Cable TV question

[Findm-Keepm]

Originally Posted by Phototone

Well down here I have Cox Cable, and in one of my houses I have basic cable and I can get quite a number of stations direct over the cable connection to my older NTSC TV, and I have had no indication that this "basic" service is going away. Modern ATSC broadcasts over-the-air can be received from regular TV antennas, but you need an ATSC compatible TV to view them, or a converter box.

Ditto,

Cox is still putting QAM and analog stations out for direct connection, but not for much longer. As they drop channels from some packages, they add the basic analog channels to the digital-only lineup to keep the same number of stations in the package. Word is they will someday only have the "lighthouse" station on the analog side, along with their user-hookup channel.

With my setup, I use an attic antenna for local viewing - PBS is awesome OTA, with no compression or artifact garbage. My only problem is my antenna is looking right into a two story building, so I get dropouts on one station.

Cheers,

[dieseljeep]

Originally Posted by Findm-Keepm

Ditto,

Cox is still putting QAM and analog stations out for direct connection, but not for much longer. As they drop channels from some packages, they add the basic analog channels to the digital-only lineup to keep the same number of stations in the package. Word is they will someday only have the "lighthouse" station on the analog side, along with their user-hookup channel.

With my setup, I use an attic antenna for local viewing - PBS is awesome OTA, with no compression or artifact garbage. My only problem is my antenna is looking right into a two story building, so I get dropouts on one station.

Cheers,

TW cable is furnishing a converter box for a buck a month. It's a little larger than a pack of cigarettes. Naturally, it comes with a remote, but the only outputs are an HDMI and a RF, channel 3 or 4 output.
The HD picture is OK, using the RF out, but not as good as the OTA converter using the component jacks.

[Electronic M]

Originally Posted by dieseljeep

TW cable is furnishing a converter box for a buck a month. It's a little larger than a pack of cigarettes. Naturally, it comes with a remote, but the only outputs are an HDMI and a RF, channel 3 or 4 output.
The HD picture is OK, using the RF out, but not as good as the OTA converter using the component jacks.

Are they cutting analog service in your area? I have not heard any talk of the analog service ending here, but they may just not be talking about it if they are.

[dieseljeep]

Originally Posted by Electronic M

Are they cutting analog service in your area? I have not heard any talk of the analog service ending here, but they may just not be talking about it if they are.

I has been that way, for a year or so. My brother still lives in Milwaukee county and his service is about the same. There is still several channels, that are still analogue and I can tune them on cable ready TV's, as well as VCR's.
When you scan the cable channels, on the ones that require the converter, they come up as a blank screen, such as the weather channel.

[ChrisW6ATV]

Originally Posted by Jeffhs

I presently have Time Warner Cable, but not for much longer.

Regardless of the reason (there are many good ones), THAT is the best decision you can make when a lousy decision is made by a lousy company in a really lousy industry. CANCEL your pay TV!

[Jeffhs]

The Roku streaming video player arrived here earlier this week; it was very simple to install (just an HDMI cable and the included AC power adapter, plus a simple online activation procedure), and I was watching programs within ten minutes (literally) of removing the player from its shipping box.

It has an application that will allow me to see Time Warner Cable TV programming via streaming video, although I don't know if that app will continue to work once the cable company goes all-digital in about four months or so. Even when they do, I am not concerned about it anymore, as my Roku box will receive many free TV channels, quite a few of which are stations I watch semi-regularly. I tried to activate the National Geographic Channel (Roku refers to it as NatGeoTV) and, while I was able to activate the channel with no problems on my computer, I kept getting a message on my TV screen that I am not authorized to view their content at this time.

I puzzled over this for awhile (why I was able to activate the channel on the computer but I could not watch it on my TV), then it dawned on me--I do not get NGC on my present level of cable service (Standard TV), so it follows I would not have access to this channel on my Roku player either. (This is the case with several other cable channels as well.)

No problem. I like to watch nature shows, and the PBS affiliate in Cleveland, plus one other PBS station about 60 miles from here, has plenty of those; one titled simply "Nature", and several others the titles of which escape me as I write this. PBS also shows National Geographic specials every now and then, so I can see these programs as well, on average about once a month or so.

