Las Vegas, NV - HDTV - Page 111

Did I not tell you they are up to something? A new advanced network not compatable with SA MR scheme? And they want to cozy up to TIVO? I told you why, they want to control it.

Tivo S3 is what people want, and the cable companies may find ways for you not to enjoy it.

But its ok, you will get to watch shows from your 8300 on your Sprint/Cox/Nextel/Embarq phone!

Try ordering a PRI from Cox here in Las Vegas. 90-day lead time and beacoup bucks. They have a ways to go as far as providing telco to businesses. They also said that they don't have a local PBX yet... so I believe all phone calls to somewhere outside the Cox network need to go to california first.

I went to the "Embarq Launch" at the Orleans Arena yesterday.. they have a couple silly commercials that really bag on "the cable company". But I've never been a big fan of Sprint AKA Embarq either.

Why should they bag Cable when their masters do business with them?

How does recorded HD shows on the 8300 look on the COX/Sprint/Embarq phone?

Ummm, Since they are competing head to head with them for telephone services... That sounds like a reason for them to make commercials.


Probably about the same as Verizon/IPOD/ITunes/Vcast/MAC/Dish/SBC/DirecTV phones do.
You are reading this totally in the wrong light. It's like saying that Vonage is in bed with Sprint because you can use Vonage with DSL service.

vegggas

I see. I guess we will be seeing a Vonage Kiosk at the Sprint store soon!
And motorcraft parts at the GM dealer!

Competition is great isn't it?

For clarification... Yes, Sprint(Nextel) is in partnership with Cox, however, the local telephone provider (now EMBARQ) is totally 'divorced' from Sprint. EMBARQ is a stand-alone company, i.e., - no "master."

If Vonage were to have a kiosk anywhere, it would be in an EMBARQ store (Sprint-Nextel is wireless only - no DSL), but I wouldn't hold your breath for that.

The commercials hit Cox right in the gut. Those Cox associates in attendance at the launch event were speechless after watching them. Pretty dang funny! (Truth hurts, eh? )

Business phone-wise, Cox is more than severely lacking. They're just now in training to install 1B lines (single-line business - no frills, no key systems, etc.) And their residential service offering is blah; there's nothing to make me want to switch.

You really think Embarq is a different company from Sprint, we shall see! And thank you for supporting my premise that Cox really does not compete, blah!

Will Embarq compete? When they roll out fiber internet and TV like Verizon has, then we will talk.

Yeah, I think Embarq is a different company from Sprint. Sprint used the local division as a cash cow for years while building their wireless business. Hesse's got big plans for new products - both residential and business. And the philosophies are different. Customer service will definitely improve because the focus is entirely on local customers now.

Bundled packages will kick Cox's butt. Residential customers who go for the whole she-bang (local phone, long distance, DISH, DSL and wireless) will see deep discounts that Cox won't be able to touch and everything will come on one bill. And that doesn't include the fact that Cox will probably NEVER be able to compete in the Business market. There are other competitors, yeah, but EMBARQ is a strong incumbent.

EMBARQ does have TV - an agreement with Echostar/DISH Network. I do know that they have fiber-to-the-curb in many areas of Las Vegas. Not sure what the plans are for it.

To keep this on topic, Embarq is doing nothin new that Sprint has not yet. Once again we will talk when they offer TV with Fiber. The Echo/Dish is the same deal that Sprint had. Like I said the same old Sprint under a different name.

Like I said, When they roll out FTC TV then we will talk. But it is nice to have you here to support Embarq. Now we can square you off with Veggas and get real competitive. But so far Embarq is just Sprint who deals with Cox, so no competition, just socialism.

BTW look at the wireless Embarq USA coverage map and look at Sprints. It is the same map! Who are they foolin?

Like *I* said, EMBARQ does NOT deal with Cox - Sprint does. EMBARQ is not part of that partnership in any form. Embarq vs. Cox is strictly competition (such as it is since Cox is a rather lame duck); definitely not socialism.

You'll see the differences. Watch for 'em.

Actually I take back what I said about Dish and Cox.

Actually I'm now a Dish subscriber. They are offering $200 in programming credits which takes care of the lease upgrade fee for the Vip622. It can tune local OTA HD and record it, and record 2 other shows at the same time! It can even serve as a second box by agile modulating the second tuner or recorded shows to another TV!

