St. Louis, MO - Charter

In comparisons with other major metropolitan cities near St. Louis, I would call Charter's HD lineup "meager", not "modest". For example, I think the Indianapolis cableco's have around 20 HD stations with all major networks, while Charter carries only 13, with ABC and CBS being absent.

Please keep in mind two huge upcoming events that will not be shown in HD if Charter does not resolve its dispute with Belo. Unless you have an antenna, you will not be able to view March Madness and the Masters Golf Tournament in HD. Those two are enough to drive me to satellite. I urge everyone to call Charter and voice your displeasure.

One minor addition: Although I've never ordered anything to test this out, I believe Charter channel 791 is reserved for PPV-HD events,

In three years with Charter HD I don't recall anything being on that channel-or have I just missed it?

I wouldn't give Charter credit for FSMDW due to the fact that it is a test screen 97% if the time.

Does anyone else get audio dropouts using Moxi or Moxi-mate....but then you back it up and it is OK?
pwsher

Most recently on the channel I've seen listed "NHL Center Ice Hi-Def games" (or something like that, I'm not at home right now to check) although, as I said earlier, I've never ordered any PPV events on the channel.

I'm not sure if this is what you mean, but occasionally, for me, multiple channels will just have no sound for an extended period, but a soft reset (holding down the reset button on the front of the main Moxi box) fixes the problem.

I would say that this occurs maybe once a month or less.

Charter reaches half-million telephone customers
Thursday February 15, 11:12 am ET


Charter Communications Inc. said Thursday that it has reached the 500,000-customer mark for its Charter Telephone service.
The company said the mark was reached primarily over the past year when it undertook an aggressive rollout of its telephone service.

Charter said it has quadrupled the number of Charter Telephone customers since the beginning of 2006. Availability of the service passes more than 6.8 million homes, and Charter said it plans to launch phone service in more markets this year.

The company said Angela McCall of St. Louis signed up as Charter's half-millionth telephone customer. She will be presented Thursday with a high definition television, desktop computer and cordless telephone system, as well as a free year of Charter's three-service bundle (digital video, high-speed Internet access and telephone).

"More than seven out of 10 of our telephone customers subscribe to all three services," Ted Schremp, senior vice president and general manager for Charter Telephone, said in a statement.

St. Louis-based Charter Communications Inc. (Nasdaq: CHTR - News) is the nation's third-largest cable television provider, and also provides digital video programming, high-speed Internet access and telephone service, among other services.

Published February 15, 2007 by the St. Louis Business Journal

On this one you have to blame fox sports...they don't show the HD programming but maybe once or twice a week. Not sure why they don't upconvert everything else but they don't

Yes, occasionally I see dropouts in audio ranging from 2-5 seconds and then it's right back. Also if I rewind, your right, the sound plays the next time.

Well now. What do you know. A St. Louis, MO., Charter thread! Thats not a bad idea. I knew a guy who tried to launch a local thread and took a pretty good thrashing at the effort. I have developed pretty thick skin.

I am glad to see it up and running afterall. Many thanks to the folks at the parent site--St. Louis, MO - HDTV. If your here you should also be there. Much to be learned from that site. Many knowledgeable posters there. Not sure if this site will have longevity but time will tell. As many have pointed out there are also distinct advantages to a combined site.

Thanks for picking it back up and relaunching the thread Dave!!

charter and belo can both go suck it. i called charter and they couldnt care less. just picked up a HDTV with built in tuner and CBS-HD looks alot better than Charter was ever able to provide!

Had Charter come out and trade my MOXI and Mate in for the new Motorola 3416? HD DVR yesterday. I had a static noise problem on the MOXI and Mate that became unbearable - sound was perfect through digital audio out but not through RCA connected directly to TV. Already miss the convienence of the Mate and the overall MOXI menus.

Couple of points on the new box based on my limited experience last night:

1. Having trouble deleting channels - can not find a menu to add/delete channels. It has a favorite feauture but I would like to remove channels like 784 that are not available.

2. Picture quality on non-HD channels appears better than MOXI although I am still working through the settings - currently have non-HD 4X3 channels set to be 480P.

3. Movement amoung HD channels was very quick but inabliilty to remove channels caused a swith from 1080 to 480 which increased the time for the channel to appear. Good example is 785 to 784 to 782 - since 784 is off the air the aspect changes and causes a few seconds of black screen before 782 appears.

4. Menus - will take some time to learn the navigation although it seemed that the TV guide features were better. Had some trouble finding programs to set DVR - hopefully I can work through some of this tonight.

5. Power - unlike the MOXI the power is separate for the TV and box - does have a system power off feature that with one press of the button with power off/on all components programed into the remote.

Will report back next week on how it goes this weekend. Considering switching to DISH to get back the Mate features lost. Already realizing how nice it was to be able to access DVR from two different TV's.

Sad but true! Can you believe how awesome that uncompressed OTA-HD picture appears

Congrats on the new Charter thread!

Scott

I believe they show sport package hd games there...mlb extra innings and center ice.

Cooool. Just saw my first Hockey fight in HD!!! Blood looked real. You could even see the missing teeth.

FWIW.....I just had my 9022 Moxi replaced with the 3416 here in St. Louis. I miss the Moxi interface but it's nice having the 160gb hard drive. I think HD looks just as good and SD might be slightly better. The tech said that as the Moxi boxes are brought in they will not be replaced here. Any exchanges or new boxes will be the 3416.

Scott

4 quick questions:

Is the moxi the only HD receiver capable of having a "mate"?

How much is charter charging to switch out boxes?

Is anyone using HDMI with the newer receivers?

Has anyone heard of wait times on the new receivers?

I can only definitively answer the first question. The Moxi 9022 is the only Charter box with multi-room support, however no more of those seem to be available.

For thos Charter subs that still have the Moxi, the waited 4.1 update should happen no later than the middle of march here in St Louis.

the main thing from this upgrade is the ability to hook up an external hard drive via usb 2.0 ports on the back of your DVR.

Also there will be a slow mo cability coming with this update.

Wolverine

For those of you with the 3416 DVR box, do all the buttons on your remote work? Seems like a bunch of ours don't do anything. Thanks!

This is great news. Who is your source of information and what is the level of reliability? Thanks

Slightly off topic.
Anyone know what the upload speeds are for Charter's 5MB & 10MB plans are? I can find nothing on their website with the uploads. I need more upstream for hosting internet gaming.

Are we talking about the same station KMOV that has killed their PQ with the subchannel inclusion?

It has looked terrible since they added the subchannel with an overly soft image and substantial macroblocking.

Cheers,