Alioth writes "The long-anticipated switchover to purely digital TV began last night in Britain. Although digital broadcasts have been available for a while in most parts of the UK, they have been running alongside the old analogue frequencies. Last night, in the small hours, the analogue signal for BBC2 was switched off forever in the town of Whitehaven in Cumbria. Analog signals are expected to have been switched off over the whole of the UK by 2012. Meanwhile in the states Best Buy has stopped selling analog televisions. 'Best Buy is the first consumer-electronics retailer to report an exit from the analog-TV business. More than 60 million U.S. households currently rely on an antennas or analog cable, and cable operators are required to guarantee their customers will receive broadcast channels until February 2012.'"
It doesn't have to change but eventually the cable companies will want to stop supporting obsolete analog TVs by converting the digital data they receive from broadcast stations to analog (it will just be overhead that costs money, like the phone company supporting pulse dialing now that almost everybody is on tone dialing). The FCC is just requiring cable companies to support analog until 2012 so consumers will have more time to upgrade their home equipment.
The cable companies want to stop supporting analog signals now - they can fit eight digital signals in the 6mhz space of one analog channel. They can also fit 7 HD channels in the space of two analog channels. (disclaimer: this info comes from a technerd friend who works for Charter) And, of course, the more channels they can push on you the more they can charge you.
BUT they don't have to stop supporting analog sets - there'll still have to be a box (theirs) between your set and the head-end no matter what, and the box can output analog channels 3/4 or digital channel [whatever] or NTSC-composite or s-video, or SDI, VGA, or whatever to connect to your TV or monitor & speakers.
The digital/analog boxes in the field now will last looong past 2012 and the cables would be idiots to replace them as long as they're functioning. Consider: "we're recalling your box, you can either upgrade your set or cancel your account" - consumer ill-will and corporate suicide in the same sentence.
In my experience it seems like they want to fit 15 HD channels in the space one analog channel.
A friend got an HD TV, and it looked real bad, so the first thing I did was check all their connections to make sure they were really running HD the whole way, The cable company setup their HD receiver to a giant HD plasma display, over one composite cable. after a search for a few more RCAs to switch him over to component he was running HD but the picture looked even worse. All I did was sharpen the suck in 72
by Anonymous Coward
on Wednesday October 17 2007, @03:30PM (#21015823)
Cable has to change because the cable companies want to cram more and more digital channels, on-demand TV, and other services (phone, internet, etc.) onto one piece of coax. Analog channels take up space, and why would cable companies want to transmit both a digital and analog version of the same thing if they're not required to?
It doesn't directly interfere with the broadcast spectrum, but it's not as if it's a completely unlimited resource.
because for every analog channel the cable provider removes they can replace it with 3-5 digital ones (or more cable modem bandwidth, or more VOD bandwith or....) - they also currently have duplication between HD versions of broadcast channels and analog ones
analog channels are a waste of bandwith - look at one on a spectrum analyzer, most of it is empty - and a lot of energy is in the carrier which doesn't actually carry much information - on the other hand a digital QAM is nice and boxy and busy
Its not like it interferes with the broadcast spectrum.
True. However, converting from digital to analogue may require permission from copyright holders, which your cable operator may not be able to get. For example, in Finland, cable operators were threatened with legal action for converting digital-only TV channels to analogue for rebroadcast in cable networks. Just before the terrestrial analogue TV network went off-line on 2007-09-01, leaving only digital transmissions, a lot of people were concerned about their continued ability to receive analogue TV by cable. After some negotiations, cable operators were permitted to convert the channels that were previously (also) transmitted in analogue form into analogue for a few more months (ending 2008-02-29).
I like the way you are going with this.
This will hurt poor people. This will help companies like Wal-Marx sell loads of cheap (presumably made in china) Digital sets at the last minute while creating all sorts of unneeded discards of CRTs.
If you genuinely don't believe that people will think "it's digital I need a new telly that can do digital" and that the retailers aren't going to just go along with it and make loadsamoney then you've never come across someone who was going to throw out their computer because it had a virus!
