Bought an HD-TV: Waste of Money

[Scout101]

really, they should charge more for analog, instead of charging you for digital. Digital takes a lot less bandwidth, so they can wedge more into the lines, saving them money. They just pretend it's an upgrade so you can pay extra for it. Gotta go past that and into HD to get real benefits. OTOH, by getting the digital package, you get access to extra information about the channels, a non-scrolling tv guide, etc.

 

[Amaris]

really, they should charge more for analog, instead of charging you for digital. Digital takes a lot less bandwidth, so they can wedge more into the lines, saving them money. They just pretend it's an upgrade so you can pay extra for it. Gotta go past that and into HD to get real benefits. OTOH, by getting the digital package, you get access to extra information about the channels, a non-scrolling tv guide, etc.

Yeah, they should, but it's not going to happen anytime soon, not with the huge cable increases expected over the next year.

 

[Mr Light]

So if I (I quote their brochure) "enjoy 100% digital quality with our advanced fiber optic network"... it's going to be the same picture quality as my current cable?

 

[Amaris]

So if I (I quote their brochure) "enjoy 100% digital quality with our advanced fiber optic network"... it's going to be the same picture quality as my current cable?

There should be marked improvement. It won't be HD, but it will look better.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

really, they should charge more for analog, instead of charging you for digital. Digital takes a lot less bandwidth, so they can wedge more into the lines, saving them money. They just pretend it's an upgrade so you can pay extra for it. Gotta go past that and into HD to get real benefits. OTOH, by getting the digital package, you get access to extra information about the channels, a non-scrolling tv guide, etc.

And those are the benefits of digital, which is why they charge more. Not because it's more expensive per-channel to implement--in many ways, it is probably cheaper--but the feature set kicks the pants off of analog, so they can charge a premium for it.

 

[Amaris]

Including $8 per mo. for remote and $3 per mo. to use the menu!

 

[RobertVA]

really, they should charge more for analog, instead of charging you for digital. Digital takes a lot less bandwidth, so they can wedge more into the lines, saving them money. They just pretend it's an upgrade so you can pay extra for it. Gotta go past that and into HD to get real benefits. OTOH, by getting the digital package, you get access to extra information about the channels, a non-scrolling tv guide, etc.

Since many cable providers are in the process of phasing analog out there are, on those systems, fewer analog channels than there used to be and likely to be fewer in the near future. If the channel providers allow the retail cable providers separate line items for their analog and digital subscriber counts, the cable provider would have lower programming expenses for analog subscribers.

While subcribers using cable ready TVs would be restricted to the scrolling TV listing channel, in many areas there's a pop-up listing available on TVs connected through the cable provider's rental analog converters. Some of those analog converters can also be programmed by the subscriber to automatically change channels when the subscriber's selected programs come on.

 

[Guartho]

Including $8 per mo. for remote and $3 per mo. to use the menu!

Going on 5 years without cable or satellite. Do not miss it one whit.

I imagine the story would be different if I were a sports fan, but I'm not.

 

[Alpha Romeo]

I live in an apartment building and I'm moving out in May, so I'm not gonna sign up for new services or anything and pay two installation fees in a row. Even if I wasn't expecting up-converting I at least expected the same quality, though, that's what pisses me off. My current image looks like grainy shit; the only good thing is I can actually read the X360 game text now

You don't need service installs. Just go to comcast or wherever and ask for an HD box.

 

[StarshipDefiant]

I have an SDTV, and the picture quality on some channels suck, and I don't know who the hell thought it'd be a neat idea to have the speakers in the back of the TV, but they're idiots. I can barely hear anything. Just a random rant on a similar topic.

 

[Marc]

really, they should charge more for analog, instead of charging you for digital. Digital takes a lot less bandwidth, so they can wedge more into the lines, saving them money. They just pretend it's an upgrade so you can pay extra for it. Gotta go past that and into HD to get real benefits. OTOH, by getting the digital package, you get access to extra information about the channels, a non-scrolling tv guide, etc.

And those are the benefits of digital, which is why they charge more. Not because it's more expensive per-channel to implement--in many ways, it is probably cheaper--but the feature set kicks the pants off of analog, so they can charge a premium for it.

Have to wonder - if the price premium for cable purely the cable companies or whether they are passing on costs from teh content providers (either the cable on channels like discovery and nat geo or the free-to-air like NBC and Fox).

 

[milo bloom]

Including $8 per mo. for remote and $3 per mo. to use the menu!

Going on 5 years without cable or satellite. Do not miss it one whit.

I imagine the story would be different if I were a sports fan, but I'm not.

About 2 years for us. We're in Chicago so we have several over the air digital channels, plus nearly a 1000 DVDs, and we just started doing Netflix last month.

 

[Mr Light]

Ho ho ho! Turns out in addition to the new digital cable... I can get high speed internet for $42 a month from my cable provider! I'm currently playing 30 + 25 for AOL dial-up internet. I'm a caveman, I know. Things are finally changing. So, question: I'm looking at my XBox 360, which was bought just before the price cut. I don't see an HDMI port on it. On the big fat connecting plug (which has the six cables coming out of it) there's a port for HD-TV that's about half the size of the HDMI port. What is this?

 

[Squiggy]

HDMI goes into that A/V port.

 

[RobertVA]

really, they should charge more for analog, instead of charging you for digital. Digital takes a lot less bandwidth, so they can wedge more into the lines, saving them money. They just pretend it's an upgrade so you can pay extra for it. Gotta go past that and into HD to get real benefits. OTOH, by getting the digital package, you get access to extra information about the channels, a non-scrolling tv guide, etc.

And those are the benefits of digital, which is why they charge more. Not because it's more expensive per-channel to implement--in many ways, it is probably cheaper--but the feature set kicks the pants off of analog, so they can charge a premium for it.

Have to wonder - if the price premium for cable purely the cable companies or whether they are passing on costs from teh content providers (either the cable on channels like discovery and nat geo or the free-to-air like NBC and Fox).

Most of the cable companies and channel/content providers have to deal with a pesky group of people that want dividends and/or capital gains. They're usually reffered to as stockholders.

Then there's those pesky customers that switch to digital satellite or that company that routes fiber optic all the way to the customer's house when the cable company's rates get too high.

 

[Mr Light]

But it looks too small, it looks like half the size of the HDMI cables I was looking at in the store.

 

[Mr Light]

OK we found a new port that looks like the HDMI port that's right above the ethernet cable plug. What's the tiny thing then?

 

[Squiggy]

Looks like USB

 

[Arrqh]

HDMI goes into that A/V port.

That's actually a pre-HDMI 360 model, current ones have the HDMI port underneath the A/V port. The port above the ethernet is indeed USB. It should look like this: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8c/Xbox360_HDMI_203W_back.jpg.

If you don't have an HDMI port on your 360, you can use component cables to get an HD signal to your TV (which should be on the 6 cables you mentioned before... red/green/blue for video and red/white for audio).

 

[Mr Light]

^^ I did hook in all six of those cables and the image is not very sharp. So if the port above the ethernet is a USB, then what is the tiny port that is on the component cable plug? With the switch to go to HD-TV.