 Nightwchtr
join:2001-09-10
Falls Church, VA
 ·Verizon FIOS
| Not worth the money Digital Cable is not worth the money to alot of consumers. Basic is just as good. If they came down in price I think alot of people would upgrade to it but not will its so high. To me there is no difference except you get a couple of more channels and music. | |
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Karl Bode
News Guy
join:2000-03-02
Host:
Road Runner
PC gaming GAMES
PC gaming Tech
| Re: Maybe its because digital cable sucks? Yeah I agree.
Here in Time Warner Country we've recently gotten the DVR's, and they make all the difference. It's Tivo, but without the phone line, and it uses the digital program guide to simply let you click on a program name, and record....or pause live TV, etc....well worth it I think.
Though there's certainly still bugs. | |
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pnh102
Reptiles Are Cuddly And Pretty
Premium
join:2002-05-02
Mount Airy, MD
 ·Comcast
| Re: Maybe its because digital cable sucks? said by Karl Bode  :
Here in Time Warner Country ...
Do you have to get digital cable if you want cable TV service at all or can you still get basic cable?
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Pissed off at traitorous, ungrateful musicians? Don't just boycott them! Trade their MP3s and really screw them over! And don't forget, 2 out of 3 human shields agree! Saddam really is evil! | |
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Karl Bode
News Guy
join:2000-03-02
Host:
Road Runner
PC gaming GAMES
PC gaming Tech
| Re: Maybe its because digital cable sucks? It's all based around that program guide, so you need to upgrade to digital....
I bundle it all, Cable, digital, DVR, for a little over $100 a month....
And amazingly, there's still not a lot on worth watching.  | |
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pnh102
Reptiles Are Cuddly And Pretty
Premium
join:2002-05-02
Mount Airy, MD
·Comcast
| Re: Maybe its because digital cable sucks? Do you still need to throw more money at it to get premium (HBO, Cinemax, etc.) channels? The last time I was over at a friend who had digital through Comcast, he told me he had to pay more to get those channels.
If this is indeed the case, it makes digital even more worthless. If the cable companies put on some content that I might be interested in and I might change my mind about it
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Pissed off at traitorous, ungrateful musicians? Don't just boycott them! Trade their MP3s and really screw them over! And don't forget, 2 out of 3 human shields agree! Saddam really is evil! | |
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Karl Bode
News Guy
join:2000-03-02
Host:
Road Runner
PC gaming GAMES
PC gaming Tech
| Re: Maybe its because digital cable sucks? Well, TW offers something they call the "Galaxy" package...it's basically everything they offer for a little over 100 bucks a month.....
Since I'm a big movie buff I went for that. You could pick and chose things to eliminate and probably get broadband, all digital channels w/ HBO only, and the DVR for around 70 bucks a month..... | |
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pnh102
Reptiles Are Cuddly And Pretty
Premium
join:2002-05-02
Mount Airy, MD
·Comcast
| Re: Maybe its because digital cable sucks? said by rds24a :
* You can't program out the shopping channels, advertising channels, etc. from the flipper rotation on the cable box.
A friend of mine has DirecTV and he has a small group of "favorite channels" set up that he can jump to directly from the remote... I think its pretty cool. I stick with basic cable because for the number of watched TVs we have in the house, its actually worth the money (of course I've split the connection into oblivion, but that's a whole different story).
The major thing for me though is the necessity of a second remote. I can't explain to people how much I hate this. When I want to watch TV, I don't want to fumble through a bunch of remotes, and I don't want to use a universal remote that lacks the functionality of the original remote, I just want to sit down and watch TV. I do enough "rocket science" at work, I don't need to do it at home.
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Pissed off at traitorous, ungrateful musicians? Don't just boycott them! Trade their MP3s and really screw them over! And don't forget, 2 out of 3 human shields agree! Saddam really is evil!
[text was edited by author 2003-03-31 09:46:58] | |
| | | | vfpguy
Alias Dotnetguy
join:2001-07-21
Wayne, NJ
| Re: Maybe its because digital cable sucks? I switched to digital cable because Cablevision was getting ready to add the Yankees and was going to switch the New York sports channels from family to premium. I was also able to get HBO without having to use a box and CV was getting ready to change that too. After doing all the math it was a toss-up between DirecTV and digital cable and a satellite install for me would definitely have been non-standard.
After I did the install I discovered that my HT remote wouldn't talk to the cable box and the cable box's remote wouldn't talk to the HT or the TV. Spent about $80 for a Sony programmable, learning remote. Now one button turns on the TV, cable box, and receiver and tunes to the news channel. Of course, I get off on the rocket science stuff.