The converter box vouchers from the FCC should help with this. I imagine the big retailers will be clamoring for them and offering a ton of inexpensive boxes so they can rake in those vouchers.
They want to know what you watch and when you watch it.
Not with DVB-T, they don't. It's a broadcast signal with no return path.
They want to be able to cut off your signal when they feel like it.
...hardly different from analogue.
They want to prevent you from recording what you watch.
DVB-T digital recorders are ubiquitous here. Alternatively, buy a cheapo DVB card for you PC, and you can capture an entire multiplex in real time --- record thirty-odd channels at once. If your hard disc is hard enough.
They want you to buy new TVs.
Or you could just buy one of the incredibly cheap set-top-boxes that plug into your existing analogue TV, for practically no money, that have been advertised here intensively by everyone including the BBC, for years.
A couple weeks ago I wanted to watch a DVD. And I became slightly enraged at how I couldn't skip those damn publisher logo and copyright crap. It's all because of the digital age.
That is correct. However, they only have that control over you because you're buying into the whole idea that they have control over you --- you're a willing participant to make it work. If your DVD player won't skip the unskippable stuff, get another DVD player. Practically all decent (i.e. non-name-brand) players will start playing the movie immediately, bypassing all the menus, if you insert the disk into the drive, start it playing, and then press STOP, STOP, PLAY. It's a similar 'hack' to the ubiquitous macrovision disables and region code bypasses. The people who make the DVD players know their customers, and they know who pays them. Alternatively, just plonk the thing in your PC and do whatever the hell you feel like with the digital stream.
Don't get enraged. Get smart. Digital data gives the content providers lots of control, true. But it also gives you exactly the same amount of control. All you have to do is decide to use it.
The article is misleading. Digital television is still broadcast over the airwaves, and you won't have to give up your antenna or switch to pay-TV services like cable or satellite in order to receive it. In fact, the best way to receive HD broadcasts from the major networks is likely via an antenna, as cable & satellite providers sacrifice quality by recompressing the video streams.
I just bought an HDTV about a week ago and experimented with HD reception via an antenna and via direct cable input (from Comcast). My house happens to have an obsolete UHF yagi on the chimney so the quality of reception over the air using the antenna was quite good. When I connected the cable directly to the TV's coaxial connector, I got the same program quality but more digital channels since there were a couple of distant PBS stations that are unavailable via broadcast. I was actually quite surprised
It depends. Sometimes the picture freezes and sometimes it drops out.
With TV stations having 24 hour programming now and the analog TV sets are no longer able to be purchased, I wonder how a remake of Poltergeist would tackle these issues?
"cable & satellite providers sacrifice quality by recompressing the video streams:" The dirty little secret of calbe & satellite. Nasty nasty nasty.
Personally, I loathe the MP4 streams they give us so often. Watching a dark background posterize into a single shade of bleagh on a static scene is unnerving. Not to mention the lack of detail. HD was supposed to be HIGH-def. Much of it is being compressed into something almost as good as SDTV.
Of course, there are some HD channels that give it up in
Didn't Nostradamus also say the world will end in 2012? Now I get it, what he meant by "world" was actually "analog television". Damn translation problems.
When the signal is poor, it becomes next to unwatchable. Comparable with really bad codecs on the PC. With analog and a poor signal, it may have been grainy but was still watchable to a certain extent. Digital has blocks, pausing, sound artifacts and all sorts of other things that make viewing uncomfortable. If you live in the hilly areas of England, consider getting cable - oh wait, they don't offer that because of the terrain?? Oh well.
When the analogue signals are turned off this will allow a power increase for the digital signals which then reduces digital signal reception problems.
When the analogue signals are turned off this will allow a power increase for the digital signals which then reduces digital signal reception problems.
Regardless of how much power you push, there will always be people within the viewing area that will get a degraded signal.
