We're being dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century. Ginger has contacted Cox and upgraded us to their digital cable package. Here's what I don't understand, the digital package is actually a couple bucks cheaper than the regular cable package. The thing I don't like about it is that after all that regulation to prevent cable companies charging customers on a per outlet basis that seems to be back since they now require a cable card (that they rent) per outlet to access the digital content. Add to that the fact that our TiVo is one of the first model Series 3 so it can't use a multi-stream card (meaning that each tuner requires it's own card and you can't use just once card for both tuners). Even renting the two cable cards though the price is still lower than what we were paying before. I suspect though that if we were to require a cable card for each TV outlet in the house the cost wouldn't be cheaper anymore (but since none of the other TVs are digital, for now it's a non-issue). The good thing about having the digital cable option is TiVo now recognizes the digital channels, so we don't have to have stuff like "Channel 5-1 9:00 PM" anymore in the Now Playing List and we can actually see the TV show names for the digital content.
So far the only negative side is the cable cards don't seem to be working as they should. The guy that installed them told Ginger it might take up to 24 hours for all the digital channels to show up. To which my response when she told me that was "Huh?" That doesn't make a lot of sense to me since I don't see how the card could be providing the channels via some dynamic allocation scheme. Seems to me the channels would either work or they wouldn't, and as of right now a bunch don't work since we're missing a slew of the digital channels we're suppose to be able to access. The other bad thing about this now we have a ton of stuff we could watch, and I had just been weening myself some off of television thanks to the whole writer's strike, and now we have all this new content to view.
2 comments:
The reason it may take a little while (and it's really just an excuse for bad process on their end) is that the card gets the information from their head end unit on what you are allowed to see, and it restricts it appropriately. In the analog world, they actually used physical filters on your line or in the cable box to restrict which frequencies actually become available to your TV.
The reason I say it is really bad process is that all it takes is someone to send the signal to your card to open up an appropriate channel. Instead, they're depending on the nightly update to get the full range of channels that you are supposed to have (in addition to the updates to your TV Guide, etc.). But if you were to call them up and ask that a new channel or package be made available to you, it would be available within 5 minutes (because someone pushed the settings to you). And considering the cable tech probably called someone to verify that the install went well and to report the serial number on your card, they could have made sure everything was pushed properly at the time. Unfortunately, that takes more time out of the tech's "busy" day.
Enjoy. It's really strange some of the channels that actually exist out there.
Cable companies are no longer regulated, so now they do as they want and charge as they wish. Our first bill of 2008 saw a $20 increase.
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