  pnh102Reptiles Are Cuddly And PrettyPremium
join:2002-05-02
Mount Airy, MD | About Damn Time Analog TV is so 1950s. The sooner cable dumps this albatross and embraces more modern HDTV technology the better.
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Only SHATNER is Kirk. | |
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 |  hdi
@optonline.net | Re: About Damn Time it will help if they release a whole house digital to analog converter for the first 70 channels.
but then they loose $$ of there cable box fees.
they could all have gone digital by now there own fault. | |
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| | | | Re: About Damn Time A 70 channel QAM to analog converter would cost a fortune. That's 8-10 tuner/demodulators and multi-stream MPEG decoders, plus 70 frame buffers and RF modulators. | |
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| | fiberguyMy views are my own.Premium
join:2005-05-20
kudos:3 | A cable box costs about $709 to $250 for a standard digital box. A whole house box, as you speak of, would cost several hundred and it would have to be installed on EVERY HOME, as well as removed from every home when they disconnect. (Two truck trips) not to mention the service calls to take care of those things when trouble hits. They'd not be able to recoup any of that money in rental fees. Now multiply to that every home you serve in America.
Play as if you were running the company. Would you make that choice? (Which, in a way, is pretty much a new system design) It's easy to arm chair these things.
Televisions or devices with downloadable security is the way to go. Whole house boxes are a modern step backwards.
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"Complaining is the least path of resistance for the self-reitchous and lazy ... those who also never take the time to point out a good fortune when the opportunity presents itself. It says a lot about one's moral character." - Unknown | |
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| | |  dmeyer
join:2002-08-14
Austin, TX | Re: About Damn Time On the upside, no longer would the cable companies have to disconnect a home from the tap when a user cancels their service. All they do is return the box, format it, and reissue the box to the next new customer. Theft of cable also becomes a lot harder with all-digital/secure cable. | |
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| | | Reviews:
 ·ProLog
 ·DIRECTV
1 edit | Cable companies are testing a device called the Broadlogic TeraPIX.
»www.engadget.com/2006/11/06/broa···-weapon/
»www.tmcnet.com/news/2006/11/06/2050849.htm
»www.broadlogic.com/tpix.htm
This allows the operator to run all digital, and ONLY digital. The terapix sits at the side of the homes which wish to have a few analog TV's. It will convert a select number (up to 80) of digital channels into analog and broadcast it out a specific port (hooked up to a splitter that goes to all of your analog sets). The all digital line would go to your regular digital cable box/modem/voice gateway. Disconnects and Reconnects do not involve a truck roll because the device can be deauthorized remotely, like a cable box. (Very Secure) It's only in testing, so we'll see if it becomes a reality.
It doesn't necessarily have to be removed from a home. Does Verizon remove their ONT's off of homes for people that disconnect their service? Although all systems can come up with whatever policy works best for them.
Good Luck broadlogic, great concept, let's see if it becomes a feasible solution and if operators want to pull it off. | |
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| | |  MadMANNPremium
join:2005-08-19
kudos:2 | My idea of a "whole house box" would be something similar to what DISH has in their dual tuner boxes. One box runs two TVs via a UHF remote.
Why not a quad/six/eight tuner box in the utility closet with a house cable for each set connected to the back of it? Each set would get its own UHF remote, operating at different freqs similar to what a cordless phone does currently.
Make that box a DVR and you have the ability to watch your recordings in any room in the house.
"I have a dream." -MLK  | |
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| | | | | | Re: About Damn Time That would be great as long as they can figure out how to finally modulate stereo sound over coax! That seems to be really difficult for them, but yet we put a man on the moon? Who'd a thunk it? | |
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| | | | | | | Re: About Damn Time Stereo over coax? Not even difficult, either analog or digital. Digital would be S/PDIF or the professional equivalent, or QAM-256 with MPEG if you're wanting video also. Analog would be some subcarrier technique like FM uses (you can send FM radio over coax).
Here's an analog product:
»www.smarthome.com/7702st1.html | |
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| | | | | | Reviews:
·ProLog
·DIRECTV
| Re: About Damn Time True not difficult. Our analog boxes used to do this all the time. But NONE of the digital boxes by Motorola or Scientific Atlanta modulate a stereo signal over channel 3 or 4. So many cable installers just bring coax and hook the box up via the Ch 3/4 input. Many customers don't even realize they are not getting the full sound output.
