Archive for October, 2008

Halloween: Not This Year

Friday, October 24th, 2008

Well, my construction (which was supposed to be done in the spring, you may recall) is still dragging on. There’s no way my house will be useful for Halloween (even Thanksgiving is pushing it at this point), so no party at my place this year.

I was hoping to rally the troops for an alternative here, and one friend in Indy has got one happening, but it’s still kind of depressing. I really probably would not have done (all of) this construction project if I knew it would take more than a year to complete. Not to mention the budget overrun. I’m sure it’ll be worth it, but it’ll make it hard to pull the trigger on the next phase- which I was hoping to do in summer.

Anyway, we’re down for now, but consider this advance notice for Halloween 2009. You can think of a good costume by then, I’m sure. And that stuff will be on clearance soon…

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Part II: The Wrath of Comcast

Thursday, October 9th, 2008

OK, so I did send email to “Rick” besides my last post, so I’m not sure which one triggered the intense interest of Comcast, but they’ve made sure to email and phone me to check on things. That’s sort of flattering, I guess, even if some of the messages were misguided.

Turns out I was misinformed by the (Canadian, apparently) after-hours call center. Channels 4 (WTTV) and 6 (WRTV) are not slated to move to the digital lineup anytime soon. That’s good to know, and the crux of my complaint. I hadn’t heard they were moving because they aren’t. Problem solved.

I am interested in digital cable in general, and specifically for HD, but even at $2 a month (an estimate one rep gave me) per cable box, it’s still a big outlay. Before I commit to that, I’ll look into the option of buying some compatible boxes from somewhere. I’ve heard they’re too expensive to be cost-effective, but it’s worth a look.

So it’s not as dire as I’d feared, which is good, but we have learned that if there is (as there was) a problem between here and Indy or at the local office, there’s no longer any immediate response expected. Under Insight, there were techs on call who would fix things (and I’ve seen that work in the past). Apparently that’s not the case now, and nothing’s likely to happen same-day. Fortunately, those problems don’t come up often. I’m a systems administrator myself- I know how that stuff works, and that people only notice when it doesn’t.

Also, we’ve learned that at least this squeaky wheel gets some grease. And they don’t even know how serious I am about my TV and video. Well, maybe they could guess from this blog.

Finally, although there’s no rush, I am going to look into digital cable when the third floor remodel is done (or nearly so). I’ll follow up again then to let you know what I find out. I’d much rather get my networks from NYC and LA as DirecTV does than from Indy (that’s a whole ‘nother rant), but if I have to have Indy, I’d like to have HD as an option. (Yeah, then I could watch useless weather maps and election projections in high-resolution!)

So, thanks, Comcast, for the rapid response and for being reasonable about the “local” network affiliates. Play your cards right and you might get my ISP money too.

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It’s Comcraptastic!

Monday, October 6th, 2008

Long before all you jokers got DVR religion, I was already watching all my TV from recordings. I’ve pretty much switched my legion of VCRs for a small army of DVRs, but the concept and the routine are not new to me.

So I come down to do my pre-primetime systems check tonight and two of the machines aren’t getting a cable signal. Everything looks fine, but they weren’t happy.

So I figured it out- some channels weren’t working. That’s not a problem on my end of the cable and I thought maybe they were having a problem at the local office. I called them up to tell them.

Off-hours customer service at Comcast is a little better than it was under Insight, but still not good. At least the phone-answerer knew the answer: those channels as of now are only available on digital cable. I informed them that I had not been informed and that I, personally, am steamed. The response was basically “tough shit” in about one and a half fewer words.

I fired off email to “Rick” from the Comcast website and stewed about how I was going to handle this. There’s no way I can get all my recorders to drive outboard tuners to my satisfaction. And what are they going to charge me to get anywhere close?

So I’m looking over my recording schedule to see how hard this’ll be when, lo and behold, channel 4 switched back on. And 6 too. I’m guessing the huge number of people who suddenly couldn’t watch “Dancing With the Stars” blowing up their switchboard made them change their collective corporate mind.

But what the heck is this? Are they serious? After all the reassuring press that the switch to digital won’t screw over cable subscribers, do they really want to do this? And without running a crawl on the affected channels for weeks like they’ve been doing with the Bright House Debacle? How can that possibly be good?

I’m hoping it was a mistake, but I smell trouble. The only major advantage cable has over satellite for me is that I don’t need to scale it for my use. If I have to get hardware for all my recorders, what’s the difference? Well, I’d probably need a second dish, I guess, but other than that, it’s a toss-up.

Posted in Toys, TV | 2 Comments »