Time Warner Cable HDTV - Page 298

Is it typical that on-demand content be in 2.0 instead of 5.1? Seems like every time I watch something online on-demand, there's no surround.
Or is it a time-warner only thing?

there is definitely 5.1 on demand content - pretty sure its dependent on the networks providing the content

I've noticed that even the main 3 networks have put up 2.0 mixes.

I recorded Political Animals last night from USA and that was 2.0 as well.

Pac12 HD is up in NYC - I'm sure other regions are getting it as well

TWC/BHN are the last carrier without NFL Network.

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-08-16/nfl-reaches-deal-with-cablevision-to-show-nfl-network-redzone

I actually think this is good news for TWC customers. Now they are the "ONLY" one left without a deal. And CableVision owners, the Dolan's, are some the stingiest b*st*rds in the business. So if they made a deal, then TWC really should be right around the corner. Although, I have been greatly disappointed in the past.

But now it is TWC all by there lonesome. Makes them look kinda of foolish.

SteelersRule,

I definitely agree and have been optimistic that a deal will get done especially after how close they were last year and how bad it would be for TWC-NYC to be the only NYC system without it.

I feel a deal happens within the next two weeks.

Is NFLN on Cablevision in the regular cable line up and available to all subscribers at no additional charge, like ESPN? Or is it in a special 'Sports Pak" that requires an additional charge?


"I feel a deal happens within the next two weeks." -- TWC customers get the Pac-12 network and possibly NFLN added, all within 2 weeks? I guess we can dream

NFL Network will make its debut in Cablevision homes beginning Friday. NFL Network will be available on channel 150 in both standard-definition and HD for customers who subscribe to iO Preferred, iO Silver, iO Gold or the iO Sports & Entertainment Pak. NFL RedZone, which airs on Sundays throughout the regular season, will be offered in both standard-definition and HD on channel 151 as part of the iO Sports & Entertainment Pak, which is now included in the new iO Gold package, which was launched last spring.

http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap1000000050872/article/cablevision-signs-deal-to-carry-nfl-network-nfl-redzone

The Cablevision equivalent package you're looking for is "io Value" - which has ESPN, so no - its not on that

Interesting.
My understanding of the main dispute was; TWC wanted to place NFLN in an additional cost 'sports or variety' package with a more limited audience VS putting NFLN on basic cable (ike ESPN), where TWC would have to pay NFLN carriage fees based on the much larger basic cable customer base. Looks like NFLN - Cablevision have come to a resolution on that issue, hopefully TWC can do the same.

For people who live in NYC(not the surrounding suburbs. But the 5 buroughs):

Do you have a choice between Cablevision, and TWC in your area?

I know it certain metropolitan/urban/heavy populated areas(for me, Pittsburgh'ers in ceratin parts of the city have a choice between Comcast and Verizon FIOS), people have more than one cable provider(not including the satellite companies).

Is this true of NYC's 5 buroughs? Just wondering. Or is it DIVIDED, like every where else, between TWC, and Cablevision? Availability of both too customers is not provided.

If it is provided, that would go a long way of fostering a deal with TWC. If people could simply dump TWC for Cablevision(or FIOS) in NYC because of this, I think that would move them more quickly to the bargaining table.

But then again, if not true, then I still think TWC will not negotiaite. I wish to be optimistic, but I just have a feeling they are going to be real stubborn about this.

I’ll live on the opposite side of the state of the state, but I’ll answer that, no Time Warner and Cablevision do not share the same territory. They do not compete with each other. The fact that Cablevision now has NFL Network has no bearing on TW whatsoever. Verizon does have Fios in portions of NYC and there is RCN, an over builder that both compete with Time Warner, and both have offered NFL Network for quite sometime.

The pressure for TWC to add NFL Network has increased as now NYC residents are probably going to demand the channel now that fellow cablevision subscribers have it. Just because they are not overlapping cable providers does not mean TWC is not getting more pressure to add the channels. For instance people are really going to start complaining when they find out their friends with cablevision have the channel but they don't and TWC will probably see a exodus if they don't add the channels this year.

After The Cablevision deal, the pressure is on especially in NYC.

It is harder for TWC to justify being the only one without NFL Network.

I think talks will restart and there could be a breakthrough.

As a TWC-NYC person - I'll chime in.

The area is broken up into regions - cable co's own franchise agreements to various areas - originally the intent was every region has its own cable co (at least in NYC) to the highest bidder.