For instance - I currently live within 5 miles of two broadcasting stations. I get neither because of the terrain. Pumping up the signal will not fix that. I also get two other channels - one comes in clear (not sure where it is broad
It's worth noting that older antennas designed for the analogue spectrum often don't pick up the spectrum used for digital broadcasts particularly well, and may need to be replaced. (At least in the UK, I don't know what spectrums other countries use) A digital signal stays "perfect" for a lot further than an analogue one, but in return a bad digital signal is a lot worse than a bad analogue one.
In other words, if you get a "moderately bad" or above signal, you'll benefit from the change to digital. If you g
Though if your analogue signal is that bad, you probably already have satellite tv.
I live in a basement flat (rented from a landlord, not my mother:p), and I receive no worthwhile analog signal. I have a television, but do not receive or record ANY signal. The TV licence inspector visited me, and I showed him my setup. He asked some boilerplate questions, and I have since had it in writing from the TV license authorities that I'm ok.
Digital signal transmission is currently at 2 to 5% maximum power so that it doesn't cause interference with the analog signal. as the analog transmitters are turned off, they can ramp up the digital transmission power levels to that currently enjoyed by analog transmitters. There will also be much more bandwidth freed up that the analog signals used, allowing more bandwidth (i.e. less compression to start with) for existing channels, and new channels such as broadcasting HD channels in mpeg4 as opposed to the wasteful mpeg2 used for SD broadcasts. The end result will be far more channels, and a far better quality in a given area than analog gave, and even better coverage overall, including areas that can't currently receive digital and only get weak analog signals.
I really don't CARE. I watch mainly torrents because the shows I am interested in are never ON: "Go Open" out of S Africa,. DL.TV, Cranky Geeks, Way cool documentaries from Sweden, BBC, and Poland, some fine movies from Hong Kong New Deli and Singapore... World Wide shows. You know...the sort of thing that was PROMISED by televison, and started to happen in the 1950s but was immediately crushed: World wide, information flow... That stuff which was squashed by the needs of commercial interests, pro
Sweden just recently (yesterday) pulled the plug on the analogue broadcast and going for full digital. The only drawback is that they have focused on the old mpeg2 standard, not the mpeg4 which is required for hd resolutions (norway apparently went the whole nine and went for mpeg4, good for them).
Although I'm not very interesterd, tv is so overrated anyway, why not focus more on direct, live, content streamable for the net and paid for individually? TV networks is not for all of us.
They keep pushing back the date of conversion to all-digital in the US... don't be surprised if 2012 becomes 2014 down the road.
It's funny, I'm holding out on buying a huge-display HDTV until prices drop due to the increased production/sales volume from the forced conversion to digital.
Every time the year gets pushed back, I spend the money on something else instead... and my understanding is that the deadline is partly due to low penetration of digital sets in the US. Seems like a negative feedback mechanism to me... if they made a deadline and stuck to it, maybe people like me would actually buy a new TV set like the electronics companies want.
Another thing, pretty tangential, that occurs to me is that forced conversion to digital TV will probably cause more civic unrest than anything else the US government has done lately. Taxes (as always) and TV reception could be the biggest campaign issues of the 2014 midterm elections...
It's funny, I'm holding out on buying a huge-display HDTV until prices drop due to the increased production/sales volume from the forced conversion to digital.
Economics dictate things a bit differently. Forced conversion would increase demand with unchanged supply. This will *raise* the prices, potentially a lot. After the peak, the supply would have caught up and demand will drop. Only then prices will *drop*.
So you're in for waiting for something like 6-7 years for this effect to become reality. I suggest
Economics dictate things a bit differently. Forced conversion would increase demand with unchanged supply. This will *raise* the prices, potentially a lot.
Er, if the manufacturers know the switch is coming, why wouldn't they prepare to increase supply? They will. And it's entirely possible (and I can make the case that it's likely*) they will overproduce, driving the costs down.
*Because most manufacturers will be over-exuberant on what percentage of the new market they can capture. There's only so muc
It's funny, I'm holding out on buying a huge-display HDTV until prices drop due to the increased production/sales volume from the forced conversion to digital.
>Another thing, pretty tangential, that occurs to me is that forced conversion to digital TV will probably cause more civic unrest than anything else the US government has done lately.
