Newtown, CT - Charter - Page 2

I have charter cable - in Eastern CT - any idea when we are going to get ABC HD ? Lost is starting this week and I dont want to miss another year to SD viewing only.

This ABC / Charter thing has been going on WAY to long......The last time the cable guy was at my house I asked him and he thought it would be added in January 08 - well its January 08 and all we have new is 755 WVIT2 !!!

OK. Let me ask for your help. For the past 4 months, I have been experiencing brief audio drop-outs on MusicChoice. They last, usually, a second or less, and their occurrence is seemingly random. I do not have such problems with any of the TV channels and I am using an SA3250HD.

Charter has washed their hands of my problem. They cannot find a cause and they say they can do nothing more. (They have made some efforts but to no effect.)

Has anyone experienced anything similar to this? If I am to make any further complaints, it would be useful to know if anyone else has this problem.

Thanks.

It looks like no dice for ABC-HD anytime soon and any LIN station may go dark on 7/1 if they can't come to an agreement.

http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6567133.html

LIN, which owns about 11 stations in seven markets in Charter territory—in Grand Rapids, Mich.; Green Bay, Wis.; Hartford-New Haven, Conn.; Springfield, Mass.; Dayton and Toledo, Ohio; and Providence, R.I.—said that its current deal with Charter is scheduled to expire on June 30.

In a statement, LIN said that its negotiations with Charter “appear unlikely to result in a retransmission consent agreement. As a result, LIN TV expects Charter to discontinue carriage of its television stations when the current contract expires.”

UPDATE: Same problems with an SA4250HD.

http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix....982&highlight=

Looks like Charter is about to pick up the LIN HD network feeds soon in some markets.

http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6574973.html

LIN TV Corp. and Charter Communications have reached a retransmission-consent deal covering the station owner’s broadcast and digital signals.

Charter carries 13 stations owned- and/or operated by LIN, whose contract with the cable operator was set to expire on June 30.


“We are pleased to have signed this agreement with LIN TV for the benefit of our customers, said Ted Schremp, executive vice president and chief marketing officer for Charter, in a statement. “In addition, we look forward to expanding our high definition programming with LIN TV stations in many of these communities.”

Charter Communications/Western Connecticut-Newtown/Winstead herein provides notice of the following channel changes:

WABC will be dropped from our Newtown channel line-up in the towns we serve in Litchfield County and New Haven County only, as the result of a Network Non-Duplication request we received from WTNH-ABC, effective August 28, 2008.

http://www.dpuc.state.ct.us/DPUCUndo...7?OpenDocument

Probably a condition of their carriage agreement. Annoying because Charter is well within their rights (otherwise) to transmit this as "signifigantly viewed"

Finally. ABC-HD effective August 11.

http://www.dpuc.state.ct.us/DPUCUndo...3?OpenDocument

This is, imho, a good trade-off for losing WABC.

I'm guessing that Charter was waiting for any excuse to ditch an analog channel on the entire Newtown system before they could proceed with adding WTNH-DT. That suggests that this system is fully saturated with channels right now, which is bad for subscribers in the near term. The Newtown system really should be on the top of the list for SDV conversion because of this lack of capacity, but I have always gotten the impression that this area is considered a bastard child by the corporate guys in St. Louis. This is one positive development, but it is still one that should have happened years ago.

I have to wonder if PIN really did terminate their contract or if Charter just gave their grief in recent months in order to get this mostly unviewed infomercial channel off the system.

For those that didn't get the phone call a few days ago, not only did Charter confirm the WTNH-DT and the temporary Olympic channel additions, but they orally promised to add TBS-HD to the Newtown system before the baseball playoffs start. No filing with the DPUC on that yet, but they have time. I'll keep their message saved on my answering machine just in case they decide to not add the channel later on.

Some gripes from a newcomer; any local insight? My wife and I just moved up to Woodbury from Arlington, VA, where we were Comcast subscribers. We can't help but be really disappointed with the paltry HD offerings from Charter in this area. Generally speaking the picture quality here is fantastic, but there are some nagging issues.

