OT: Opinions on digital cable?

[JohnL]

For those of you who have digital cable, how does it work for you?

For many, many years, we've had traditional, analog cable. This past week, the company switched to digital cable, meaning all new, digital cable boxes and all the pay channels are in digital. Actually, they've been offering digital service for about a year now, but up until now, they still offered the base premium channels (HBO, Showtime, Starz, etc) in analog format for those with the older boxes. Now  they're in digital only.

The picture quality is good, but...

So far I haven't been able to watch one full hour on any of the Showtime channels without the digital signal screwing up in some way. Either the picture will freeze and break up into little colored blocks for a couple seconds, or more commonly, it will go into slow motion. Actually, it looks like it's dropping about 75% of the frames and it usually takes at least 30 seconds or more to correct itself. If I change channels and immediately go back, it's fixed, but either way, if I'm trying to tape a good copy of something, it ends up screwed up.

Is this common for digital cable, or is this just another example of my cable company's complete incompetence?

[Anon E. Mouse]

That kind of break-up means you're getting a weak signal.  And it's probably from a faulty cable or two in the back yard.  Ask your cable company to come check signal strength.

[JohnL]

>That kind of break-up means you're getting a weak signal. And it's probably
>from a faulty cable or two in the back yard. Ask your cable company to come
>check signal strength.

I wondered if that might be a problem. There are three TVs hooked up to the cable here, so there's a three-way splitter outside.  Two of the sets are hooked up straight, but one of them has a ton of splitters and switches hooked up (to be able to select any video for any device). When that box was first hooked up, the pay channels were unwatchable. I swapped it with the other box, and then everything seemed to be ok, but it hasn't really been watched enough to tell for sure.

Can they put  a signal booster outside and boost all three lines coming into the house? I'd hate to have to hook one up to each TV, as I already have a TON of stuff plugged in to the outlet here.

[Anon E. Mouse]

Have no idea if a signal booster will solve your problem.  If a cable needs to be replaced, they'll find out pretty quickly.  Just keep your fingers crossed that it's a repair they will cover.

My cable company wanted to dig up my yard a few years ago to fix an underground cable(weak signal problem), and said they'd have to charge me for it.  Luckily, I moved from that location before I made the investment.

Once everything is working, you'll never go back to analog.   Program quality(like 5.1 surround sound), Entertainment on Demand features, and internet speed have spoiled me since the switch.  And if you want to get rid of your VCR, ask your provider if they offer a Digital Video Recorder.

[odinn7]

JohnL,
I know this isn't exactly what you're asking but I thought I would add my 1.5 cents for whatever it's worth to you. Last November, I had finally had enough of our cable company and their BS attitude. I switched to DirecTv and have not been sorry that I did. The picture quality is better than my tv's will handle, the service is excellent, and the packages that they offer are or were compatible to what the cable company offered. The only drawback is that I'm paying about $5/month more than I was for cable but, in my opinion, it's worth it. The problem that I was having with our cable company was an attitude of if I didn't like it, big deal...where else am I going to go? Well, I called to cancel and told them I was switching to DirecTv and the conversation was something like:
Cable Scum: "Well, you won't get local channels."
Great Customer Me: "Sure I will, they offer locals here."
Cable Scum"....(long silence)...oh..."
Great Customer Me: "I hear the picture quality is better too."
Cable Scum: "Um, ok. So you wanted that disconnect to take effect such and such day."

It was like the standard reply of no local channels was all they could come up with. Once that was gone, they were lost.
Some people told me I would lose the picture during rain or snow. This is only partially true. All winter I had perfect reception, even in snow storms. This season I had some minor problems with tree branches growing in the way (which I easily removed) and I did lose the picture a few times for no more than 10 minutes at a time during the wicked storms that the southern huricanes sent our way. But to be fair, I also had these problems with our cable during really bad storms. Cable is received by a dish at the cable company afterall.
Anyway, JohnL, if you can't get your cable problem worked out, it may be worth it to you to check into DirecTv. I highly doubt you will be sorry. They also offer great installation deals with free install and free programming quite often. Sorry to sound like a salesman, I have no affiliation to them at all other than I couldn't be happier with their service.
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Post Edited (10-02-04 14:31)

[trekgeezer]

I never had digital cable, but I have had Directv.  I was having to watch local stuff from an antenna until this summer, but it was still better that putting up with the stupid cable company.

I live in a rural area about 10 miles from town and the cable company for this part of our county is actually owned by a company in another part of the state.  They can't ever seem to keep a service person here.  They used switch what channel things were on without notice and there were constantly some channels really looked crappy. Plus, the only stations even in stereo were the local channels.

 I finally had it when we had an ice storm and the high end channels all went to crap. After numerous calls , I said screw this an start investigating satellite and settled on Directv. I ordered the equipment online and I installed it all myself.  