Oil is on its way to $100 a barrel, the US has troops and mercenaries (Blackwater) killing people in a "war" in a foreign country and nearly every day, young men and women from the US are being killed in that "war" and you think that the most important thing on people's minds is freaking analog vs digital TV? It's obvio
So the old saying "there's nothing good on TV" will always remain true in the future, whether you have an analog or digital TV... there must be some physical law at work behind this... hmmm...
Folks,
If you are still watching TV in 2007, wake up. Most of the intelligent people that I know--self included--have quit wasting their lives in front of that machine. It's a waste of your life. They did a study once and found that an asleep person has more brain activity than one watching the boob tube. I quit watching it in 8th grade and my life has been much better for it.
I also stopped watching TV in 8th grade and my life has also vastly improved since making the change. Just a few years after turning off the tube I was allowed to drive, see rated R movies, and even drink alcohol. My parents also stopped telling me what to do and when to go to bed, and I could even go to college! Now I have a good job, car, and live in my own place with my girlfriend. I didn't have any of this back in 8th grade when I watched TV, and it makes me wonder where I would be if I had stopped
I'm one of those people still on analog cable, and don't see any reason to switch in the foreseeable future. The cable company charges more for digital, and paying more money to have the same shows broadcast to me via protocol X instead of Y just doesn't appeal to me. Then there are the complications digital brings to using a DVR. CableCard brings more fees and DRM, or you can record the output from a cable box and have to use an IR blaster and all that.
As someone whose TV is non-HD, digital seems to have all downside and no benefit.
Seriously? Ha ha ha ha! Aren't you supposed to be reading from a script right now?
Actually we don't use scripts in the companies I've worked for (I've worked for three), I would generally avoid them anyway as they sound so wooden and lots of times don't have real solutions to the problems the customers are having. Do you know it's possible for your remote to stop working and have the issue be the converter instead? The part of the box that interprets remote control commands can stop working while the box's front panel buttons continue to function. The solution is to unplug the power to the box for a short while. The remote is fine.
Or asking someone to unplug their TV from the wall for ten seconds and then plug it back in again?
...and I usually wait a full minute for digital boxes to allow capacitors to power down and the head end to fully realize the box is off the network, it's more likely the box will reload from scratch then and solve the issue.
You lost all credibility with me when you said that you work customer support for a cable company. The only lower life forms are the people who do Road Runner tech support.
I also do tech support for internet and digital phone, and I grudgingly do sales and billing support. If tech support people have so little credibility with you, I don't know why you'd adopt cable services that virtually guarantee you'll be calling us more often.
For video, I have people who call because...
their box has "lost authorization" for no good reason, sometimes only on certain stations.
audio is out of sync with video.
digital cable in its entirely is not working (but analog cable is).
video service is out (all video service).
their cable box remote is not controlling their TV's functions.
general reception issues (static OR microblocking to lump digital and analog here).
can't order Pay-Per-View/use Video-On-Demand
Now if we look at this list, these are the seven technical issues I deal with most for video (in no particular order). Three of these issues will effect both analog and digital service. The other four will only effect digital service, though. The audio/video syncing issue will happen most on digital, when it happens on analog it's a station issue (not your cableco). The PPV/VOD can be ignored since it isn't available on analog (analog PPV is leaving if not gone already). None of these issues will effect only analog service, though. This is the basis for my assertion analog cable is more reliable. I can look over the call histories for digital customers and there are customers who call us at least once a month for some service issue. Meanwhile, many of the analog customers go years without calling for a service issue.
Here's the real shocker, people actually believe there is a difference in the customer service between companies. I really work for an outsourcer, and several of the nations larger cable companies have had support provided by us over the years. So when you call your cable company, we're working across the aisle from other companies' reps. Sometimes your cable provider's direct competitors. Also, employees are transferred between these companies quite often, a few work for more than one at the same time (at different hours). If there is difference in the kind of care you receive between providers, its pretty much dependent on how much access those reps are given to the billing/tech systems, and what company's policies are.