It took over 20 years to get all of NYC wired - with various companies like Sterling/Manhattan Cable (Charles Dolan's first cable co started in the late 60s), Paragon Cable, BQ Cable, American Cable of Queens, Queens Inner Unity Cable Systems, Staten Island Cable, Riverdale Cable (I probably left some out), winning franchises (and all were soon to be controlled by either Time-Life or Warner Communications - which of course eventually merged to become Time Warner - there are actually some minor differences in the cable lineups of the various regions thanks to some legacy contracts, which has made things very difficult for TWC to implement a nationwide cable lineup restructuring - most regions still have its own head-end - each Boro has its own Public Access)

Cablevision (Dolan's next venture after basically getting booted (bought out) from Sterling) - which had/has control of LI - won the remaining franchises for Brooklyn in the late 80s/early 90s (yeah - it took that long - the City was all supposed to be done by the late 70s - they weren't even close)

NYC controlled the Cable Co's to one per region because of the obvious technical problems of competing companies each having their own wires (and with Manhattan's system completely underground - that's a huge problem)

RCN basically entered via a loophole (being a telecommunications company that also happened to provide TV service - and is now classified as an "open video system") - but had to wire from scratch - and barely made a dent.
Verizon is going through similar problems of wiring (although they do have a full franchise for the entire city) - but they're replacing their existing phone wiring - which makes the long term project financially justifiable (even if it is taking much longer than anticipated - once again).


As for the NFL Network - this will have no real effect on TWC - as long as the NFL demands it be on a lower level tier at its high price - TWC wont give in.
Cablevision has been losing a lot more subscribers to Verizon (and were holding out on NFL Network because they wanted Sunday Ticket) - TWC hasn't really had that problem locally.

Ok - rambling done for now.

Why would it put additional pressure on Time Warner? Dish, DirecTV, RCN and Verizon are four providers who already directly compete with Time Warner and offer the NFL Network. No one can leave Time Warner for Cablevision without moving. I would venture that anyone who really cares about the NFL Network to the point it would motivate them to switch providers, have already switched in the past 5 or 6 years.

If you guys want to continue to keep telling yourselves that now since Cablevision has NFL Network, Time Warner will get it, that’s fine. But the reality is that the situation with Cablevision likely has a nil effect on TW.

Rich Eisen on NFLN was goofin on time warner tonight....it was funny.

That's cool, I was watching XIII on Reelz, how did that look on DirecTV in HD?....Oh yeah that's right....

Well you missed out one part of the equation former insight areas they probably have people ditching now that TWC took over. They probably did not intend to have major talks until the season got closer and they tried to get a sweetheart deal on the insight systems and the NFL Network said No. My predictions TWC comes to a deal at last minute after they and the NFL both make some concessions. By the way you would be surprised that there are a lot of people with Time Warner Cable still that want NFL Network and don't want other service providers such as Dish or Directv and or At&t Uverse. So don't assume that all the NFL fans ditched TWC although a lot of people have left there are still a lot of sports fans that remain.

Here in Jacksonville, NC, my Cisco HD box now has a feature labled "Auto HD" in the settings menu under Hi Definition. U can turn it on an off, but it is only automatically tuning to the HD version of a channel on select channels from the analog or digital SD list. Anyone else have this feature? It's been on here all week.

IDK i dont have directv....but id rather have NFLN than Reelz anyway.

Agree,

 

In order to have pressure to add NFL Network, you would have to have rival cable systems that have it in the same area, where the rivals have it and TWC does not.  The competition is U-Verse, Dish Network, and Direct TV, but most who made the move solely because of TWC going without NFL Network did so years ago.

 

I think TWC is more concerned about cord cutting and service reductions in a struggling economy that the NFL Network.  If the add that channel to say Digital Variety and Red Zone to Sports Pass, they are concerned about what another rate increase would mean concerning the loss of customers.  TWC believes that because the sports channels are the most expensive to acquire and maintain, they would rather keep the rates down by not offering the channel.  To be honest, from an economic viewpoint, I would rather have no new channels added because of the rate increases associated with that issue,  The additions can certainly be HD counterparts to the very few SD channels left that we don't have an HD equivalent here in Wisconsin. Most host providers will not charge extra to add the HD equivalent of a standard definition channel.  I think WGN and maybe no more than five others fit that category.  I  LOVE TWC's HD line up and VOD services, something that the competition cannot match.

 

I would like to see TWC continue to focus on moving toward the cloud based technology to allow the boxes the ability to do more things, work more reliably, and improve the quality of customer/employee relationships across divisions.  Many people have such a negative perception of "The Cable Companies" that if TWC could invest more time and efforts into a better customer experience for all, I think that has a greater importance than adding more channels.

 

Jack

TWC/BHN has a great HD lineup.

With BHN Orlando, I have the HD counterparts to most SD channels availables.

