San Francisco, CA - Comcast - Page 200

The last I spoke with Comcast you pay the outlet fee when you get any equipment from Comcast (STB, HD STB, CableCARD, PVR) They will never break it out this way but the outlet fee bundles an equipment fee and a digital mirror fee. You get one "free" outlet (fee) bundled in with any package.

There is then a surcharge fee for HD STB ($7), 2nd CableCARD in the same PVR ($1.79), and PVR ($13.95)

The surcharge fee for HD STB is $8 if you don't have a digital package.

If you don't have an HD STB, the $7 fee should not be there. It may take you a while to find a representative that agrees with that (or you might get one the first time you call)

If you don't need the STB, return it, and they should drop the $6.99 fee.

I know Comcast is supposed to add some channels in the middle of the month, but have they said anything about ESPNews HD in the Bay Area? (There's obviously a slot reserved... Either 723 or 726, since I'd assume they would group them together.)

fitprod

I'm not sure if anyone answered this for you, but part of the audio drop out is related to the brief half second it takes to switch from DD 2.0 (Commercials) to DD 5.1 (Programs), I'm not sure about local shows, but this is a problem with CBS programing.

fitprod

OnDemand is more than made up for by better DVRs with more storage.

You just record stuff you want to watch.

Comcast's OnDemand product is already crippled PQ/AQ-wise anyhow isn't it?

Thanks! That actually ended up being easy to fix. I used the online chat, and the the CSR took off the HD charge with no hassle at all.

An interesting article in the S.J. Mercury News today with an interview with Mr. Rick Germano, Senior Vice President, Customer Operations.

If he does what he says he's going to do ( and I mean all of it ), he's back on the Christmas list

Seems he'll ( or his group will ) be in the Bay Area May 7th. Get your questions ready

Here's the link....http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_8747752

Laters,
Mikef5

It's pretty good actually... good enough, at least for the free HD movies, don't know if I'd like paying $5.95 for them....

Of course that's only IF you can get a free stream. During prime time it's a total crapshoot if you can even get a movie to start without the dreaded "SRM20" error.

Now you just need to verify on the next bill and decipher the prorations

I'm guessing that's a "busy" error? That's one of the things about Comcast, they have some great products, they just need to get away from providing them in a half-assed manner.

OnDemand really means whenever your neighbors are done watching what they're watching, then you'll get yours. Internet speeds are all over the map - that's one thing nice about DSL, same speed all day every day, and now their national HD channels have second class PQ.


Regarding the Gemano article, like Mikef5 says, actions speak much louder than words, especially when it comes to Comcast.

Not really.

OnDemand is for watching stuff when there is nothing to watch on the regular channels. Plus, there's tons of stuff that isn't even on the regular channels at all. And, I always find stuff from the regular channels that I didn't even know about to record in the first place, and OnDemand gives me a second chance.

It's a great thing to have.

Did he say when we're getting the new DCX cable boxes? These look sweet.
http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/01/03...mpeg4-hd-stbs/
http://www.motorola.com/mediacenter/...eLocaleId=2026

Okay. So, if I have an HD-DVR already. And, I want to add an HD STB, I will be charged a $7 HD STB fee PLUS an add'l outlet fee? How much is the outlet fee?

I seem to remember something like $7.95? Is that still the case? If so, $14.95 is way too much. Seriously. They're out of their f-ing minds.

The Sat companies charge an add'l receiver fee of $5.99...period.

Please DirecTV...add TV Japan. Pleeeeeeeeeeease!

Wow, these do look nice. Please anybody, let us hear when you get these.

From what I've read Comcast has not committed to using these yet. That begs the question: has anyone heard if Comcast is going to employ mpeg-4 for SDV? If so, I would assume this would be the box they use. What I really want to see though is Comcast get the necessary infrastructure to support the MoCA options to enable things such as multi-room viewing, music & picture sharing, etc.

I don't think they will. SDV works fine on EXISTING cable boxes. If it needed a lot of new boxes, it wouldn't be the solution that TW and others have found it to be. It should work fine on any box that can handle ondemand.

Because it works on existing boxes, it must be mpeg2.

MPEG4 may eventually get deployed, but it will require new boxes, and simulcasting, just like ADS works today for digital only boxes that can't receive analog.

I find it amusing that folks here think DBS only has a temporary advntage. Yes, Cable has a ton of advantages. But Comcast and many MSO's have failed to exploit them. They could have offered 16 Mbps service 4 years ago, but didn't. They could have deployed SDV 2 years ago, but didn't. They could have turned off a bunch of analog stations 5 years ago, but didn't.

Now DirecTV and FIOS is handing them their head, but this was seen by many people years ago, and still Comcast did nothing. Except raise rates of course. And deploy telephone service. Great - I already have phone service, but they let their core product be uncompetitive. Moto boxes? What crap.... Even the DirecTV boxes look fantastic compared with the trash Comcast deploys here.

