Digital Cable

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We should have a thread for Digital Cable and those with OnDemand capability as well as Sat. TV.
 
I made a post about this on the DRC Feedback forum, but nobody replied.

However, I agree with what you wrote. I just got Digital Cable with a DVR and wonder what took me so long. The HD channels are awesome!! Kari Byron in HD = major droolage! :D
 
I have Cox Cable with a DVR for a few years now and I really enjoy it, it no TIVO. But right now I have a few finances issues and I'm hoping in couple years, I will have a LCD HD TV one day. :(
 
I got a DVR with my FiOS. I had it before with cable. In my house, it is a must have.

I read that my box's firewire ports are working so I can get a 1 TB dirve to connect to it. It has a 160 gb drive in it now, but after a few hours of HD recording it's almost half full.
 
I have Suddenlink with an HD-DVR. It works pretty well. We are just beginning to see our local channels go HD. Right now we have NBC, CBS and FOX just came on this week, though their HD has been on and off. I guess they are still tweaking it.

I had DirecTV, but opted to go this route because the bundling did save me money.

My TV is a Panasonic 50' Plamsa and it looks GREAT. I also have a Blu-Ray player.
 
When I move into my new place in about a week I think I'm going to give up my Digital Cable TV service. I have a TV in my bedroom with an HDTV antenna to watch local channels and that suits me just fine.

I've been subscribing to Howard TV and HBO and I hardly get to watch them. So I'd rather pay a friend or family member to keep them subscribing to that and go over and watch with friends.
 
In this day and age, a lot of the cable add ons (premiums, DVR, SVOD) are more in the nice to have category. I think cable and satellite will be seeing a lot of downgrades in the next few months.

Tough times...
 
limegrass69 said:
In this day and age, a lot of the cable add ons (premiums, DVR, SVOD) are more in the nice to have category. I think cable and satellite will be seeing a lot of downgrades in the next few months.

Tough times...
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You are so right, it is these type luxuries that folks begin to cut back on.

I do like how Dish has the pure HD package where you can just get what they have on HD. I sure wish Cable allowed that at a lower price, because right now you have to get almost everything to be eligible for HD programming.
 
DAB said:
You are so right, it is these type luxuries that folks begin to cut back on.

I do like how Dish has the pure HD package where you can just get what they have on HD. I sure wish Cable allowed that at a lower price, because right now you have to get almost everything to be eligible for HD programming.
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I think that varies by cable system. For my cable system (Cablevision), you get the HD counterpart of any channel that you subscribe to (and Cablevision carries). So, with broadcast basic, we get the HD (and SD subchannels) of any station carried on broadcast basic. Same goes for "Family Cable" (TBS, Discovery, ESPN, etc.) You need a HD box, but they don't charge any more for the HD boxes than for the regular box. Actually, it's a pretty fair deal in my opinion. Other systems may place HD on a separate tier. Maybe the tough economy will lead to some more negotiation possibilities for consumers.
 
I love my digital cable. Setting up tv, internet, and phone was simple. Total is maybe $145 a month (incl Howard TV). No HD yet though. We've got three Tivos and I don't feel like upgrading to an HD Tivo, or dealing with an inferior Cox HD DVR. I think I'm going to wait until we can buy a house before putting together a kickass HD setup.

If we end up at a place without digitial cable, I'll probably go for Dish Network. I've had them before and they weren't too bad. I can't stand contracts though. Seems like every business tries to trap you in a 2 year contract for every minor service. So far, no contracts required with Cox.
 
Yeah I think Suddenlink does give you the basic HD for free, but they do require you pay for an HD-DVR, which is like $9.95 per month. They have no non DVR HD receivers, so this is how they get you. The add-on super-basic HD is $7.99. Then if you want HBO other premiums you pay the regular add on of $12.99, but this does give you both the EAST and WEST cost feeds, unlike Direct or Dish. Right now in our market we have a total of 32 basic and super-basic HD channels combined.
 
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I have Rogers Digital Cable here in Canada. I do not have an HD TV. I still record my VCR off analogue cable. I am waiting for my TV to die before I upgrade.
 
Well I don't know about Canada, but in the US, in Feb, 2009 there will be no more analog to record, everything will be digital.
 
