MythTV/Comcast going all digital TV in Cambridge [OT]

[Bill Bogstad]

On Tue, Jun 30, 2009 at 5:41 PM, Christopher
Schmidt<crschmidt-cTEUcjrfgDqB+jHODAdFcQ at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 30, 2009 at 05:31:27PM -0400, Tom Metro wrote:
>> This pretty much explains why cable companies have no pressure on them
>> to supply clear QAM. If they're regularly succeeding in getting 95% of
>> their subscribers to make the switch to digital service voluntarily (and
>> presumably not bleeding subscribers at the same time), then the vast
>> majority of customers have learned to accept the limitations and are
>> putting up with them without complaints.

I may have been the last straw for my neighborhood.  I upgraded to an
HD bundle a few months ago
when my previous promo bundle expired and it was cheaper to switch to
a new HD promo bundle then
it was to do a-la-carte services with accepting an HD box.

Christopher wrote:
> Because most customers don't *see* any limitations, most likely? I
> wasn't aware of a switch being made until after it was made. The people
> who are bothered -- at least, the only ones that I'm aware of -- would
> seem to be in such a small minority that I can't see any way this would
> be a practical issue. (MythTV users are not a majority user of the cable
> system, I'm pretty sure. :))

Lots of people may have more then one TV and chances are many of the
secondary units are NTSC only even at this point.  That, of course, is
why Comcast is going to give away cheap digital set top boxes.
Speaking of which, I recall that they recently 'moved' some of the
digital channels in my area into the the Expanded Basic part of my
bundle.  This will act as a sweetener to get people to accept the free
set-top box.  If they do, they will get more channels for the same
amount of money on their secondary TVs.

I should try to get a hold of of my two 'free' converter boxes ASAP so
I can see about interfacing them
with my PVR-150s.  I may actually end benefiting from this conversion
if that works.  I may not get direct digital recordings that way, but
I will have access to a few more channels.

Bill Bogstad