I've used both boxes Motorola and SA, and the only way I could get stereo sound is to use RCA cables. | |
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| |  BrazbitPremium
join:2003-10-22
Port Orchard, WA | said by hdi :
it will help if they release a whole house digital to analog converter for the first 70 channels.
but then they loose $$ of there cable box fees.
they could all have gone digital by now there own fault.
The cable companies just need to rent the converters. Cable is a luxury and analog is not a right.
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My train of thought wasn't so much derailed as it was a simple case of the track not being fully laid out when the train arrived. | |
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| | | RadioDoc58ef2c0Premium,ExMod 2000-03
join:2000-05-11 | Re: About Damn Time said by Brazbit:Cable is a luxury and analog is not a right. Where can I get that talking points paper?
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Toolmaster of La Grange. | |
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| | | | | | Re: About Damn Time said by RadioDoc:said by Brazbit:Cable is a luxury and analog is not a right. Where can I get that talking points paper? Of whose talking points do you speak? Certainly not the cable industry, whom I would figure would argue that cable is a necessity, not a luxury.
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Jay: What the @#$% is the internet??? | |
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| | | | | RadioDoc58ef2c0Premium,ExMod 2000-03
join:2000-05-11 | Re: About Damn Time It's the usual parroted response when someone criticizes cable pricing. You hear it here every time.
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Toolmaster of La Grange. | |
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| | Reviews:
·Bright House
1 edit | said by hdi :
it will help if they release a whole house digital to analog converter for the first 70 channels.
but then they loose $$ of there cable box fees.
they could all have gone digital by now there own fault.
Why would they want to support analog if the FCC is no longer going to support it to begin with??? It would be real stupid to install QAM to analog converters if we're moving to 15 Mhz channels instead of 6 Mhz. Especially considering the cost of the unit that makes this possible is several hundred dollars per house. But more importantly, WHY??
And indeed, they could have all gone digital, but the whining customer has held that up for years because they "don't want the cable box" and the electronic industry hasn't helped any either, because it took us this long to get the FCC to force a switchover date for HD, which has been postponed numerous times. Cable would be saving SO MUCH money if they did NOT have to deliver the first 70 channels in analog, so why do you think they kept them?
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SIPPhone/Gizmo # 17476200648 / PIMPNET Chatline / Ran by Asterisk & Slackware 10.1. | |
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| | | RadioDoc58ef2c0Premium,ExMod 2000-03
join:2000-05-11 | Re: About Damn Time said by phattieg:Cable would be saving SO MUCH money if they did NOT have to deliver the first 70 channels in analog, so why do you think they kept them? It's called the 1992 Cable Act.
Here's a little light reading for you on the subject:
»hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/a···54A1.pdf
»hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/a···54A2.pdf
The point is to provide the services people subscribe to, for the rates advertised, without hidden back-door rate increases for converters, etc. Not to save the cable company SO MUCH money.
Send the digital basic stuff in the clear and my TV will pick it up just fine without any additional equipment. If you won't do that, include a basic converter in the cost of the service (no 'box rental' add-on). If you won't do that, then you're stuck with those pesky analog channels on your system until you comply with one of the first two.
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Toolmaster of La Grange. | |
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| CCLA
join:2002-06-17
Baton Rouge, LA | said by pnh102:Analog TV is so 1950s. The sooner cable dumps this albatross and embraces more modern HDTV technology the better. U know cable companies are REQUIRED to still have analog stations right now | |
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| | pnh102Reptiles Are Cuddly And PrettyPremium
join:2002-05-02
Mount Airy, MD | Re: About Damn Time said by CCLA:U know cable companies are REQUIRED to still have analog stations right now And it is a dumb requirement. Personally, if I could drop all analog stations from my cable lineup, I would do it in a heartbeat.
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Only SHATNER is Kirk. | |
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| |  en102Canadian, eh?
join:2001-01-26
Valencia, CA | While that may be true... purchasing digital, and having the lower analog channels on your more expensive digital service is not a good thing.
When I had TW Cable in the San Fernando valley, all the lower channels were the same quality as analog even when I paid for more expensive digital service.