Believe me, we generally are on your side when you call for credit on some issue that was small in the grand scheme of your monthly service but large in your viewing habits, but we can't always grant credit because we aren't allowed to.
Analog signals are expected to have been switched off over the whole of the UK by 2012.
Why so slowly? Over here (Netherlands), analog signals have all been switched off in a single night last year, with the final decision having been made only a couple of months earlier. It was a simple matter of "what does it cost to keep the old system running, per viewer, and what is the cost for conversion to digital". The fact that operating a digital TV transmitter wastes less energy might have weighed in too.
Why so slowly? Over here (Netherlands), analog signals have all been switched off in a single night last year, with the final decision having been made only a couple of months earlier.
Perhaps because you have about.15% of the land area and 3% of the population to cover?
I am not yet clear on exactly are the benefits supposed to be to consumers? I can see how it will benefit the content providers and cable consumers, esp. giving them more control... but I would assume there is at least some benefit, other than being charged less, to the consumer. Does anyone know?
With the analogue over here you only get BBC1, BBC2, ITV, Channel 4 and C5. Maybe one local tv station too. With Digital you get about 70 channels plus interactive plus better picture quality. It's all free but you have to get a set top box (which are subsidised by the licence fee we pay).
I actually support the NTSC-> ATSC Change over. I just think the Cable companies should not be allowed to do what they are doing, and make Digital Cable all encrypted. Essentially, I'm in favor of the governments telling the Cable Companies, You MUST send your signal in unencrypted ATSC for the non-premium channels for your paying customers. They aren't doing that. What they are doing is just the the oppisite. EVERYTHING is getting encrypted by the cable companies, and we are ALL being forced to go to the Digital Tier. The Cable companies will be switching off NTSC Some time, but an ATSC won't replace it. That makes me so damn angry you have no idea. Its going to get to where if you want any Cable at all, you HAVE to have one of their boxes and pay the Digital cable rates.
Otherwise the Cable Company will tell you to go fuck yourself and put up an Antenna.
We need the FCC to force cable card 2.0 to work with any PC, TV, DVR and so on With SDV, on screen guide, PPV, premium channels, on demand and so one. We don't need to pay the cable more just from there boxes that keep having there fees go up and up also force being able to pick the channels that you want to pay for.
errr (Score:5, Interesting)
Its not like it interferes with the broadcast spectrum.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:errr (Score:5, Interesting)
BUT they don't have to stop supporting analog sets - there'll still have to be a box (theirs) between your set and the head-end no matter what, and the box can output analog channels 3/4 or digital channel [whatever] or NTSC-composite or s-video, or SDI, VGA, or whatever to connect to your TV or monitor & speakers.
The digital/analog boxes in the field now will last looong past 2012 and the cables would be idiots to replace them as long as they're functioning. Consider: "we're recalling your box, you can either upgrade your set or cancel your account" - consumer ill-will and corporate suicide in the same sentence.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
A friend got an HD TV, and it looked real bad, so the first thing I did was check all their connections to make sure they were really running HD the whole way, The cable company setup their HD receiver to a giant HD plasma display, over one composite cable. after a search for a few more RCAs to switch him over to component he was running HD but the picture looked even worse. All I did was sharpen the suck in 72
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Re:errr (Score:5, Informative)
It doesn't directly interfere with the broadcast spectrum, but it's not as if it's a completely unlimited resource.
Parent
Re:errr (Score:5, Informative)
analog channels are a waste of bandwith - look at one on a spectrum analyzer, most of it is empty - and a lot of energy is in the carrier which doesn't actually carry much information - on the other hand a digital QAM is nice and boxy and busy
Parent
Re:errr (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
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people don't understand technology (Score:3, Insightful)
Is it nice under your rock?
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Re:errr (Score:5, Interesting)
Not with DVB-T, they don't. It's a broadcast signal with no return path.
...hardly different from analogue.
DVB-T digital recorders are ubiquitous here. Alternatively, buy a cheapo DVB card for you PC, and you can capture an entire multiplex in real time --- record thirty-odd channels at once. If your hard disc is hard enough.
