I hate Cable!!!!! and dish and everything else!

Can someone PLEASE explain to me why, with the new TV sets and DVDs having digital capacity, the cable company is INSISTING I need their damned box to view the digital line up?

Because then they can charge you $7 a month for the box, $3 a month for the remote, $2.50 a month for the onscreen guide, and $5 a month for digital access. It's why your $56 cable bill is actually $73.50, and why cable sucks.

Satellite sucks only because you're dependent upon a dish facing the right direction in moderately good weather.

Both of them suck in that they're unyielding in their monopoly of the subscriber channel lineup.

We have cable. I hate cable. We live in an apartment. I hate cable. We can't get satellite because our apartment faces the wrong direction and we only have an inline cable in one room. I hate cable. Oh, and I hate Time Warner's new Navigator software, which is actually just Mystro.

I hate cable.

J.

I think because they might encrypt their signal. If you really want the extra 200 channels and don't want a cable box or DVR, look into getting a CableCard, but be prepared to be ripped off even more.

Who the hell charges for an on-screen guide and who is actually silly enough to pay for it?

It's itemized in your billing. At least it is with Time Warner.


J.

Cuz they want you to buy their On Demand stuff.

Oh, and having a digital tuner does not mean you can necessarily decode the signal that they use.

Does it make you feel better to know that your tax dollars subsidized the cost of laying those cable lines? But hey, even though the taxpayers bought those lines, let's not interfere with the cable companies ability to fuck us in the ass and make obscene profits on them. After all, a private monopoly that was propped up by the taxpayers has GOT to be better than a regular industry, RIGHT?!

Three letters... DVD.

You have no idea what you're talking about. It's just a bunch of nonsense. I don't understand why some people seem offended by a company trying to make money. Why would you go into business without wanting to make money?

Tax dollars do not subsidize the cost of laying cable.

It's called a converter box because it converts the signal into something your TV can recognize but you can also get a cable card to do the same or you can purchase your own converter box from whomever and just get a card from the cable compnay that recognizes their signal.
The fact that your TV is digital only really applies to over the air waves or a basic cable signal. Features like the guide, pay-per-view, DVR, Start Over etc can only be done using the box.

Cable also does not make obscene profits from actual cable. Most of it comes from internet and phone these days. What most people don't realize is that the channels cable shows charge for that programming. Even the on screen guide costs the cable company per subscriber. The programming costs for cable generally increase by 10% each year while the rates charged by cable only increase 5% each year. Video generates revenue to be sure, but there's not much incremental revenue year to year. Most of the time the margin remains flat. New products like DVR are the sole revenue generators.

Congress and the FCC beat up cable companies for the rates they charge but seem oblivious to the rates charged by the programmers like ESPN or even Fox News which tripled it's rate from last year.

And yeah, I work for a cable company so I am biased.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Maybe not NEW cable. But yes, the bulk of the old cable that was laid way back was laid with heavy subsidizing from the government.

Oh, and guess what, they STILL get public land to install all that cable into.

I wouldn't mind if they weren't HANDED a monopoly. If they had built it up themselves, I'd be a lot more forgiving. Same issue applies to broadcast TV. They were given FOR FREE, rights by the FCC to broadcast. Anyone who wasn't granted rights by the FCC can't even compete. In light of the artificial status that these entities have been given, I don't think it's such a big problem for them to be under a bit of inspection.

Then why not do as nearly EVERY subscriber is begging for?

Give us the choice of what fucking channels we want to buy, and charge us whatever you need to charge to turn a profit for that channel! In the old days, this might have been too difficult technically, but in the modern era, it is easily doable.

That way maybe those "overpriced" channels would be exposed and forced to lower their cost.

Most people aren't keen on paying an extra 30 bucks a month to get some extra stations when they only care about one or two of them.

I agree. I'm all for "a la carte" programming, and in the digital age there's no technological barrier to doing it.

Do you lot have Free HD yet?

Bullshit!
Managing channel lineups is a nightmare, the fewer the better. A la carte programming would involve millions in investment for servers and equipment to handle that load.

Also, the smaller less popular channels would be gone. Stuff like CNN, Bravo, USA and even ESPN that are very popular now were nothing back in the 80's. If they had existed solely on a la carte setups, they wouldn't be around today.

I agree that a la carte sounds tempting but it's also a case of be careful what you wish for.

Wrong. We typically place our cable lines on poles used by telephone and electric companies and then we have to pay them rent. Nothing free about it.

And the old cable is gone, most cable systems replaced all their cable to upgrade for digital, HD, internet and phone.

A la carte is a terrible idea. Which is why we should do it. I want to see people whine how their favorite channels cost a shitload of money today or are no longer on TV.

I hope Obama makes things A la Carte!

So the great should pay for the small? This sounds all very communistic to me

Nope, pump all channels to everybody (you already do, with the exclusion of on demand programming). It's not taking any extra bandwidth since the "old" tech that is still in use is to simply send everything to everybody and then only decode the "allowed" things at the TV set. The only difference is the amount of different "allowed" settings.