Eventually, I migrated over to less expensive and cleaner picture of satellite. | |
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| | | pnh102Reptiles Are Cuddly And PrettyPremium
join:2002-05-02
Mount Airy, MD | Re: About Damn Time said by en102:When I had TW Cable in the San Fernando valley, all the lower channels were the same quality as analog even when I paid for more expensive digital service. Digital cable (Comcast's includes HDTV) is not worth the price unless you have an HDTV.
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Only SHATNER is Kirk. | |
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| | | | en102Canadian, eh?
join:2001-01-26
Valencia, CA | Re: About Damn Time I agree | |
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| | | |  codeePremium
join:2001-10-01
Minneapolis, MN | said by pnh102:said by en102:When I had TW Cable in the San Fernando valley, all the lower channels were the same quality as analog even when I paid for more expensive digital service. Digital cable (Comcast's includes HDTV) is not worth the price unless you have an HDTV. Digital cable is worth it, even if you don't have a High-Def tv in my opinion....If you have a digital box, EVERY channel (in most areas) will be shown in digital - even the lower (analog without a box) channels. The difference in picture quality is moderately noticeable in my opinion. | |
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| | DaveO
join:2001-09-05
Easley, SC | I don't think this is true. DirecTV and Dish Network have zero analog stations, so I don't know why cable would be required to have them when direct broadcast satellite isn't. | |
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| | | RadioDoc58ef2c0Premium,ExMod 2000-03
join:2000-05-11 | Re: About Damn Time said by DaveO:I don't think this is true. DirecTV and Dish Network have zero analog stations, so I don't know why cable would be required to have them when direct broadcast satellite isn't. Cable normally has franchise agreements with local municipalities which require certain things to be carried. One of those is usually a certain level of analog service. If they can negotiate their way out of those terms then they certainly would not have to keep analog on the system. But, you can bet that the local political heat would be turned up if suddenly the cable company came in and said they'd be raising the fees for a $17 basic tier by $5-$10 a month per TV.
Satellite doesn't need franchise agreements since it does not use any local public resource (right of way, etc.).
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Toolmaster of La Grange. | |
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|  BIGMIKEPremium
join:2002-06-07
Westminster, CA | said by pnh102:Analog TV is so 1950s. The sooner cable dumps this albatross and embraces more modern HDTV technology the better. And the TV shows now days are junk.
1950's Shows
Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet, The
I Love Lucy
Leave It To Beaver
Lone Ranger, The
2007's Shows
The Girls Next Door
Hollyoaks
Shameless
The Simpsons
Skins
Torchwood
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Type "miserable failure" in Google | |
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| | pnh102Reptiles Are Cuddly And PrettyPremium
join:2002-05-02
Mount Airy, MD | Re: About Damn Time said by BIGMIKE:And the TV shows now days are junk. Quality of programming is in the eye of the viewer. For many people, shows from that era are just plain unwatchable.
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Only SHATNER is Kirk. | |
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| | | jbjettaPremium
join:2004-07-23
Laurel, MD | Re: About Damn Time said by pnh102:said by BIGMIKE:And the TV shows now days are junk. Quality of programming is in the eye of the viewer. For many people, shows from that era are just plain unwatchable. Hey, I am actually very happy about unwatchable TV. Thanks to it I watch no more then an hour a day off my TiVO and I am saving a large chunk of money because I droped to the base level DTV package since even Speed channel is not worth having anymore. | |
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| | | |  sitrix
join:2002-04-15
Tacoma, WA | Re: About Damn Time Yea, Speed channel went down hill that's for sure... I no longer watch it and enjoy Discovery instead... 
As for news, it's faster to get it off the web then sit through an hour of useless stories, just scan through headlines and pick the right one to read. Talk about all the time I save each day! | |
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| | Reviews:
·Comcast
| Most old tv to me is unwatchable. Besides for the simpsons I don't see anything I watch there.
I am a simpsons , family guy , seinfeld (even with the racist micheal richards there) the war at home , and jericho watcher.