I will not cancel my cable service just yet, as Roku does not stream local TV channels and some cable networks. I will keep the cable for now, as it is part of a bundle of services from Time Warner Cable (cable television, home phone and Internet); downgrading or canceling any of those services before my contract with TW expires will almost certainly result in a hefty early termination fee, which I cannot afford since I live on a fixed income.

All in all, I am very pleased with the Roku streaming video player. Between cable, the Roku box, and my own sizable collection of DVDs and VHS videos, I am getting more TV programming than ever before, certainly much, much more than we were getting (three major networks plus PBS, then known as National Educational TV or NET, and three independents) when I was growing up in a Cleveland suburb in the '70s.

[Jeffhs]

Update: Roku does in fact stream local TV in my area, through the use of what they call the TWC TV app, so I can now watch all the Cleveland stations plus cable through my Roku player. TWC has also very recently changed their requirements such that folks with only Starter TV (local channels only) can use a Roku to get local TV, whereas until this change went into effect, the local channels were only available to subscribers via Roku with Standard TV service or higher. This makes me very happy since I now have the option to eventually (if my cable bill goes too high) downgrade to Starter TV, without losing the local TV channels. These, and their subchannels (MeTV, Antenna TV, COZI, the PBS subchannels, etc.), are more important to me than most of the cable stations, so if worse comes to worst I can downgrade to Starter TV (what I call bare bones basic) without missing anything. I still have the cable connected to my VCR, for use when the Roku streams freeze or outright go black (these outages do occur from time to time, but thankfully not very often).

All in all, I am now very satisfied with the Roku box and the TWC app, and happier yet that the latter will work with Starter TV, which is Time Warner's lowest level of cable service.

I know I all but swore up and down in another post that I did not want a cable box on my TV under any circumstances, but that was before I realized how much better television is with the Roku player. I don't use a lot of the channels (aside from the TWC TV app) on the home screen, but I do occasionally watch Crackle, a channel devoted to old TV series from the '40s through the seventies (I say the forties since Crackle runs a lot of the old black and white Three Stooges episodes, many of which date back to that decade and even the late '30s).

I sometimes wonder if the Roku player and other video-over-IP players will eventually sound a death knell for cable TV. As it is now, to get local TV with the Roku player, one must at least have Starter TV on his or her cable account (the cable does not have to be physically connected to the television); however, I wonder if, eventually, this requirement will be dropped entirely. I recently read in the TV Technology newsletter (which I receive in my email daily) that video over IP is the future of television, so it may not be long before broadcast TV as we know it today will be a relic of a bygone era. The day may and probably will come when every TV in America will have either a cable box or a Roku player connected to it; given the popularity of Roku and other streaming video players (Google TV, et al.), that day may not be too far off. Most of what used to be the VHF and UHF television spectrum in the US, after all, has been auctioned off to other services such as cellular, et al., and the remaining TV broadcast spectrum presently used by DTV stations may well be next.

The only concern I have regarding the eventual change from OTA to wired cable TV is that the latter will mean the end of truly portable TV, at least as it used to be when all TV was over the air. It may well work out this way, but since most TV stations and networks, including cable, now stream their programs over the Internet, the new age of portable TV will almost certainly be (and in fact already is) watching television on a tablet, laptop or smartphone. I already have a shortcut on my tablet's home screen to the NBC Nightly News stream, and use it when I, for whatever reason, cannot see the news at its usual broadcast time (6:30 p.m. Eastern), and I realize I can watch many other network and cable programs on my tablet or even my desktop computer as well.

The cable companies are justifiably concerned over so-called "cord cutting", but this is something that will gain rather than lose popularity as time goes on. This also shows how much television has evolved since the experimental broadcasts by RCA and NBC in the late 1930s. If the pioneers of TV were alive today to see the sweeping changes that have occurred in the medium since then, I am sure they would be amazed, if not outright floored and/or flabbergasted.

[Olorin67]

I got rid of cable tv in 1998, really dont miss it. Not a Tv watcher, except maybe Dr. Who. I just watch occasional VHS, DVD, and laserdiscs i pick up in Thrift stores.

But it seems like a lot of people just get programming over the internet, you can find almost anything if you know where to look. Some of it not exactly legal, but its out there. One you get enough bandwith for internet, no need for anything else.
for portable use, most people just use a smartphone or tablet, and if not near a WIFI signal, use thier data plan on the phone.