1. Laughably low number of HD channels. Sigh. More coming, I hope. Dump some of those PPV channels and free up some bandwidth. I thought that's what OnDemand was for.
2. Occasionally VERY choppy picture on HD stations (i.e. Monday Night Football on 9/8 is unwatchable on the HD channel; we switched to SD in order to see full plays without picture and audio breakup). This seems to be a frequent occurrence. This is cable, not satellite -- it should simply work.
3. What's the deal with the bizarro channel numbers? The lineup order is nonsensical and seemingly arbitrary. Granted, I'm used to a different system, but that system appeared to have some order to it (networks on lower numbers than cable stations, etc.). Just really weird.
4. I understand that Woodbury is serviced by the hub in Newtown (Fairfield County), but not getting NESN here is unfortunate. This is Litchfield County, after all, which is within NESN's broadcast zone. It's a bummer -- my wife is a big Red Sox fan (I'm happy to have YES here, as I'm a Yankee fan) and it just kind of stinks.
5. Three cheers to Charter for finally adding WTNH in HD. Three big boos to WTNH for degrading the ABC-HD feed so heavily. I can verify that WJLA in Virginia carries the signal through much more effectively. What's the deal? Anybody know why WTNH compresses it so much? I know you've all waited a long time to get ABC in HD -- the picture must be sorely disappointing to you.

On the alternatives front, DirecTV's pq is comparably crummy in every instance I've seen it, and there's no U-verse or FiOS here yet. So, um, I guess I'm sticking with Charter for now. Fortunately, when it works, the picture is stunning, so they've got that going for them, which is nice.

One can only hope that UVERSE rolls out their service as quickly as possible. We can't wait for it to happen here in Harwinton but I fear it's still quite a long way off.

I also will add that there os a UVERSE discussion group for CT here:
http://www.uverseusers.com/component...,2/board,18.0/

luna5, thanks for the UVerse link!
One other thing: not only do we not get NESN here on Charter, but since we're in Red Sox territory, their games are blacked out on ESPN -- even though we can't see the game anywhere else! INSANE!!!!
I'm sure I'm not telling anybody anything new, but I have to let some steam off somehow. Wake up Charter!!!!!!

Well, at least TBS-HD was added as promised. Having all playoff baseball games in HD will be a plus, though the channel is rather pointless beyond that. The Universal Sports addition was unexpected, but I assume WVIT forced the issue since it is one of their subchannels. The picture quality is rather dreadful, making the channel difficult to watch IMHO.

And yes, Charter has gotten an earful about NESN from many of us. The ESPN and Extra Innings blackouts of Red Sox games are new this year, which angered many of us further. MLB.TV has been very helpful for my Sox fan neighbors this year.

It has been nice to see a few several AT&T trucks roaming around New Milford in recent weeks (two near my place this morning). I have not seen them doing any work, but I am at least in a position to hope that UVerse might show up sometime next year.

They are taking forever to add SciFi HD to the line up. There are 2 or 3 they've added I'd gladly trade for SciFi!

Whoa! Now I suddenly see SNY-HD appear on channel 770. It is a very odd time to to add this network since Mets games conclude for the season in just a few days. It is almost as if they know that AT&T is laying fiber to my condo complex at the moment. Sorry Charter, there are about 4-5 more channels that you need to add in order to keep me as a customer. A price drop would be nice as well.

I guess it's promising to see new channels slowly trickeling in, but I'd kill for Speed HD and SciFi HD right about now. Watching the last F1 race in analog SD at 92" was beyond painful. And if I have to watch the final 10 eps of BSG in SD I will not be happy. I'm in Northbrook condos which I don't see getting U-Verse or FIOS anytime soon. And I can't get a line of sight for DirecTV so I'm pretty much screwed with Charter. UGH!

If anybody has any news on Speed or SciFi in HD you'll make my day!

Just for documentation purposes, I'll mention that National Geographic Channel HD was quietly added to our system late last week (Channel 736). It is strange that our neglected local system added a channel listed as limited in availability nationwide by Charter on the The Official AVS National HD Channel Lineups page while four channels listed in wide release still have not arrived (Food Network, HDNet, HDNet Movies, HGTV).

Scouring the new bill posted here:
http://www.dpuc.state.ct.us/DPUCUndo...8?OpenDocument

It looks like SmithsonianHD is replacing Mojo sometime soon if it hasn't showed up already.