Cable should have wiped the floor with the Bells and the DBS guys, but they sat on their fannies and got creamed. Now that they find themselves in hot water, do we see bold action to leap ahead? Nope, an analog channel here, overcompression there, a new HD channel every few months.

THIS IS NOT GOING TO CUT IT! Come on Comcast, stop making half-assed moves and expecting that to fix your problem. Act boldly or you are going to really be in a world of hurt.

Yeah, well.......looks are one thing, but will this be another DVR box released before the bugs are worked out? How long have we been suffering with delayed remote commands, lousy picture (with no HD pass through), and random resets? Another box from Mot does not give me encouragement.

As Direct is learning, a fancy looking box is not enough.

-Dave

I still haven't seen any notice on my STB about the new channels. Hopefully everything is still on schedule to deliver us these new channels on Apr 15th.

LOL...it's SOP for Motorola to release STBs with bugs, if it didn't have any, it wouldn't be worthy of the Motorola name.

None of the boxes can compete against the Dish Network DVR. It has two satellite receivers plus an excellent OTA receiver and you can record programming from all three recievers simultaneously while playing back two shows you've already recorded to two different TVs, one HD, one SD. Try to do that on any other box!

Not only does it have lots of nice features, but it's reliable and you get all of the recordings you request. The box doesn't reboot all the time. It produces a great picture, has skip forward and back buttons, pause, slow motion, a great program guide and it's easy to use. I couldn't be more pleased with it.

Larry
SF

Thanks for the link, I may be using that "contact" form pretty quickly as my service has suddenly gone downhill to the point where I am seriously considering canceling.

The one thing that frustrates me to no end is the lack of respect for what I know and understand. It shouldn't be so shocking that I understand how CableCARDs, etc. work, I am an informed customer.

I am also not impressed with the "oh well" type of attitude for the issues I am having with my phone service, which is the only phone service I have in my house, something the Bells never took lightly. The one time I had problems with my last POTS phone, it was due to a storm and they were working around the clock to get it fixed. Now my phone goes out whenever it wants and no one seems to care...

Yes, it's (addl outlet fee) + (HD fee). seems like they go up all the time now but last I checked they were $6.95 addl outlet and $7 hdtv, so $13.95 for an additional HD (non dvr) box.

the "good" news? is that if you call and ask nicely you can often get them to give you free things like the addl outlet fee.

Last year when they were offering "free dct" I got them to drop the addl outlet fee for a year, but I think that's up in April so I'll have to seriously consider if watching HD on the 23" bedroom LCD is worth $14/mo....

yes SRM-20 is "no free streams" error or basically "the tubes are full".

dsl has it's own set of problems, namely the "CO" problem. must be nice to get 6mbits if you live next door to the "CO" but if you don't... the best I can get here in the office (no cable) is 1.1mb (384k up).

oh it's also $60/mo

By "looks", I meant that the published specs and features looked sweet. Physically, it looks ok, I guess. I kinda like the way the DCH looks now, actually. Although, I'd prefer all black to match the rest of my stuff.

So, an HD DVR for the BR will cost an add'l $20.90/mo??? Sweet Chocolate Jesus! They must have some outstanding drugs in Philadelphia.

Really? ATT DSL advertises $35/mo for "Elite" (6mb/768kb). I only pay $25/mo for 3mb/512kb, currently.

I'm thinking of upgrading to Elite, which is available at my address, as opposed to switching to Comcast HSI for three main reasons:
- We can keep our email addresses.
- No blockage on P2P or streaming media. (With two Slingboxes, one incoming, one outgoing, I can't chance it.)
- Price

oh yes. they advertise it.

they also bother me on the phone every couple of months to beg me to "upgrade"

unfortunately the "CO" is in africa or something because we only get a max of 1.1mbits no matter what "service" they have us on - believe me I have tried.

like I said, dsl has its own set of problems....

$35 is for "home" service, if it's for a business address it's $55 or so.

Ahh. Business. Of course. But, Comcast doesn't charge more for business customers than residential? That's odd. Dish, DirecTV, and ATT all do.

Well, I've never experienced any set of problems with DSL, other than distance dictating speed. I've had it for about 6 years or so now. Smooth as silk.

My actual speeds are about what can be expected for the advertised speed: 2.5/425 vs 3/512. I would expect similar comparative performance for their Elite service.

Wow, that does seem high. In this case, if you get a TivoHD as a second DVR, you pay $6.95 add outlet, $1.79 dual cable card, plus whatever Tivo monthly charges:
a) If you get monthly with 1 year commit, it's $12.95/month for Tivo, or $21.69 total including the add outlet and cable card charges.
b) If you already have a Tivo, you can put the second Tivo on MSD discount at $6.95/month, and $15.96 total.
c) If you don't get MSD, but you can afford to go with a pre-pay, the cheapest 3 year pre-pay will be about $8.31/month, so $17.05 total.

So in the worst case, you can get Tivo HD for just ~70 cents more a month. And in many cases, you can get it cheaper than Comcast's HD DVR.