This is exactly why I was looking for and not to mention the 29 HD channels I get with the other 120 all digital channels, way cheaper than Cox.

Hello all:
I'm new to the forum and to Las Vegas. We'll be buying an HDTV as soon as the Sony 06's appear next month and will need a provider. We currently are a Cox subscriber (Digital TV,Phone, and Hi Speed Internet) and will probably opt for Cox HD service. I understand that the only way to get HDMI hook up to the TV is through their HD DVR. All the comments I've read about their box are discouraging. Has anyone had any luck with an indoor antennae for OTA?

Welcome!

Don't be too discouraged by the comments on their HD-DVR (8300HD). Many of us have this box, and, IMO, it works just fine. It has a few flaws, some of which should be fixed in the next firmware update.

OTA from an indoor antennae works fine, depending on your location (proximity to Black Mountain in Henderson, I believe).

What are your cross streets?

Thanks bcombs.
Glad to hear all is not bad with the 8300HD. We live very close to Ann and Durango. Do you and indoor ant? If so, what kind?
Thanks again.

I use the 8300HD for local HD. I've had very few problems with my set top box. It basically does what I want, which is record and time shift programs. I never had a Tivo, so I don't miss the things that Tivo does that the 8300HD doesn't do. I also have an external 300 GB hard drive (Maxtor Quickview) which increases the amount of available recording time, and is basically a plug-in solution.

As mentioned earlier, we'll be buying a new HDTV next month, and had asked about the Cox HD DVR. It now occurs to me that our new set has a digital tuner and probably a cablecard slot. I haven't seen much in this forum on the Cox cablecard installation or prices. I know I'll forfeit the TVGuide and the OnDemand but I can get by without them. I've read that the picture quality is better with the card and I presume I can hook up a HDDVR to the set for recording. Can anyone provide info on Cox install and pricing, and is anyone using the above described configuration?

OTA with an indoor antenna will probably not work for channel 3 (NBC).* As for the other stations, unless you're right behind Lone Mountain (I'm not quite up on my NW valley geography, but I thing Ann & Durango is around there) you should be fine with the cheapest indoor antenna you can find.

*There are technical issues with the digital frequency (channel 2) KVBC was assigned by the FCC that make it very difficult to recieve reliably and without artifacts OTA. Cox has a fiber feed from the station so cable users are unaffected.

Stay away from cable cards. They're a pain to authorize and they won't be compatible with technology changes, like switched digital, that Cox has planned.

Also, there's no way to intergrate a cable card and an hd-dvr in the way I think your describing. There are proposals to make a 3rd party hd-dvr (i.e. Tivo Series 3) by using cable card slot in the dvr unit for conditional access, but that would still be an external reciever connected to your tv by hdmi/component.

Thanks GeorgeLV.

A Tweeters guy was just here for "free home consultation" and he pretty much said the same thing. He suggested going from the wall into the Cox box, from there to a receiver with component hook up, from there to the TV with component hook up. Any other devices (DVD player etc) into the receiver as well. I was surprized he didn't use the HDMI on either TV or receiver and he said Cox has not caught up with technology yet, so it was not trustworthy. But he also was unaware of the '06 Sony A2000, so he might not know Cox that well. Anyway, thank you for reply. It was very helpful.

Jauhar........

No he was right about Cox and HDMI... actually it is not Cox but rather Scientific Atlanta that makes the box. They have a known bug in their implementation of HDMI, but have not been concerned about fixing it because they get very few complaints about it... (at least that is what the head of the SA8300 told me at last January's CES).

Channel 21 has changed their callsign from KVWB to KVMY because they will be affialiated with My Network TV next season.

Channel 33 has changed their callsign from from KFBT to KVCW because that picked up the CW affialition.

KFBT -> KVCW: So the CW network will air on the station with SD only capability? Their equipment is all SD and most of the bandwidth is sold off to USDTV, leaving them about 4Mbps of broadcasting signal.

