Are the Hollywood folks shooting themselves in the foot? (1 Viewer)

[DeathStar1]

First....let me tell you about my cablevision experience...

I returned our third cable card to our local office. After waiting in line with about 20 people, I noticed that all of them had one, or multiple boxes. One lady was picking up a box, because they no longer got HBO once it went digital. Somehow she thought it was her VCR that was malfunctioning, and she thought that was the thing getting the HBO signal... if I heard correctly.

Others where complaining(And rightfully so) of having to get boxes for multiple TV's, one lady mentioned she had at least 5. OThers where complaining that they where going to go to verizon, yet I bet most don't know that you need a box for that as well...

Next....there's my family. First, they don't like the cablecard issues, but yet they don't want a box. I finaly convince them to get a box, but then they complain the picture isn't filling up t he full screen, and it's not as clear as the card. So, first I fix it so it goes to 16X9 on SD channels....but in order to do that, I had to change the resolution to 470P. Naturally, then they complain about the bluridness.

so, in order to improve the HD picture, we run out and get an HDMI cable. Hook that up, looks great. After that, I then have to spend two hours to fine tune the Harmony remote to their liking, and get rid of all the options but five buttons on each screen, for each device. Finally, they seem to be happy..

Are the days gone when we could just hook up a DVD/Next Gen DVD player to a TV, and be ready to go? No needing to worry about wether to use RCA, SVideo, DVI, or HDMI connections, or even a cable card? And now, of course, they are going to make it even tougher to get digital content to the Computer by making it so only a new PC can have CC technology.

Are they shooting themselves in the foot? I wonder how much will be enough and consumers will finally say, STOP! I give up!

 

[TheLongshot]

Eh. I solved the box problem when Cox got rid of the box for analog channels.

Digital tier? I don't care to spend the extra money on channels I'm probably not going to watch.

HDTV? I have an HD card to get OTA channels, and there isn't enough content to make it worth shelling out the bucks that they want.

Cable box problems have been with us for years, and will continue to be with us. It won't simply go away because of CableCard, since everyone's system is different.

Jason

 

[MarkHastings]

Here's my long-winded story:

My current HD cable box only has DVI outs and I wanted to see if I could get one with HDMI outs - Was that too much to ask? Apparently so :

I called Comcast; I had spoken to someone before and they said that the regular HD boxes don't have HDMI outputs yet (hopefully by end of year), but they did tell me that the DVR boxes do. I know they do because my brother has one.

My brother had a HELL of a time getting one because they originally delivered one that didn't have HMDI outs and he had to drive (several times) to a Comcast location and get one that did.

When I spoke to the woman on the phone, I asked if the box had HMDI outputs, she said "Yes" - I (obviously) responded "Are you POSITIVE these boxes have HDMI outputs!" - She said yes again.

I took a day off from work and when Comcast showed up with the DVR box, SURPRISE SURPRISE! No HMDI outs. :rolleyes

I asked the guy "The woman said this was supposed to have HDMI outs on it" and he replies "You hook up this cable (he shows me a component cable) to get your HD channels" - ARGH! I said "NO! I wasn't asking how to hook up HD, I asked about these boxes having HMDI outputs!" and he said "No they don't"

Freakin Hell! How is the consumer supposed to know what's going on when the service provider doesn't have a clue????

 

[Ken Chan]

If you want regular Coke and not diet, don't ask: "Is this a regular Coke?" Ask: "Is this Diet Coke?" Because people who don't know or don't remember will answer in the affirmative.

In this case, what you really needed to know was whether she (a) knew what she was talking about; and (b) knew that she or didn't know. Of course, asking up front usually doesn't work

Maybe you should act like you don't know anything, and are looking at the connector on your TeeVee. Ask for a list and a physical description of each connector on their box. If she cannot readily answer your question, ask for someone else.