Birmingham, AL - HDTV - Page 149

Oops. 75.3 is now gone as well. Shows how much I care about NBA playoffs.

Now scrambled or actually moved to different subchannel?

The HD equivalents of ESPN and ESPN 2 should have been scrambled to begin with since they are expanded basic digital only channels. I apologize that you had them before and are no longer available. It looks like we have corrected that mistake.

Umatter I've been getting those ESPN's over QAM for several years.

I just found out Charter took the ESPN's off today. What a bummer. It was nice to get the 4 locals and 2 ESPN's on the QAM tuner. I'm not getting 2 more HD boxes, Charter is raping me in charges for the two I already have. I'm just gonna get a tree cut down and go with Direct. I've had it....

Not to hurt Umatter's feelings more but right now DirecTV has some sort of free HD for life for new signups who use auto bill pay.

I don't know if this is true for DirecTV, but it is true for Dish Network.

Auto-pay and a 2 year commitment gets you HD for life and several other free perks from Dish. They also are releasing gadgets (sling receivers) later this summer that connect to other HD TV's that will work with one of their sling receivers, so HDTV anywhere is possible from one receiver.

Sorry that it has been taken off. If you would like PM me your Phone#/Address I would be happy to talk to you about other options that we may have available.

Quick question umatter,

If one were to sign up for expanded basic service, would one be able to receive / display the HD ESPN channels (and any other HD channel listed as expanded basic - digital) with only a QAM tuner or is a cable card (or rented stb) still required?

An STB would be required to view those channels.

Thanks for response. It's been along time since I subscribed to more than HSI / basic TV and thus wasn't sure how things worked now that Charter includes some digital channels (other than HD locals) in Expanded Basic. In past, expanded basic was limited to analog.

Yeah Dish Network started the free HD thing, you are correct, but I heard DirecTV is now matching it but not really advertising it.

I wish both satellite providers would just ditch the HD fee. Cable doesn't do that. *grr*

Originally Posted by Smacky View Post
Umatter I've been getting those ESPN's over QAM for several years.

I just found out Charter took the ESPN's off today. What a bummer. It was nice to get the 4 locals and 2 ESPN's on the QAM tuner. I'm not getting 2 more HD boxes, Charter is raping me in charges for the two I already have. I'm just gonna get a tree cut down and go with Direct. I've had it....


Sorry that it has been taken off. If you would like PM me your Phone#/Address I would be happy to talk to you about other options that we may have available.


I'm paying for all HD programming Charter offers, its not like I want something for free:

The programming agreements between ESPN and cable companies in the past several years have been that ESPN HD and ESPN2 HD were provided at no additional charge to subscribers who recieve ESPN SD and ESPN2 SD. Charter, for years, was doing the 'right thing' by providing (via clear qam) to expanded basic subscribers what they were rightfully paying for and should have been receiving. Either the programming agreement has changed (don't think so), or Charter has decided to do what many of the other cable companies have done... screw people out of what they are already paying for.

We are probably wasting time anyway complaining about two channels going missing. If you're upset now about loosing channels on TV's you don't have a box for, your going to be really upset come the end of the year. Charter announced on the 9th that 60% of their footprint will go Switched Digital Video by the end of the year. You can bet that the the Leeds headend WILL be in that 60%...

http://www.multichannel.com/article/...DV_Rollout.php

In order to make space for SDV, more of the analog channels (expanded basic) will be GOING AWAY. Also, cable card does not work with SDV.. so you're going to need a cable box or a true-2-way card installed in a TV or Tivo that supports it.

If you're thinking about switching to Dish or Directv (or U-verse if you can get it).. now is a good time to do it !! Waiting 5 seconds for a channel to tune in.. and constantly getting the "try again" error message is not my idea of an enjoyable experience watching TV.

Kevin

I have tree issues that have kept me away from Direct TV, but I see a call to a tree company in my future. The mulit room DVR sounds sweet.

Ouch. But I gotta say my DirecTV DVR takes anywhere from 3-5 seconds to change channels as it is, and sometimes takes 10 seconds or more to respond to commands from the remote. This is "acceptable" performance for DirecTV DVRs. Some are faster, though, but not many.

New customers need to badger their way to getting a HR24 series if they want a DVR. It's got a different processor and is supposed to be a lot faster. The HR22-100 I have is so slow we pondered giving it up for a while because it was soooo frustrating.