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"...a great, serene and peaceful future can slip from us quite as irrevocably by neglect, division and inaction, as by spectacular disaster." -- H. Truman, 6/21/56 | |
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footballdude
Premium
join:2002-08-13
Imperial, MO
| said by rds24a :
Perhaps if they let me pick and choose which channels I want, then it might be worth messing with the box and the price. If I could drop the 20 channels of QVC in favor of Speed and the Fox Sports Nets, I might think about it....
I've always wondered about that. How about creating an ala carte system where you can pay maybe fifty cents a month for whatever channels you want? For providers that force channel bundles, just offer them as a bundle. Maybe the ESPN channels could all come together for five bucks a month? Certainly the hurdle to creating that kind of TV service can't be the technology. Anyone know why there's no provider anywhere that's doing that? | |
| | | | vfpguy
Alias Dotnetguy
join:2001-07-21
Wayne, NJ
| Re: Maybe its because digital cable sucks? Because then no one (or very few) would subscribe to channels like Oxygen, We, ABCFamily, etc. If a cable company wants to provide ESPN or Disney, they have to take the 'lesser' channels as well.
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"...a great, serene and peaceful future can slip from us quite as irrevocably by neglect, division and inaction, as by spectacular disaster." -- H. Truman, 6/21/56 | |
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footballdude
Premium
join:2002-08-13
Imperial, MO
| Re: Maybe its because digital cable sucks? said by vfpguy :
Because then no one (or very few) would subscribe to channels like Oxygen, We, ABCFamily, etc. If a cable company wants to provide ESPN or Disney, they have to take the 'lesser' channels as well.
Agreed, but why does the cable or satellite company care what channels I watch, as long as I'm paying them? | |
| | | | | | vfpguy
Alias Dotnetguy
join:2001-07-21
Wayne, NJ
| Re: Maybe its because digital cable sucks? They care for advertising rates. The cable companies can charge more for advertising if they can guarantee a certain viewership number and the channel provider can charge more for network advertising.
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"...a great, serene and peaceful future can slip from us quite as irrevocably by neglect, division and inaction, as by spectacular disaster." -- H. Truman, 6/21/56 | |
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Vericima
Beautiful But Deadly
Premium
join:2003-01-07
Manchester, CT
| You don't always have to have someone install it, it's just like a VCR. It isn't really worth the money though. The only reason I subscribe at the moment is because that box boosts the signal a little so my husband can capture perfect shows with his TV tuner card. Before it was a little grainy.
What Comcast does with the pay per view movies is great though, the picture goes out at least once per movie so if you were recording it, it wont be perfect. If you ask me it just ruins the movie, I'd rather rent if they're going to be like that.
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AHHH! You're wasting CPU cycles, Go crunch something! | |
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ehow
join:2000-11-11
Palm Beach, FL
| said by pnh102 :
The picture isn't all that much better
For me this was the major turn off.
All of the lower channels, say below channel 80, were still analog with the digital cable from Adelphia. I was expecting every channel to be digital, but they weren't. Mostly just the movie and PPV channels that were digital. I canceled the cable service and kept my satellite service.
Previously I had both analog cable and satellite so I could keep some of the local programming, but now that is no longer a reason with the locals being carried by satellite. About the only local channels not available are the government access channels and a few other small networks that the cable carried.
Adelphia ran a free promotion for digital cable upgrade, so I tried it out. After a week I returned the box and at the same time canceled cable completely. Now that felt nice... since over the past 13 years, my cable bill has doubled with no notable improvement.
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BJ -- Up Fixin' Der Porsche | |
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stet
Volitar Prime
join:2002-03-08
Warren, MI
| Re: Maybe its because digital cable sucks? When I tried out Comcast Digital Cable a few years ago, I dropped it after a month because the digital channels actually looked worse then the analog. They just took they same low res feed they were using for the analog channels and introduced digital artifacts on top of it.
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Hey everyone! I'm a WEB HOG! | |
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trparky
Bite My Shiny Metal Ass
Premium,MVM
join:2000-05-24
Cleveland, OH
clubs:
·AT&T U-Verse
| Re: Maybe its because digital cable sucks? Yea, I have seen the pictures that they claim is quality digital picture over a friend's house. Quality my @ss. It looks horrible.
I have Dish Network and the picture quality is far far better. Dish Network gets the highest quality feeds from the networks, cleans up the already high quality feeds, then encodes them.
I don't even notice the digital artifacts unless I go up to the TV screen and be 5 or 10 inches away from it.
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WedgeAntilles250 | |
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murdok6100
Avatar. Get It, Avatar?
join:2002-06-20
| said by pnh102 :
Let's see...
•You have to pay more per month for the base cost
•The picture isn't all that much better
•You have to pay to rent special converter boxes for each TV
•You have to have a separate remote from your TV remote
•All those extra channels they keep talking about are just different feeds of the same actual channel
•You have to have someone "professionally install" it
Do the works "F**k that" come to mind?
