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Relief in Store for Cable TV Subscribers
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In this photograph provided by Motorola, a "cable card", used in some applications for cable TV reception, is seen in a Motorola DCH6416 High-Definition Two-Tuner Digital Video Recorder. This is one model of the new set-top boxes cable companies will be required to ship to consumers after July 1. (AP Photo/Motorola)
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- Public Discussion (9)
I've always found it annoying to have to pay for or buy a decoder to decode the transmissions I'm paying for in the first place. Consumers were paying for the cable companies security features to maintain integrity of their broadcasts when the cost should be direct - part of the cost of services not added on like a fee. And it's really amusing to pay extra for a box that allows you to buy more from the same people. That's paramount to charging people to enter a department store so they can shop and saying it's to pay for the AC they will use while inside the building.
- 5 votes
#1 - Fri Jun 8, 2007 2:46 PM EDTyou are suggesting metered service then?
I find that interesting.. I could watch a show on HBO and pay 25 cents per hour or something and it can simply keep track of my usage of the available channels... locals/over air being free... HD being more... etc.
I like that Idea.. then I can curb my TV usage rather than pay a huge amount of money for a service I do not use.... even purchasing a channel for a day or half a day would be nice.
- 2 votes
Well my ideal solution would be bad for cable most likely. I would like content generators to offer their products for download. I'd pay for a show, or buy some subscription to all shows by a studio or something along those lines. Not pay for a huge package of channels of which I watch 5 - sometimes.
I'm on the cusp of dumping satellite (just another form of cable same business model) for buying particular shows on DVD when they are released. I have high hopes though for download content as it's progressing fairly quickly. I can start to get what I'm interested in through legal download but not good enough quality yet.
Cable's role would be provision of internet service which is a metered service sort of though the US market has nearly universally adopted flat unlimited use packages.
Fox's online show offering is pretty high quality for free... you can watch a show in near full screen with no jittering and good definition. It is a lot better than ABC, NBC, and CBS.
The thing that drives me nuts though is the limitation of what networks offer on line to watch. NBC is really bad about that.
In the Tampa area, Bright House charges about half the price of a cable box for the card and up to $50 to install each card. Sounds like they are trying to make money in other ways on this.
One complaint I have with the digital feeds is that you can't change channels as fast. When you switch, it takes a second for it to decode the data and display it.
- 2 votes
#2 - Fri Jun 8, 2007 3:29 PM EDTI have bright house... They are getting new DVRs this July and I can't wait... the moto DVR software is buggy as heck... they should have just deployed Tivo software/hardware... much nicer and works flawlessly.
- 1 vote
Maybe they will fix the asinine slowness of the user interfaces on cable boxes. Drives me nuts that it literally takes seconds to change the %*@#ing channel.
#3 - Fri Jun 8, 2007 3:31 PM EDTI would love to purchase my own box.. then I can hack it or buy one that has better software, etc and simply pop in a cable card from the cable company... what the cable company is afraid of is that hacks will be made that allow the theft of content.
Tough poop cable industry. I want to be able to pipe my content to another box so I can have multiple recorders going and watch all my recordings on my best TV.
#4 - Fri Jun 8, 2007 9:15 PM EDTYou're in Easy Mode. If you prefer, you can use XHTML Mode instead. |