Umatter2Charter, I just lost ESPN and ESPN2 HD over clear QAM so I'm signing up for directv right now.

IMHO, you will get a better deal and a better DVR with Dish Network.

Look at one of their VIP receivers, the 722, 722K or the 922 (with Sling).

Dish will also market two add-on devices later this summer, one device will connect to older HD receivers to add Sling capability to it. The other device will connect to any HDTV and add "Sling receive" capability to it so you can have "HDTV anywhere" capability from one receiver.

Also, look at the "HD for life" offer....free HD for every package that has SD equivalents.

Thanks for the tip, I will check Dish out as well

Expanded basic channels are encrypted to prevent those who are not paying for them from receiving them. If these were not encrypted anyone with basic and a QAM tuner could get channels that they are not paying for. Again, these channels should have been encrypted the entire time. We do not support Clear QAM technology. The only channels the FCC requires to be in the clear are those in our basic tier. We provide our expanded basic HD channel with the use of a Charter approved decryption device only (box or cable card). I'm apologize if you're upset on the service delivery method, but it is now as it should be.

I guess you missed the post above yours about the ESPN service agreements.


I'm not going to pay you extra for something I am already paying for. My sister just moved into a house across the street with satellite, and I was impressed with the price she is paying for all those channels. I don't normally watch TV that much which is why I was fine with using my TVs tuner for ESPN. But having to pay extra for channels I should already have, and the thought of using that horrid cable box of yours again means I am going to either dish or directv.

We do not charge extra for the channels. You receive all expanded basic channels that we offer in HD when using decrypting equipment.

Do you not charge for using decrypting equipment?

you guys take espn and espn 2 away, yet you give me FX, C-SPAN 2, and Lifetime in HD. here's a thought, why don't you give your customers channels they might actually want to watch in hd. this is one of but many reasons your company is alienating so many customers in the area and why i am starting the process of switching over to dish or direct tv. you guys are free to do what you want, but the more you pull garbage like this the less people will want to do business with you.

This morning's Bham News has a notice from Brighthouse that frequencies are changing for HD channels, including ESPN and ESPN2, for customers WITHOUT SET TOP BOXES who use QAM tuners.
Why Brighthouse but not Charter ?

maybe bc brighthouse is a much more well run and customer friendly company than charter.

Yes we do.


We haven't taken any channels away. You just need to use the proper equipment to receive the channels.


Not sure what they are doing but we do realize that many televisions do in fact have QAM tuners which are capable of picking up and showing the content on the other channels, they are not addressable meaning there is no way to give you what you're paying for without giving your neighbor access to all of the same content without paying for it.

My area has 14 channels available with just basic analog service.
What % of your customers that subscribe to just these 14 channels also have an HDTV with a QAM tuner? I would wager not very many.

So the good minds at Charter are thinking "1% of our basic cable subscribers getting ESPN1/2HD for free vs rolling out digital boxes to all of our expanded basic subscribers, and adding all the extra tech and customer support cost that comes with that rollout."

to get the espn channels from what i understand i would have to upgrade to your expanded basic cable or buy new equiptment. my problem with charter is that you're forcing me to do this when hd channels like fx and cspan 2 are coming in hd without having to do any of the extra stuff. I would wager your customers would be more dependent on the epsn hd channels over the ones you are currently giving us. but hey, you're a cable company, and you guys live to make as much money off us as you can. forcing us to pay extra to get the hd channels we actually USE is a great idea, but it also gets us thinking about switching to other options.

No expanded basic channels should ever be available to those not paying for them. I do see that you now have a box. Let us know if you have any issues or questions.

Those channels are in the process of being remapped and encrypted as well. As stated above, Customers not paying for expanded basic should not be receiving those channels.

But it's okay for people who are paying for the expanded basic to not receive their channels?(Without Charter forcing extra equipment on them)

My contention is that it is actually costing Charter more money to scramble those QAM. Who cares if 1% of your basic subscribers are getting ESPN1/2 for free if doing it that way has higher profit margins. I do believe Charter is a business.

Yes I have a box for now for the World Cup, but it won't be too long.
My costs ended up actually being lower for me with the box(-$5), so now Charter has the cost overhead of maintaining this CPE as well as receiving less money from the customer(and even less once Dish gets out here). A double whammy against Charter, because "customers shouldn't get free channels".
Your employers apparently are not interested in making money, I would think you should be as upset about this as we are!