I have been very satisfied with them.  This summer when we got locals they sent someone out to switch my dish with one of the multi-satellite type for free.  The local channels only cost  $2.99 a month.  I can see Smallville and Law and Order now without the snow.  I really like the pay per view movies,  they only cost about  $.50 more than rentals and you don't have to drive to the video store.  (Plus you can record them!)

It does go out occasionally  when a storm front moves through.  It really seems to have nothing to do with rain, but with disturbances high up in the atmosphere.  I do have go out and brush it off when it's snowing heavily, but where I live that is a fairly rare occurence.

My brother has Cox digital cable and internet service and he seems to get really good service from it.

[Susan]

They're trying to get everyone to go digital since it's pricier. I had analog and upgraded to digital. Then, I downgraded by choice after a year or so. HBO and the like mostly played the same crappy movies over and over again anyways so I wasn't missing out on much. The more important channels for me were AMC, TCM, etc. for my movie viewing pleasure...which I could still get on analog

Digital did have a problem with the picture quality often breaking up which was irritating when part of the screen would suddenly lock up and look garbled. My biggest pet peeve, however, was that changing channels became a royal pain in th ass. It was MUCH slower than analog. Considering how many channels I had it became tedious... so I had to surf using the toolbar at the bottom that showed me what was on each channel vs switching the pictures.  But what fun is that? I didn't have time to sit and wait several seconsd for a picture to come together when I had 500 more channels to go. I often had problems with certain channels that I was paying for disappearing all together and having to call the cable company to reset it or have someone come out.  Sometimes it would take a couple of days, and I never did understand why suddenly every single station was temporarily "unavailable". And every so often i'd get a few channels that were snowy for no reason, the cables were checked and fine and the company offered little help.

Since then I moved and decided to forego cable all together.  I may eventually get back on the boat but i'm tired of them ripping me off. I would probably get very basic cable again or look into directv. Those I know who have satellite hate it because the wind blows and the picture gets screwy. I don't know much about directv, might be worth looking into.



Post Edited (10-02-04 14:24)

[Dave Munger]

No more scrambled porn : ^ (
Unscrambled just isn't the same.

[Mr. Hockstatter]

When I switch to a channel that's digital, it sometimes takes a couple seconds for the picture to assemble itself in blocks.  But I never have any problems with the picture afterwards.  

I really don't know what to think of digital.  Am I even watching an actual digital picture since I've just got a plain old TV?  The picture looks fine, but I don't notice that it's any better than it was before digital.

[Ash]

They don't call it "The Cable Pig" for nothing!

[JohnL]

Well, I haven't done anything or called the company yet, becauser I hate dealing with the clueless people on the customer service line.

Friday night, I watched Dead Like Me at 10pm and the picture started dropping frames right at the start, then I watched the west coast feed 3 hours later and it did the same thing. I watched the same episode Sat. morning on a different Showtime channel and something similar happened right at the start, but for a shorter period of time. This morning, I had it on some other channel (I haven't learned them all yet) and it started dropping frames again.

Being slightly obsessive about what I watch and tape, this is really starting to bug me!

>My biggest pet peeve, however, was that changing channels became a royal
>pain in th ass. It was MUCH slower than analog.

I noticed that too, but didn't think it was that bad. When I switch channels, the bar at the bottom of the screen tells you what channel it is and what's on, but the screen stays black for maybe 3-4 seconds, then the picture comes in.

[blkrider]

I've had digital in two different cities, in completely different parts of the country.  The first one had a lot of the problems mentioned above--almost to the point where I could never watch anything--had to have a service call once where they tightened a connection or something.  The problem lessened a bit after that but never went completely away.  That was Cox cable.  The second instance involved Comcast and gave me no problems at all.

If I could, I would probably get some kind of dish, though, because with the dish you have more control over getting channels....you might have to pay extra but at least you're not at the mercy of the cable company as far as your channel lineup.

[Susan]

JohnL wrote:

> I noticed that too, but didn't think it was that bad. When I
> switch channels, the bar at the bottom of the screen tells you
> what channel it is and what's on, but the screen stays black
> for maybe 3-4 seconds, then the picture comes in.


But for me, seeing the pic is everything. I don't like surfing when it involves seeing what's on - otherwise i'd watch the preview channel all day. I like taking a quick peek at the pic to see if it's something i'm interested in and move on. Having to wait for the pic to appear is time consuming when you have hundreds more channels to surf, particularly when the time is on the hour or half hour and you'd rather catch something that just started.

[JohnL]

Stranger and stranger...

Tonight's new episode of Dead Like Me did the same thing; The titles had a small freeze in them, then when the show itself started it was freezing and dropping frames for the first 30-45 seconds or so.

[George]

Drop the digital cable and switch to satellite.  I will NEVER go back.