13.51/month of taxes and fees on her Comcast bill and this was not quoted in the price that they gave her when she signed up for her new package three months ago.

I do no think it is possible to allow the customer to send refresh signals to their equipment as this will expose a security risk to their system. All it would take is for one person to hack into their network and foul up their entire system.

Well Comcast allows the customer to send refresh signals via phone prompts or via the website after logged in with the account number. I think the phone system used caller ID plus it asked for your account number. It just sent a refresh based on whatever your package was. A few years ago I had Comcast and a bad DCX3400 DVR. Every few nights shortly after midnight any channel that was encrypted would go to "not authorized". Sending refresh via web, online chat rep or automated telephone system would fix it for a few days.

When we were with SECO I know a couple of HD channels were extra and we paid $4.95/month for them. They were ESPN HD, Wealth HD, HDNet, HDNet Movies, Discovery Home Theater, and NGC HD.
I guess the hidden cost will be the use of bandwidth and the hardware in the head end to broadcast the channels to the customers. Outside of this I do not see any other reasons for the additional cost.
I do believe it is time to start making HD the standard line up and doing away with the SD channels since HD is the only type of TV you can buy now. In fact I think there hasn't been a SD digital TV available for sale since the analog shutdown 4 years ago. Then they can make them in the clear as they do with the classic cable line up.

We suffered a major outage here on Wednesday. I lost phone and TV service for most of the day. Even their phones were down. They stated to the Standard Speaker that there was a power failure and that their backup generators even failed.
The services were restored late in the afternoon but I noticed that Showtime HD was out so I called the answering service to report it Wednesday evening. This just got fixed before lunch today.

I am going to return their DVR since I got a TiVo. This should save me about $9/month. If prices keep going up for insurance, utilities, food, fuel, etc. I will next remove the digital premiere package. After this it gets more difficult as I will have to downgrade my internet to a lower speed in order to eliminate the digital variety tier.

I do not know what to do after this if I have to cut back further because I will have to purchase each service separately which will make my bill to go up, as I will lose the savings from the bundle.