Or you could just buy one of the incredibly cheap set-top-boxes that plug into your existing analogue TV, for practically no money, that have been advertised here intensively by everyone including the BBC, for years.
That is correct. However, they only have that control over you because you're buying into the whole idea that they have control over you --- you're a willing participant to make it work. If your DVD player won't skip the unskippable stuff, get another DVD player. Practically all decent (i.e. non-name-brand) players will start playing the movie immediately, bypassing all the menus, if you insert the disk into the drive, start it playing, and then press STOP, STOP, PLAY. It's a similar 'hack' to the ubiquitous macrovision disables and region code bypasses. The people who make the DVD players know their customers, and they know who pays them. Alternatively, just plonk the thing in your PC and do whatever the hell you feel like with the digital stream.
Don't get enraged. Get smart. Digital data gives the content providers lots of control, true. But it also gives you exactly the same amount of control. All you have to do is decide to use it.
Parent
Digital TV works over antenna (Score:5, Informative)
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
With TV stations having 24 hour programming now and the analog TV sets are no longer able to be purchased, I wonder how a remake of Poltergeist would tackle these issues?
I will miss the white noise from my TV.
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The dirty little secret of calbe & satellite. Nasty nasty nasty.
Personally, I loathe the MP4 streams they give us so often. Watching a dark background posterize into a single shade of bleagh on a static scene is unnerving. Not to mention the lack of detail. HD was supposed to be HIGH-def. Much of it is being compressed into something almost as good as SDTV.
Of course, there are some HD channels that give it up in
End of the World? (Score:5, Funny)
Coincidence?
That makes sense (Score:3, Funny)
The problem with digital.... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:The problem with digital.... (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Regardless of how much power you push, there will always be people within the viewing area that will get a degraded signal.
For instance - I currently live within 5 miles of two broadcasting stations. I get neither because of the terrain. Pumping up the signal will not fix that. I also get two other channels - one comes in clear (not sure where it is broad
Re: (Score:2)
A digital signal stays "perfect" for a lot further than an analogue one, but in return a bad digital signal is a lot worse than a bad analogue one.
In other words, if you get a "moderately bad" or above signal, you'll benefit from the change to digital. If you g
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
I live in a basement flat (rented from a landlord, not my mother :p), and I receive no worthwhile analog signal. I have a television, but do not receive or record ANY signal. The TV licence inspector visited me, and I showed him my setup. He asked some boilerplate questions, and I have since had it in writing from the TV license authorities that I'm ok.
Re:The problem with digital.... (Score:5, Informative)
i can't WAIT until analog is fully turned off.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Sweden just killed the analogue network (Score:4, Informative)
Although I'm not very interesterd, tv is so overrated anyway, why not focus more on direct, live, content streamable for the net and paid for individually? TV networks is not for all of us.
2012 now in the US? (Score:5, Interesting)
It's funny, I'm holding out on buying a huge-display HDTV until prices drop due to the increased production/sales volume from the forced conversion to digital.
Every time the year gets pushed back, I spend the money on something else instead... and my understanding is that the deadline is partly due to low penetration of digital sets in the US. Seems like a negative feedback mechanism to me... if they made a deadline and stuck to it, maybe people like me would actually buy a new TV set like the electronics companies want.
Another thing, pretty tangential, that occurs to me is that forced conversion to digital TV will probably cause more civic unrest than anything else the US government has done lately. Taxes (as always) and TV reception could be the biggest campaign issues of the 2014 midterm elections...
Re: (Score:2)
Economics dictate things a bit differently. Forced conversion would increase demand with unchanged supply. This will *raise* the prices, potentially a lot. After the peak, the supply would have caught up and demand will drop. Only then prices will *drop*.
So you're in for waiting for something like 6-7 years for this effect to become reality. I suggest
Re: (Score:2)
Economics dictate things a bit differently. Forced conversion would increase demand with unchanged supply. This will *raise* the prices, potentially a lot.
Er, if the manufacturers know the switch is coming, why wouldn't they prepare to increase supply? They will. And it's entirely possible (and I can make the case that it's likely*) they will overproduce, driving the costs down.