I tivo em and watch em all in one day
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"It's always funny until someone gets hurt......and then it's absolutely friggin' hysterical!" | |
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| |  thender2Glamour ProfessionPremium
join:2004-05-16
Staten Island, NY | and people's speaking nowadays is even wors.e
24, Prison Break, Heroes, south park, House, Boston Legal - TV is just getting started. | |
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| CCLA
join:2002-06-17
Baton Rouge, LA | Torchwood and the simpsons are good. | |
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| | | said by pnh102:Analog TV is so 1950s. The sooner cable dumps this albatross and embraces more modern HDTV technology the better. I have no problem with this, provided I don't have to pay more to change over to digital, but I bet there's going to be an additional fee. The way I see it, there should be no further charge, since getting these subs to go digital benefits the cable company, since it can reclaim bandwidth.
New technology is great, provided it isn't an excuse to charge customers more money. | |
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| | RadioDoc58ef2c0Premium,ExMod 2000-03
join:2000-05-11 | Re: About Damn Time Everything cable does is an excuse to charge customers more money. This saves them so much money they should be able to provide free transition to every single analog customer with enough left over to fund the executive slush lunch fund for decades.
Instead, you'll be nicked $5-$10 additional per month per TV just to keep watching what you have right now. If it sounds like a back-door rate increase (and a hefty one at that), it is a back-door rate increase.
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Toolmaster of La Grange. | |
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| | | | | Re: About Damn Time Agreed 100%. In my case, however, the cable companies should know that the only thing keeping me subscribed to expanded basic is that I get several channels I want. Take those away, and I won't go digital; I'll simply either drop my subscription to the lowest basic tier or unsubscribe entirely. I have plenty of things to keep me occupied: DVD's, my Wii, my computer, XM radio, and the great outdoors. If I lose the cable, I can find something else to fill the void.
Hmm, now that's got me thinking... | |
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| | | | RadioDoc58ef2c0Premium,ExMod 2000-03
join:2000-05-11 | Re: About Damn Time Add "wife" to that list in the place of the Wii and you've pretty much got my take on it.
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Toolmaster of La Grange. | |
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|  Jwobot
join:2002-08-14
Sterling Heights, MI
1 edit | pnh102 is willing to buy HD TVs for everyone in America!!!  | |
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| cuindy
join:2000-07-21
Aurora, OH | said by pnh102:Analog TV is so 1950s. The sooner cable dumps this albatross and embraces more modern HDTV technology the better. When did you buy your stock in the companies that sell new TV's. I just bought an 34" HDTV. I have six other TV's including the one that was replaced by my HDTV. None of which have a digital tuner. In fact, one has a two knobs to select stations and knob to adjust volume, thou the analog cable converter that I purchased for $20.00 fix both problems. AS for HTDV, there is such a small amount of HD shows why would any one need a more HD channels. Until more HD TV's are sold, the hype about number of HD channels is just that. Sell me all the D to A converter boxes for $20.00 each and you can dump all the analog channels. The only thing is I will never notice any improvement on my old TV's and I will have $120 less to buy better TV's with. | |
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| Reviews:
 ·Great Works Inte..
| Yes, bring on the compression artifacts!! I haven't seen HD on DirectTV, but I do know their SD content is soft as hell and looks like crap even on a 19" set. Analog certainly looks better than that.
I think we're going backwards with the ATSC standards... MPEG2 is already obsolete and the stations want to broadcast too many sub channels for the bandwidth they've got. Here's hoping the cable companies and broadcast stations team up and get fiber connections to each other, so subscribers won't have to deal with content that has been compressed, re-compressed, and then re-compressed again before it makes it to the TV sets. | |
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| | RadioDoc58ef2c0Premium,ExMod 2000-03
join:2000-05-11 | Re: About Damn Time Many stations already have direct links to cable origination points, much of it on fiber.
The bigger problem is that the ATSC was not first and foremost about high definition video. It was about developing a digital television transmission standard that could support HDTV but, as you may have noticed, HDTV is not a requirement for DTV operation. Those multiple subchannels are just too lucrative to waste on one HD stream nobody really cares about except for special event programming.
Once again, just because it's digital does not automatically make it better...
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Toolmaster of La Grange. | |
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 HallPremium,MVM
join:2000-04-28
Dayton, OH
kudos:1 | "DirecTV says they'll be offering 100 new high-def channels" Correction, and DirecTV has either changed their tune or clarified their wording, depending on your view of the company:
They have plans to have the capacity to offer up to 150 HD channels.
Even their Jan 8th press release isn't clear between them saying "the planned launch and carriage of 100 national high-definition (HD) channels" and then later, "With the launch of DIRECTV 10 and DIRECTV 11 satellites in 2007, DIRECTV will have the ability to deliver more than 1,500 local HD and digital channels and 150 national HD channels."