Ones we do not have are Sundance, Shopping Channels (HSN, QVC, Jewelry TV), and of course things that are on month to month deals (Starz/Encore, Sprout, TV Japan) along with two available HD channels that TWC has not picked up yet Pentagon Channel and Shop NBC.

If they got NFL Network/RedZone, I'd be about set and I'm hopeful but will not switch even if it does not happen. If I wanted the NFL so badly, I would jump to Direct TV and pay for that overpriced Sunday Ticket.

Satch Man NFL Network is only like .81 cents for both it and redzone so probably .50 cents for NFL network and .31 cents for Red Zone. There is no reason why TWC does not carry the channel .50 cents for a channel on the digital basic/Variety tier what it is called depending on division is not going to hurt TWC or the customer. TWC probably has channels that cost more than that in the variety tier.

Also it seems that your system has a mediocre HD lineup TWC really needs to add HD channels in your are as it lacking premium channels in HD also it seems that your area is getting skipped on HD versions of a ton of channels that have been added lately. For instance your area got the PAC12 network but in SD only what is up with that?

Your area is missing at least these channels could be more:

Fearnet HD
Bloomberg HD
PAC12 Network HD
HBO Latino HD
HBO Zone HD
ThrillerMAX HD
OuterMAX HD
@MAX HD
WMAX HD
5 Star MAX HD
Showtime Beyond HD
Showtime Next HD
Showtime Women HD
TMC Xtra HD

I am wondering if Milwaukee is in need of adding more SDV QAMs to add more HD channels in large quantities? It took Dallas adding 8 more SDV QAMs to get:

Sportsman Channel HD
TMC Xtra HD
MoreMAX HD
ThrillerMAX HD
Showtime Beyond HD
Showtime Next HD
Showtime Women HD
Showtime Extreme HD
GAME2 HD
Hub HD
Fox Deportes HD
Style HD
E! HD
Bloomberg HD
Ovation HD
Oxygen HD
OWN HD
IFC HD
PAC12 National HD
MLB Strike Zone HD
Halogen HD
Reelz Channel HD

Soon:
TWC Sportsnet National HD
TWC Deportes National HD

I'm in San Diego, which means TWC DOES have a cable rival (Cox) and the others as well. Cox, Direct TV, Dish and U-Verse have the NFL Network - TWC does not. But we're the #28 market in the country, so our yelps of complaints fall on deaf ears.

(An interesting aside - Cox and Direct TV have the MLB Padres from Fox Sports San Diego; TWC, U-Verse and Dish do not - yet little protesting from customers of the have-nots on this item)

So in areas of San Diego, you have the choice between Time Warner and Cox as who you receive your cable services from?

 

Sup Kevin?

 

Thanks for pointing out those missing HD's for the Milwaukee Wisconsin area!  Although I am happy with our HD line, no I don't think it is mediocre, but adding those channels, since they are showing up in other areas could make it better.  We just got a software update to the Navigator Guide ODN 5.2.09, which improves speed and keyboard searches.

 

A new feature coming is Auto HD, which can be turned on/off in settings.  TWC does not want to overflow the system with the problems it has had with SDV stations.  This means that only non-SDV stations will have the Auto HD at first.  As more SD equivalents come off of the system nationwide, TWC will be adding more channels to the Auto HD feature, but they can't do that until bandwidth opens up by dumping SD channels.  Over time, only the SD stations that are needed for local and government municipalities will remain on the system.  In isolated cases, I will watch an SD channel to conserve DVR space, or if I know that the program itself is not in HD.

 

Satch

actually the SD versions are not coming off of the system because TWC will still carry them for people with TV's that don't support HD and also the Auto HD feature is only available on TWC devices so your still going to see the SD versions on a Tivo, PC tuner, and other 3rd party cable card equipped devices. Also there is not going to be a rush on bandwidth with auto HD due to the fact that TWC has enough SDV bandwidth to cover it if not they will just increase the SDV bandwidth available to allow for more channels or move channels off analog and move some channels off of SDV to solve issues. My system has had a watch in HD button on iGuide for over two years and I have yet to see a issue with bandwidth on SDV.

Also you forget TWC will be deploying DTA's eventually that use SD channels so no they are not going to be removing them from the system.

Kevin,

 

My post didn't go through.  I was interested in any statisitcs that show the percentage of people who still have SD sets.  Moving from an analog to digital format will help.  SDV seems to work better in some areas than others.  Good that you are not having issues with it.

 

Jack

I still have an SD set in my bedroom. It doesn't get as much use as my HDTV does but it's nice to have when I wake up and want to see the news or weather. I will eventually replace it but for now it's purpose suits me.