Yeah, and not to mention the "EXTRA" commercials that they expect us to pay for.
murdok610 | |
| 
cbyrd
Where's The Any Key?
join:2001-07-11
Murfreesboro, NC
clubs:
| The Product differs too much from the Marketing All of the cable companies market Digital Cable as having "better picture quality" than regular cable, and being equal to or better than satellite. It simply isn't true.
While the Digital tier does not have the static etc that you see with regular cable, half of the channels are still analog, meaning you only get a partial improvement...if you call artifacts due to over compression such as pixelization, gradient "banding", motion studder etc an improvement.
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Sometimes it's easier to beg for forgiveness than ask for permission | |
| | jonnyzor
join:2002-07-28
San Jose, CA
| Re: The Product differs too much from the Marketing That is a very good point about the analog channels. I had analog and the picture quality sucked. So I switched over to digital cable hoping that would fix my problems but I found out that those same channels were still analog. So I switched over to Direct TV. Plus they have much better programming packages than cable | |
| 
panth1
The Coyote
join:2000-12-11
Boca Raton, FL
| ZZzzz.... I don't know why people constantly think that all their channels will suddenly become digital by subscribing to digital cable. It must be bad marketing by some cable companies because I personally haven't been led to believe that they all become digital.
The main problem that I don't like with digital cable is the lack of processing power by the set top boxes. Many of the Motorola, SA, and Pioneer boxes are first/second generation and are slow at deciphering the qam signal and rendering the onscreen graphics.
Also these companies spend millions on upgrades and forget that it requires maintenance. One leak or bad component can cause ingress and kill multiple carriers.
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Total Modems On This Upstream Channel : 485 (457 active)
Avg upstream channel utilization : 98%
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| | | nasadude
join:2001-10-05
Rockville, MD
·Comcast
| dropped digital like a hot potato! Comcast digital might be worth it if you have an HDTV, but isn't that an additional charge on top of the charge for "digital"? I don't know, since I have been enjoying satellite HDTV (including over the air HDTV) for some time now.
The other thing about digital is that the transmission is digital; if the source started out as analog, it's just converted to ones and zeros to send it over the cable. That doesn't change the fact that it started out as analog. If a program looks crappy in analog (assuming it's not an analog transmission problem) it will still look crappy when it is converted to digital. | |
| 
Agent 86
| Digital cable does indeed suck 1. It's not digital.
2. It costs more.
3. The extra channels aren't worth anything.
4. You have to use a clumsy cable box.
Bottom line...poor value. | |
| | njellis
join:2001-05-12
Glendora, CA
| *sigh* The Facts about Digital Digital is advertised as being more clear than analog cable. This is SOMETIMES a misconception, however generally speaking it's accurate. You get pixelation sometimes, sometimes you see color gradients on things like sunsets. I have a nice Sony Wega TV.... I know... HOWEVER; frequently I look at the picture and it looks as good as an HDTV picture on a digital channel. For the most part, it does look better. IF things are done correctly. *THATS NOT SAYING IT LOOKS PERFECT*
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I don't know how one would think it isn't Digital as "agent" posted above.
1.) Most everything to the cable companies are digital to the head-end.
2.) The Digital signals are sent, DIGITALLY to your Box.
How isn't it Digital?
Yes, there MAY be a few channels that are analog until they get to HITS (Headend In the Sky); However at some point it becomes digital when it's sent to your digital box (assuming it's actually listed as being a digital channel).
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In Terms of cost, find out how much each channel costs per month with just analog, then do the same calculation with digital. Most always you'll find that it's CHEAPER per channel than analog. I.E. you get more "Value" for your buck. Of course it costs more. You get more! Duh?
If you don't see the channels being channels you don't want, then that's something as an individual; you decide you don't need or want. However many people do.
How many people switch to Dish each month because they get more channels, better quality, cheaper cost? A LOT. This is cables "retention" to keep it's customers. It has done quite well. It HAS NOT STOPED the flow to dish, but it has succeeded in keeping thousands (or more) customers; who WANT those extra channels they before could not get with cable.
You have to use a box if you want to get premiums. Analog or Digital or Black Box, you still need a "clumsy" box. How else could you POSSIBLY deliver the digital signal, and bill for the services?
Another person posted that they believed ALL the channels were digital. This can easily be misunderstood as sales people tend to... exaggerate the truth.
What if they made the channels ALL digital?
1. People who didn’t want to use a "clumsy box" would HAVE to, because ALL the channels are digital. (This is the same as if you want Satellite, you HAVE to have a box). Not everyone wants Digital, and the cable Co's take that into consideration. That's why they're not ALL digital.
2. You could remodulate those channels on digital, however you then suck up bandwidth unnecessarily for other channels/programming/features (such as VOD/Telephony/Modems). That'd be a poor use of your bandwidth. If you have bad picture, it can be resolved *almost always*; setup a tech call and have them come out and fix it - If you get a hard head that doesn't, setup another tech call. There are circumstances where it CANT be fixed; however this is pretty rare.