"will have the ability" is the key phrase. | |
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See 16 replies to this post |
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Reviews:
·Comcast
| Speaking of DirecTV... A friend of mine lives in Staten Island. He has Verizon DSL. TW went door-to-door and said they were cutting the analog feed. He said thanks, good bye. Picked up DirecTV instead of paying for TW's digital cable package.
I'm a big fan of HDTV so I'm glad TW sees it necessary to upgrade their system. DirecTV is putting up new birds as well. As the analog cutoff approaches, more local stations will be transmitting in digital.
As a customer of DirecTV, I hope that they cut the extra HDTV fees soon. Paying for the same content twice bothers me...
- Sherman | |
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 dvd536as Mr. Pink as they comePremium
join:2001-04-27
Phoenix, AZ
kudos:4 | DTV DTV making fun of someone elses quality??? HAHAHAHA What a joke! they should get rid of their "HD-LITE" before knocking someone elses quality.
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You can never be too rich, too thin or have too much Bandwidth | |
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amungusPremium
join:2004-11-26
America Reviews:
·AT&T DSL Service
| reclamation? I think the terminology is funny.
You can't "re claim" any such space that is already present. Bandwidth is bandwidth. Even a digitized signal must be transmitted through an analog domain, ie, available bandwidth.
Guess taking a step backwards in quality is fine for some people. I am really not a fan of color shifting, jitters in what should be smooth motion, pixellation, frozen images (this happened even on ANALOG channels to me the other night... proving that they MPEG everything anyway) and paying MORE money for a tuner which freaks out my TV tube just by changing channels, slow changes between channels (better w/the newer boxes though, still not instant) and having to pay yet AGAIN for another box, a DVR fee on top of its already more expensive rental price, and all so we can have more useless channels that I will NEVER watch...
Sure, more HD will be nice.. someday. Right now, I'm not willing to pay MORE money for SD digitized garbage for which I have no use. About the ONLY thing worth paying all the extra money for is the movie channels. When I had a DVR from Cox, I had all the movie channels. Never really even watched much of the other digitized channels, just movie channels.
I find this piece of the article interesting:
"The project mirrored a similar migration underway by Comcast in Chicago, where some number of the area’s 1.8 million subscribers will be forced to install Motorola set-tops by July 1 to continue receiving the expanded-basic channel lineup.
Comcast has said that a “distinct minority” of subscribers are affected. In Chicago, Comcast is eliminating 38 channels but keeping a basic 34-channel analog tier that comprises local broadcast, public, educational and government channels and a smattering of others."
-----------------------------
...Now wait, that sounds like its going for a good compromise.
Why not keep, say 10 channels worth of space for analog only??? 34 seems like quite a bit... unless their segmented somehow and that's a total... smaller cities could easily do with FAR less than 34...
I really think they should KEEP at least SOME analog channels around for posterity.
That part about being FORCED into getting a Moto box? I do not think so. Not unless it was a newer generation one that doesn't blank out your signal b/w channels, thus harming the tube (many people still have them you know?).
No way anyone will ever get me to rent, or buy one of those old clunkers ever again. Even if it were free. Biggest piece of junk I've ever had the displeasure of having in my living room. They should scrap some of those old boxes while they're still worth the little that they are... surely they've already made money off of them...
I would rather have an older generation Dish or DirecTv tuner than one of those old moto boxes.
If Cox decides to do this around here, I'd have to seriously consider moving to Dish.
Viva Analog. | |
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| fiberguyMy views are my own.Premium
join:2005-05-20
kudos:3 | Re: reclamation? The DCT 700 is a box that's less than a year old, has no analog tuner in it, is the size of a cable modem, and is next generation as far as tuner goes.. they aren't the old clunky ones as you speak of.. (being the DCT 2000 or 1700/1800 models)
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"Complaining is the least path of resistance for the self-reitchous and lazy ... those who also never take the time to point out a good fortune when the opportunity presents itself. It says a lot about one's moral character." - Unknown | |
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 Rob AJets AFC ChampionshipPremium
join:2005-01-17
Pompton Plains, NJ | Cable... Has to give it up, they can't win over satellite. | |
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