And by "hate", I mean as if it were expressed by Lewis Black or Patton Oswald.
When broadcast TV switched to digital, you needed to either get digital gear or a converter box. If you had the digital crap, you were good, you didn't need the box.
But no, not Comcast. They have used their "switch to digital" to fuck over their customers. If you have any digital equipment, it won't help you one bit, for everything has to go through Comcast's fucking gear. Say, for example, you wanted to tape a show that ran from 9PM to 10PM and then another one from 11PM to Midnight. That was easy with a DVR or a VCR, just set it to grab both shows. But that won't work with Comcast's goddamn new cable box, for as far as your TV and VCR is concerned, you now only get one channel.[1]
All this reveals the truth behind Comcast's switch to digital: It was all done for Comcast's benefit and it was done with total disregard for its customers. As far as using Comcast, there is no difference now between Comcast and DirectTV. Oh, you can get "Comcast On Demand", but since my only demand to Comcast would be to start giving a shit about its residential customers, that's not going to happen before there is meaningful competition everywhere. About the only conceivable thing I would watch on "Comcast On Demand" would be the drawing and quartering of the top executives of Comcast.
If you've read my earlier blog posts about Comcast and if you looked at the comments section, you may have noticed that Comcast has people whose job it is to go around the Internet, look for bloggers who are saying bad things about Comcast and respond to them. Their user name is some variant on "ComcastCares1". I say them to them, now, that they can skip over responding to this post. For we all know that Comcast doesn't give a rat's penis about its customers. I can't think of any response that they could give that would convince me otherwise.
By Grabthar's hammer, by the suns of Warvan, I hate Comcast.
[1]After you set up the fucking box and call to activate it, it takes 45 minutes for the stupid box to download whatever it is it has to download. The damn thing probably runs on a stripped-down copy of Windows-ME.
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10 comments:
Their real goal is to make you rent their
bigger box that does DVR and for a few dollars more allows you to access it over the net.
Shades of the TPC! For those too young
TPC stands for "The Phone Company" back when it was a government supported monopoly and they owned the phone and anything that might connect to the line
if it was permitted.
Eck!
The President's Analyst.
Dr. Sidney Schaefer: You know, one thing I learned from my patients... they all hate the phone company. It's interesting; even the stock holders of the phone company hate the phone company!
V.I. Kydor Kropotkin: I know. Bedouins hate the phone company. Matter of fact, I've never been in a country where everybody didn't hate the phone company.
Eck! hit the nail on the head. This is all to force you to use their DVR or OnDemand. Your DVR does not generate money for them plus now they are also a content company, they want to be able to control how and when you can watch a show. They can do this now that they were able to kill off the card system that the FCC mandated.
I saw the PR hack's comment above mine in one of your recent comcast posts. I had a couple of sentences, one featuring the word "whore" at the end of that comment, which I then deleted. It just doesn't seem right for me to go on a rant on your blog. I'm so hopelessly outclassed.
If you're willing to go the TiVo route, Comcast is *legally required* by FCC regulations to provide you with CableCARD decryption devices to put in your TiVo. These allow you to access all one-way content (i.e. no video-on-demand) using only the TiVo.
Furthermore, if they ever move any channels to "switched digital video", they are required to provide you with a "tuning adapter" that allows your TiVo to access those channels.
This lets you eliminate your Comcast converter box, but admittedly you then have a TiVo box. I'm quite happy with my TiVo controlling my viewing and recording of Time Warner digital cable.
Lockwood, rant away. If you go over the line, I'll delete it.
Brian, do you know of a reference? I wonder if that rule applies to all video recorders, not just ComBastards's. Mine may be able to take one of those cards. I'll have to yarn out the manual and see.
Our local bird cage liner's "Action Line" has an article today about Compost overcharging a lady for Internet access, and about her three-month ordeal to try to get the situation resolved. Their CSR's apparently are a) inept, b) incompetent, c) not authorized to actually do anything for the customer, and d) have no idea who to send the customer to who may BE authorized to do anything for the customer, instead forwarding the customer to yet another CSR in another office who *still* isn't authorized to do anything for the customer.
It's another case of, "We have a monopoly on cable television in your area, we don't care, we don't have to." SIiiiiigh!
-Badtux the Composting Penguin
Frustratingly, at this moment I'm unable to find a simple reference, but it's Section 304 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Also, the FAQ for the TiVo Series 3 DVR states in part:
"All major cable companies are FCC mandated to provide CableCARDs to their digital cable subscribers. Some cable companies offer CableCARDs for free and others charge a small monthly fee."
The same assertion is made in this CNet article:
http://news.cnet.com/Cable-companies-lose-round-in-CableCard-battle/2100-1033_3-6107359.html
As well as in the Wikipedia page for CableCARD:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CableCARD
I know I downloaded additional references back when I was gearing up to battle Time Warner for my CableCARDs, but I can't find them. If I do so, I'll provide more information.
-B
A quick followup: I located my other references, but none of them were as cut-and-dry as I remembered.
I went to the Comcast "CustomerCentral" website (http://customer.comcast.com/Pages/Help.aspx) and used the Search field at the top of the page to look for "cablecard". There are 4 pages of links, one of which is
"If I have a CableCARD, do I still need my digital set-top box to get Digital Cable?
You may choose to use a CableCARD instead of a Digital Cable set-top box; however, to enjoy the full range of interactive services, such as pay-per-view, ON DEMAND and the Comcast interactive program guide, you will still need a Digital Cable set-top box until a new generation of digital-cable-ready televisions are introduced."
The final clause in their reply is untrue, but that's another topic entirely.
One caveat -- CableCARD penetration into the cable market has been abysmal, and it appears the FCC is looking for a replacement (see http://hd.engadget.com/2009/12/04/hell-freezes-over-the-fcc-admits-that-cablecard-is-a-failure/).
I've been absolutely 100% happy with my Series 3 Tivo combined with two CableCARDS, but installation headaches were common when I had mine installed (I knew more about CableCARDs and the installation process than the installer did). Hopefully, by now those difficulties are less common, but beware, the cable companies *HATE* CableCARDs and hate supporting them even more.
-B
Brian, my VCR/DVR doesn't accept cable cards, so I am screwed to the "1 channel at a time" bit.
Fuckin' Comcast. May their livers be devoured by dingos before they die.
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