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Remote controls: For Adelphia they offer a remote control that does just about everything you’d need for BASIC TV viewing. Unfortunately you’re not going to have a remote control that can do EVERY feature of EVERY component, unless it’s the original remote control. The remote controls you get with digital, usually take 3 remote controls and make them into 1. You can watch TV, change channels, control volume, power on and off TV/VCR/Box and watch videos. If you HAVE to be able to do EVERY feature your equipment offers, you’ll be hard pressed to find a universal remote to accomplish everything (unless you buy purely from one manufacture, and get THEIR universal remote).
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Bottom Line: Digital cable isn't for EVERYONE. Just as Modems aren’t for everyone, or expanded cable isn't for everyone. It's an option.
Is it a poor value? - No.
Is it right for you? - That's up to you.
That’s just my 2-Cents
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"When my Linux machine gives me the blue screen of death, I just wiggle my mouse to deactivate the screen saver" | |
| | 
J D McDorce
Premium
join:2001-12-29
Westland, MI
| Re: Digital cable does indeed suck The only advantages of Digital Cable that I have found to date are:
1. The availability of additional Premium channels when subscribing to Digital.
2. The availability of digital audio (including Dolby 5.1, when available, once again typically on Premium channels). | |
| emcglynn
join:2000-11-05
Pelham, NH
| I thought I was the only one I also returned my digital cable box. The analog/digital debate has been covered here already 8-)
I also REALLY hated AT&T's channel list, the preview guide. 1/2 of the damn screen was advertisements, 1/4 was text advertisements, and the rest tried to show what the programming was... useless. | |
| | | bt06437
join:2001-12-03
Carrollton, TX
·Verizon FIOS
| the content sucks too Too many reruns, I hated "Hoosiers" the first time & they still keep showing it. Ever try to watch early Sunday morning, or after 1am ? Too many Paid Promotions everywhere. Not to mention all the ads. And they charge us to watch this crap ? I think they ought to pay us !! Oh, and did I mention 24 hour Shopping channels ? If we'd ever get ala Carte program purchasing and quit making us buy these Tiers of Basic/Expanded Basic/etc/etc....The older I get, the less I subscribe to. I do control the money flow !
The cable companies need to go kick the Programmers in the rear & demand newer better programs. Less reruns. | |
| wizardB
join:2001-12-11
North Vancouver, BC | What's TV I can see by this thread that i havent missed anything since i stopped watching TV 5 years ago.Same probs lotsa channels nothing one | |
| genio
join:2002-04-24
Avondale, AZ
|  TV? I quit watching that.
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| 
tcp1
Premium
join:2000-04-17
Herndon, VA
 ·Sprint Mobile Broa..
·Verizon FIOS
·Comcast
 ·ViaTalk
·T-Mobile US
 ·Bandwidth.com
| Please. I wish the word "digital" would disappear Ok, for the cable company plant a few posts above.. Value per channel? Since when is that ANY measure of value? If I have 368 channels of Telemundo, who is that more of a value for save for Herve Villechez? Please. You forgot one term in your equation - number of channels * QUALITY of channels = value.
Also, would everyone please get off it with these bs definitions:
"digital = clear"
"digital = higher quality"
"digital = better in any freaking way"
That simply is ****NOT TRUE****
I can encode something "DIGITALLY" and easily make it look worse than my rabbit ears on a 1978 Zenith console TV. Digital has jack to do with it -- and since these marketing SCHMUCKS think that us dumb consumers will "OOH AAH" over the idea of 500 channels even if each one is 32kbps and more quantization artifacts than a PXL-2000 camera. I was watching some NCAA basketball at the COX HEADQUARTERS yesterday in Herndon, VA, and the dang basketball was barely recognizeable as such.
There's a general rule here. Anyone who uses the word "digital" without qualifiers when referring to quality, is an idiot, know-nothing fool who is trying to sell you something. Anyone who defines "value" as just "a lot of something" is also a dense douche who can't see past his curly nosehair.
Digital cable could be great - cut the NUMBER of channels in half, increase the QUALITY of the "DIGITAL" transmission and encoding and the QUALITY of the content.
That's not the case now. I really dont care if I can get E! East Coast *AND* E! West Coast. Same crap, different time zone.
And I'd also like to take any cable company yahoo to task on the "DIGITAL" issue. I have to say it again because I'm so sick of hearing that! DIGITAL simply means that the information is transmitted by using discrete values versus an infinitely varying signal (analog). Something transmitted DIGITALLY can ensure that what's received is exactly what's intended to be received, and THAT'S ALL.
If you send mung down the line, you're gonna get mung on your TV set, and that's that.
Soapbox off. | |
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Maybe its because digital cable sucks?
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