*Because most manufacturers will be over-exuberant on what percentage of the new market they can capture. There's only so muc
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Ah, yes! The old "compact disc" strategy...
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Oil is on its way to $100 a barrel, the US has troops and mercenaries (Blackwater) killing people in a "war" in a foreign country and nearly every day, young men and women from the US are being killed in that "war" and you think that the most important thing on people's minds is freaking analog vs digital TV? It's obvio
Nothing will change... (Score:3, Funny)
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People Still Watch TV? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:People Still Watch TV? (Score:5, Funny)
Sorry, I'll read the rest later, American Idol is about to start.
Parent
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Must fight urge to be pedantic... (Score:2, Funny)
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Underwhelmed by digital (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm one of those people still on analog cable, and don't see any reason to switch in the foreseeable future. The cable company charges more for digital, and paying more money to have the same shows broadcast to me via protocol X instead of Y just doesn't appeal to me. Then there are the complications digital brings to using a DVR. CableCard brings more fees and DRM, or you can record the output from a cable box and have to use an IR blaster and all that.
As someone whose TV is non-HD, digital seems to have all downside and no benefit.
Re:Clear QAM is your friend (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually we don't use scripts in the companies I've worked for (I've worked for three), I would generally avoid them anyway as they sound so wooden and lots of times don't have real solutions to the problems the customers are having. Do you know it's possible for your remote to stop working and have the issue be the converter instead? The part of the box that interprets remote control commands can stop working while the box's front panel buttons continue to function. The solution is to unplug the power to the box for a short while. The remote is fine.
I also do tech support for internet and digital phone, and I grudgingly do sales and billing support. If tech support people have so little credibility with you, I don't know why you'd adopt cable services that virtually guarantee you'll be calling us more often.
For video, I have people who call because...
Now if we look at this list, these are the seven technical issues I deal with most for video (in no particular order). Three of these issues will effect both analog and digital service. The other four will only effect digital service, though. The audio/video syncing issue will happen most on digital, when it happens on analog it's a station issue (not your cableco). The PPV/VOD can be ignored since it isn't available on analog (analog PPV is leaving if not gone already). None of these issues will effect only analog service, though. This is the basis for my assertion analog cable is more reliable. I can look over the call histories for digital customers and there are customers who call us at least once a month for some service issue. Meanwhile, many of the analog customers go years without calling for a service issue.
Here's the real shocker, people actually believe there is a difference in the customer service between companies. I really work for an outsourcer, and several of the nations larger cable companies have had support provided by us over the years. So when you call your cable company, we're working across the aisle from other companies' reps. Sometimes your cable provider's direct competitors. Also, employees are transferred between these companies quite often, a few work for more than one at the same time (at different hours). If there is difference in the kind of care you receive between providers, its pretty much dependent on how much access those reps are given to the billing/tech systems, and what company's policies are.
Believe me, we generally are on your side when you call for credit on some issue that was small in the grand scheme of your monthly service but large in your viewing habits, but we can't always grant credit because we aren't allowed to.
Parent
Yet another 2012 deadline... (Score:2)
Now I'm starting to wonder as well. My question is, do the house members expect the end-of-the-world-by-Mayan-reckoning or the Rapture?
Re: (Score:2)
They expect a man to be entitled to the sweat of his brow.
Isn't he?
Deadline Schmedline (Score:2)
slow migration (Score:3, Interesting)
Why so slowly? Over here (Netherlands), analog signals have all been switched off in a single night last year, with the final decision having been made only a couple of months earlier. It was a simple matter of "what does it cost to keep the old system running, per viewer, and what is the cost for conversion to digital".
The fact that operating a digital TV transmitter wastes less energy might have weighed in too.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
What are the benefits to consumers? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Cable Companies not eating their own Dogfood. (Score:3, Insightful)
Otherwise the Cable Company will tell you to go fuck yourself and put up an Antenna.
Cable cards (Score:2)
Misleading conflation (Score:3, Informative)
In other news, 100% of all logical propositions are either true or false.