DAB said:
Well I don't know about Canada, but in the US, in Feb, 2009 there will be no more analog to record, everything will be digital.
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Actually, the digital conversion has to do with broadcast television stations. Cable TV in most areas will still offer analog service (at least at the broadcast basic level) for some time into the future. Also, all cable boxes have some sort of analog coax or component outputs that can be used to feed a VCR...so don't throw out the old dinosaur yet!! :o
 
We like our digital cable too. I have to look in my signature to remind myself when we got it. The picture is crystal clear most days like watching a DVD. We don't have an LCD HD TV yet either. Honestly, we don't watch a whole lot of TV, but I enjoy the addition of NFL Network and ESPN News which I couldn't watch on analog service. My kids love the On Demand, especially our youngest who can watch Sesame Street anytime he wants now.

Speaking of bundling, we have digital cable and internet from Comcast. We switched to Vonage for phone service about a year ago and it works just fine. It is only $19.25 total per month so I keep telling Comcast that I don't want their phone service. The only problem is I need to remember to call Comcast each time before my promo periods expire to get another promo package. We're currently paying $115 total for internet and Digital Cable Preferred Plus with Showtime, HBO and Starz and Sports Tier.
 
limegrass69 said:
Actually, the digital conversion has to do with broadcast television stations. Cable TV in most areas will still offer analog service (at least at the broadcast basic level) for some time into the future. Also, all cable boxes have some sort of analog coax or component outputs that can be used to feed a VCR...so don't throw out the old dinosaur yet!! :o
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Well that makes total sense to me. But recently when I had a technician out at my house. He remarked to me as we were talking about the HD channels. That soon as Feb 2009 came and they were able to stop sending an analog signal and go straight digital, this will free up a lot of bandwidth that they will use for HD. I've read a good bit about this and it seems that analog requires a great deal of bandwidth as opposed to digital. I would think most cable companies would discontinue analog and go pure digital if that is the case and bandwidth is at a premium. I assume HD requires much more than just regular digital SD channels too.
 
I think a lot of advertising and propaganda from the cable company confuses the issue. They are certainly trying to capitalize on it.

In my area, a lot of Family Cable (TBS, ESPN, USA, etc.) channels are slowly migrating to digital only. It does free up lots of bandwidth for data, voice, and more digital/HD service. FiOS has abandoned all analog service in this area. My cable company says that it intends to keep it's analog broadcast basic tier (about 22 channels) for now. It will probably change in the next few years.

In general, you can fit 6 standard definition digital channels, or 2-3 HD channels in the bandwidth of one analog signal. The number can be higher depending on how much compression the cable company wants to use. But with the compression comes degradation in picture quality, which becomes very evident in larger displays.
 
I have Metrocast here, it is ok for now, does the service suck? Meh they don't offer the best HD channels that's for sure.

I recently purchased an HDTV and love every minute of it, it sucks when I have to switch over to a standard station.

Yeah we have our locals and a few cable channels, but there should be more. I've been tempted to go back to satellite television due to the fact of all the HD channels they offer, but not sure if I want to make the switch.
 
Just a funny tidbit. All day long I thought my TV's remote sensor went out. Well, this didn't strike me as odd because I had another go out (same model and purchased the same day) a few months ago. Well, I just figured out why the remote wasn't working for the TV. I had two Comcast remotes in my office and I was trying to use the one for my living room. All day long I was using my DVR pause feature to mute the TV if I was in a conference call. I just saw that I had two sitting on my desk and almost peed myself from laughing so hard.
 
Davis said:
Just a funny tidbit. All day long I thought my TV's remote sensor went out. Well, this didn't strike me as odd because I had another go out (same model and purchased the same day) a few months ago. Well, I just figured out why the remote wasn't working for the TV. I had two Comcast remotes in my office and I was trying to use the one for my living room. All day long I was using my DVR pause feature to mute the TV if I was in a conference call. I just saw that I had two sitting on my desk and almost peed myself from laughing so hard.
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I sort of did the same thing with two tivo remotes. For some reason I unknowingly brought the one down from our loft into the living room. Then I was wondering why the hell it wouldn't control the TV. After a while I just assumed that it lost it's programming for whatever reason so I reprogrammed it. Then a few minutes later I got a glance of the other Tivo remote on the couch - the one that was already programmed for this tv. ARGH! The humiliation continued as I had to take the other one back upstairs and re-re-program it for the tv up there.
 
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