KVWB -> KVMY: The old WB will now be the MyNetwork remote syndicated network of SD reruns (aka Gilligans Island, Full House, Growing Pains, etc) and "daily" night time soap operas during primetime, possibly in HD. http://www.mynetworktv.com/
Just to be clear, MyNetwork will have "daily telenovela" (aka soap operas) programming from 8:00 - 10:00 of the same two shows every night of the week with a recap episode on Saturday. The shows are called "Desire" and Secret Obssessions"

This is the programming set until at least Sept 2007 before any scheduling changes may happen.
The intended target audience age is supposed to be 14 - 21 years of age.

vegggas

vegggas, hopefully Sinclair will realize the CW is the stronger network and move their HD equipment over to KVCW. At the very least they should fix whatever is screwing up their PSIP; my DirecTV H10 can't tune KVCW-DT because of something the USDTV mux is doing.

We can hope, but I for one wouldn't hold my breath. They would have to move USDTV to the other channel and I bet that's not in the contract.

Actually, they BOTH sell their bandwidth to USDTV.
KFBT (now KVCW) sells about 16Mbps to USDTV, leaving less than 4Mbps for their programming.
KVWB (now KVMY) sells about 8Mbps to USDTV, leaving less than 12Mbps for their programmiing. Some people thought the WB signal wasn't too bad for HD-Lite, but it was far inferior when there was any action on the screen.
Since they are both in bed with USDTV, they should be able to reconfigure the data to scale a more useable signal for the CW network programming. The recievers would get updated with the correct psip data for USDTV to use, but it all boils down to wether they can transfer equipment and the data.
Still - It probably won't happen.

vegggas

Yeah, MurdDoc has a finger in every pie in everything now.

Except Dish which is what I had installed today. The ViP622 is so much better than the SA8300HD. It even picks and records local OTA! I love the agile modulator. It actually mods both tuners to 2 separate RF or Cable frequencies. When I called cox to cancel service, the cox lady blatantly and rudely stated how they will come right away and install a trap so I won't get their channels! Like I really got hurt and wanted their crappy analog service anyway.

Actually they did me a favor with the trap. Now I can have my home distribution and the internet (which will be gone soon enough) on the same circuit and my signals won't be leaking into their delicate overburdened and saturated system. Thanks Cox!

SD channels look so much better on Dish on a HD set compared to Cox. I had no idea what I was missing. I was expecting Directv quality but no, Dish PQ is so much better!

Sorry but Cox Cable is dead in my book. I can't believe I was with them for so long. I guess I won't be able to watch my SA8300HD recorded shows on my Sprint phone.

The Tube is announced as coming to KVWB (now KVMY) subchannel 21.3. http://www.thetubetv.com/ so I'm guessing that when MyNetworkTV moves in HDTV moves out. I'm still crossing my fingers that KVCW goes HD somehow.

DING! DING! DING! We have a winner folks - well, not really. No HD soup for you!
With only 12 Mbps of bandwidth available to the original WB channel (rest sold to USDTV), adding the multicast of the tube network will be the death knell for HD broadcasting for the station formally known as the WB.
They can still sell another couple of Mbps to USDTV before COMPLETELY selling out to everything once thought of as a TV station.

vegggas

No loss here as I NEVER saw anything worth watching on WB to begin with. Same goes for UPN. I'd say that the HD PBS is the best thing going as far as local OTA HD.

As for the new music channel, SD only?
Well I now watch the RAVE channel on Dish Network. 24hr HD DD5.1 music!

Funny thing happened lately. I've been using an OTA clip on antenna on an old DTV dish and was able to pick up all the OTA digitals with no trouble. The analog signals came in very good too with little or no ghosting or snow. Then Dish replaced the DTV dish with their new 1000pro and clipped the antenna and hooked it up the same way (straight feed to the tv with a diplexer and a power injector).

Now I have to orient the antenna a certain way to get 3,5,8,13 together but a different way to get 15,21,33! They all came in no matter what before the switch. Also the analogs are all weak with some snow and smearing. I checked all the connections and they are fine.

The only other thing that has changed is the next door neighbor has moved his small RTV from his side lot which I was happy to see go away! So either the old dish was of a different material than the new one or that ugly camper was reflecting the signals to my antenna. I'm in Silverado Ranch X Maryland part of town.

Any clue to this phenonema? I'd hate to ask "Hank Hill" next door to bring back his camper so I can get all the channels at once.