Oh yah, that's much better than SciFi or Speed. :rollseyes:

Some of us would disagree with you on that.

Check your snail mail! Along with the formal announcement about the price increase starting in January, there is a list of new HD channels which supposedly will be up and running by Jan 1.

725 The Weather Channel HD
726 Fox News HD
730 Animal Planet HD
731 The Learning Channel HD
732 Food Network HD
733 HGTV HD
767 Versus HD
768 Golf HD
776 Discovery Channel HD
794 FX HD

The addition of Smithsonian HD into the Mojo HD slot is documented there as well (though that happened in reality at the start of this week). As far as SD channels go, MLB Network will be on Channel 346 and channels like Toon Disney, Soap Net, and Hallmark will be available to anyone with a digital converter box and Expanded Basic.

I am concerned that in order to add this many new channels, they are going to start cramming three HD channels onto each QAM frequency like Comcast does. A further reduction in picture quality will not go over well by me, especially since only one of the new HD channels interests me (and I really don't need to see an HD Weather Channel anyway). CNN HD would have been better than Fox News HD IMHO, but I know many people will feel otherwise.

Nice to see a few more HD channels. Discovery Channel is the only one that really interests me in that list, and maybe a few movies on FX every now and then. Still holding out for National Geographic and the Travel Channel.

I believe NatGeo was added already.
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...4#post15058384


also, here's the legal filing for the new HD channels that were previously announced via a mailer.

http://www.dpuc.state.ct.us/DPUCUndo...5?OpenDocument

Since there were a few stealth additions, here's a recap of everything.
Total count: 34 + 1 OnDemand

725 The Weather Channel HD
726 FOX NEWS HD
730 ANIMAL PLANET HD
731 TLC HD
732 Food Network HD
733 HGTV HD
734 A&E HD
735 HISTORY HD
736 National Geo HD
742 SMITHSONIAN
767 VERSUS HD
768 GOLF HD
769 INDEMAND PPV HD
770 SNY HD
771 ESPN2 HD
772 YES HD
773 ESPN HD
775 HD THEATER
776 Discovery Channel HD
777 HBO HD
778 SHOWTIME HD
779 CINEMAX HD
782 WEDW-HD (PBS)
783 WFSB-3 HD (CBS)
785 WVIT-30 HD (NBC)
786 WTIC-61 HD (FOX)
788 WTNH-8 HD (ABC)
789 WCTX 59 (MyNetwork TV) added 2/27/09
790 STARZ! HD
791 TMC HD
794 FX HD
795 UNIVERSAL HD
796 TBS HD
797 TNT HD
798 PALLADIA

In an effort to add more HD, Charter in Newtown is implementing switch digital video (SDV) next month. You will need a digitial cable box or TIVO to receive any channels sent via SDV. Tivo users will be given a free tuning adapter. Anyone who uses a cablecard for a device other than a Tivo will be offered a free digitial box for a year as SDV will not work otherwise.

http://www.dpuc.state.ct.us/DPUCUndocketed.nsf/88f12116235902e185256a860056babb/85256a63004def968525753800766c2a/$FILE/ltr%20SDV%20launch%20CT%20West-Newtown%201-8-09.doc

"As part of our continuing efforts to bring our customers the very best programming services available, we will be performing technical upgrades to our digital network beginning on February 11, 2009. These changes are not related to the upcoming digital television transition on February 17, 2009. Our upgrade to a Switched Digital Network (SDV) will, however, allow us to launch additional high definition channels – something many of our customers have been requesting."

"SDV is a more efficient way to add new channels on existing bandwidth by having channels “switch out” when no one requests them and “switch in” when someone wants to watch them. "

More info in the link

Just saw that notice myself. This system seems very appropriate for SDV, but I never imagined that they would implement it here this soon. The changeover deadline seems to be way too quick to fully inform Tivo owners to pick up a converter box at the Newtown office (and many will need installation help too), so I can see the switchover date being delayed or possibly we will see a slow gradual migration of channels to SDV delivery to minimize the initial angry phone call barrage. I wonder if they will strip a few more analog channels off of the expanded basic package at the same time.