Then just have the box only decode those channels which the subscriber has paid for. The cost of maintaining a list of "which channels are subscribed to" is pretty minimal. Tons of free websites out there store far far far more data per user.

Cable sucks, and I stand by that. No amount of sweet talking and "but they have to make money too!" is going to convince me otherwise. The prices are outrageous, the equipment is horrible (Scientific Atlanta sucks bad), and the customer service is substandard.

J.

Everybody can afford basic cable. Come on dude!

Basic cable is $60 a month here.
The America's Top 200 package from DirecTV (with DVR) is $49 a month here.

There's no excuse for it.

J.

I'm quite happy with Dish Network. Of course, my neighborhood is one of only something like 5 in the country with 5 competing TV products (but OTA reception limited to about 2 channels), so they've got some incentive to keep the service good and cheap.

Unfortunately, really busy HD scenes show substantial degradation of signal because of the compression used in satellite transmissions to get as many HD channels as they have. Some parts of the closing ceremonies at the Olympics might as well have been pastel smears, such as when all the athletes were pouring into the stadium.

Dang!! That's cheap!

You remind me of my parents when they held on to their dial phones and pulse service. They did not want to pay touch tone rates.

We don't pump all the channels to everyone. We have certain channels switched off unless someone in a hub tunes it in. Then it becomes active but only in that hub. It saves bandwith.

Also, in order to do a la carte every customer would have to have a cable box as we would have to scramble the signal so that they couldn't just plug it into their TV and get everything. And with the digital switch over in 2009 for broadcast, we have an agreement with the FCC that we will continue to provide analog channels for at least 2 years or 2011.

But, as I've said that the real obstacle is the programmers themselves. If a la carte were to happen in a cable system of 500,000 subscribers, a channel like Bravo would see their sub base drop from 500K to maybe 250K. They would lose half of their licensing fees and with fewer viewers, much of the ad revenue. This would drive them out of business quick.

Although, is having fewer channels really a bad thing?

I do. Of course where I live I'm not a slave to the biggies. No box required, either.

I highly doubt that. If my cable box can filter out HBO because I don't pay for it then it can be easily set to filter out BET.

Tough titty. I feel about that the same way I feel about airline subsidies: Either make a product that people are willing to pay for or die on the vine.

Sounds like something I'd say about the National Endowment for the Arts.

On your first point, you box doesn't filter out HBO, there's a service code for HBO and you either have it on your account or you don't.

On the second point, I actually agree with you there. But I think people will find a la carte to be more expensive in the long run.

Why not allowing to pay for certain shows through cable instead of whole channel. Like CI on USa bsg on scifi and dexter and generation kill. COuld that setup work?

It's cheap for you, but then you pay inflated rates because of where you live.
Think about the economy around you. For me, a two bedroom apartment costing $750 a month is crazy expensive. For you, it means there are 4 foot holes in the walls and a wino peeing on your television. The local economy is the deciding factor. Here, where I live, $60 a month for basic cable is very unreasonable, particularly considering the competition's much better options at cheaper rates.

J.

It's not like cable isn't trying to force everyone to use a box anyway. They want to eliminate the analog signal as soon as they can legally do so, which is another reason why they are pushing those boxes on everyone (even people who have basic cable and don't need it). Oh, and just for shits and giggles, they want to send a guy out to your place to install it for you and charge a fee for it! No offense but I can screw on a fuckin' coax cable, thanks.

When I had comcast I actually disconnected my box because the digital signal looked noticably shittier than the analog one (which isn't great to begin with). Comcast sez: "Enjoy digital quality!" Translation: "Everyone get boxes so we can deliver inferior quality to save bandwidth for subpar on-demand services!".

Oh, also, the last time I called Comcast to set up service, the salesperson on the phone ASSURED me that the cheapest package available was like 95 bucks a month, and would not back down on the box installation visit. After arguing with her for 15 minutes I finally told her to forget it. I went to the local Comcast office and the lady in there signed me up for 66 dollars a month and handed me a box + remote which I connected myself (and later disconnected).

I think that in the future, cable companies will do little more than provide bandwidth for the internet. As programmers and advertisers see the benefits of the internet, everything will eventually be online and on demand with hulu like services. The entire concept of a channel will be obsolete.

Good theory directly from tech articles of 2-3 years ago. In fact if you look back at Techforge we have a few threads on just this topic here. A la carte programming is pretty much inevitable (by show even, not just by channel).

In fact, in 2005 I made a post saying that in 10 years, most people would be on to IPTV rather than traditional broadcasting.

When a phone/cable/satellite provider grows a set of nuts and defies the programming gods, they will be set to make an assload of money and take first place in the market, at least until everyone else copies them. But then again, they don't really have much incentive to change what they do since there is next to zero competition.