0xDECAFBAD - Tag: entertainment

Cutting the Cord (or: Bright House, you're fired)

2011-06-10T22:16:39+00:00

TL;DR: Our cable company has offered poor support for our TiVo; cut our channels and allowed our service to degrade; mislead us about possible solutions; and finally wasted our time by sending a contractor to our home instead of a clued-in employee who could handle the issue. And, now that we're going to pursue other options for putting moving pictures on our television, they plan to charge us for cutting the cord. Since I've been looking to write here more, I've just been given a nice excuse to rant.

Bright House has basically a local monopoly on cable TV here. So, we've been a customer of theirs for cable and internet over the past few years.

This is the thing, though: We've spent a lot of money on a cable subscription. In exchange, I expect great and even proactive customer service. I guess I'm unreasonable, because instead we're expected to pay more for less and to accept hassles and up-selling instead of support—because they're almost literally the only game in town. But, other options are getting good enough and we can learn to do without.

You see, we have a TiVo. We like our TiVo. We got one when the girl worked at the company, and we've never gone back. Having one is like living in the future. Yes, Bright House offers their own DVRs, but they're inferior products and we don't want one. So, as far as I'm concerned, Bright House is just a video supplier for our TiVo.

Unfortunately, over the past year, they've done a crappy job. They're transitioning to Switched Digital Video, and that's something our TiVo doesn't support out of the box. As we eventually found out, there's a tuning adapter that could fix things. But, rather than tell us about that up front—and maybe offer to send us one as a part of their transition—they've instead sent us a series of letters listing channels we're going to lose because we rent CableCARDs.

Since I've got better things to do than call the cable company, I put off contacting them. In the meantime, we lost channels as promised. Other channels not listed in the letters began to degrade and became unwatchable.

Finally, I sent an email. A week or so later, they called and left me a voicemail, which described the installation fee and monthly rental rate of a tuning adapter. This, on top of what we already pay for CableCARDs and the underlying cable service itself. At that point, we were pretty annoyed. The cable bill was already high and new fees seemed to appear every month—and they wanted us to pay even more just to get what we'd originally signed up for.

Yes, I understand that SDV will let them make more efficient use of resources and offer exciting new services and yadda yadda yadda—but, to me, it just looks like they're breaking the video feed into our TiVo and expect us to pay more to fix it. It's pretty shady and customer-hostile, this stuff. Oh wait: Didn't some of these guys get fined by the FCC for SDV hijinx not too long ago?

So, rather than jump on getting a tuning adapter installed, I bought an antenna and went retro. It turns out there are over a dozen over-the-air HD channels in range. That might not sound like a lot, but you'd be surprised how much watchable stuff is packed into the major networks versus the other 1000 channels we got on digital cable. The theme here is free and good enough.

True, some of those channels are a pain to tune in using a dinky little indoor antenna, reminicent of the "rabbit ears" days. But, for most of the past month, we got by pretty well. The TiVo works nicely with an antenna. It's a decent Netflix streamer, too. (Though, to be honest, the Xbox 360 works better, can get Hulu Plus, and plays videos from our network. TiVo really, really needs to catch up fast here.)

Having given TV a trial without cable, we decided it was time to call Bright House back to sort out this TiVo thing, one way or another. Since I'm a proven procrastinating wuss about calling the cable company, my wife called and scheduled an appointment for a tech visit.

Here's the fun part: They told her we didn't need a tuning adapter. Instead, they had "HD boxes" which would do the trick. They could install those for free, reclaim our rented CableCARDs, and we'd get a break on our bill at the end. I was dubious, but that sounded surprisingly good!

So, the tech arrived today, near the end of the 2-hour window. He came armed with two Motorola DCX3200 set-top boxes. I thought they must have some kind of control connection to be slaved to the TiVo. My cable-tech-fu is pretty weak, but I assumed they knew what they were doing.

But, no: The tech—who was a contractor and not a Bright House employee—took one look at our TiVo and shrugged. He had no idea how to make these boxes work with that thing. So, he set one up alongside the TiVo and called back to headquarters to schedule another appointment—this time with an elusive real Bright House employee who apparently knew about these things. You know, the guy whom they should have sent in the first place.

I've no real complaints about the contractor: His installation of the set-top box was fine—it was just the wrong solution altogether. Yeah, I could probably finagle something with an IR blaster, but it doesn't seem worth it and probably doesn't work in HD. We could also keep the appointment next week and hope that the bona fide Bright House employee knows what he's doing and leaves us with a working tuning adapter. But, trying to be happy about that starts to feel like Stockholm Syndrome.

After the contractor left, we thought a bit and my wife (again, because the phone is my kryptonite, and I'd be useless without her) called Bright House to cancel our cable.

We wanted to keep the internet access—but even here, they did their best to make us think twice about staying their customer at all. It turns out that to break up our cable/internet bundle, they need to "rebuild our whole system" and that incurs a fee as large as what we paid to install cable in the first place.

The funny thing is that it wouldn't have been hard to keep us happy. Do a little work up front to help keep our TiVo running, and we might have spent even more money on cable. Now, we're looking very hard at alternatives we'd been too complacent to consider before.

But, I guess that's the problem: This is all very old news. They don't really want our TiVo on their network. So, instead, they sent letters promising degraded service and followed through on it. And, when contacted to address the issue, they botched it altogether. Clearly, if third-party set-top boxes and the customers who use them were a priority beyond just avoiding FCC fines, they'd have the right people and processes in place to keep us happy. I think we've gotten the message, now.

Where's that leave us? Well, our bill will be cut in half, at least after we pay for the new setup fee. We'll need to be more mindful and intentional toward what we watch on TV and how we get it, but somehow I think we'll manage. Past that, I think it'll feel good to pay less for a service provided by a company that doesn't really want our business and has a strange notion of customer service.

In the meantime, I think I'll be on the lookout for a better internet provider so we can ditch Bright House outright. The problem is, I don't think the market around here is exactly rife with competition.

Archived Comments

Craig Maloney
2011-06-11T15:57:19

Not sure if you can get it, but I've been happy with Wide Open West for my phone / Internet connectivity. Not sure how they handle the TV part of it, but they've been very responsive to me whenever there's been an outage.
- George H
  2011-06-11T16:46:11
  
  I'm using Wide Open West with a TiVo HD and a CableCard. Works great and no complaints. Although... looking through my Season Passes it looks like most of my shows are available on broadcast TV. That plus Netflix and a possible Hulu Plus subscription* would put my TV bill at around $25/mo. So now I'm thinking of cutting the cable for TV... * Aside: why are south park episodes on Hulu links to SouthParkStudios.com? Can you still get them on the Xbox?
- Les Orchard
  2011-06-11T17:27:31
  
  Yeah, no WOW here. Bright House really does have this area wrapped up. I think we *might* have access to AT&T's Uverse, but I'm not sure they're a much better option.
Steve Ivy
2011-06-11T19:09:08

Hi Les, We've been sans Cable-TV/sat for about 6 mos now, and we're getting by on Netflix and a few iTunes subscriptions and pertty happy about it. My wife really like some of the reality shows (Survivor, Amazing Race, So You Think You Can Dance) so we just invested in an antenna ande an EyeTV-one usb tuner. AS long as I'm not working on the computer thats doing the recording at the same time, the quality is great and we can watch the next day (still considering a hardware h.264 encoder). We use an AppleTV as our main box, the EyeTV exports to itunes so that shows just show up under "TV Shows" on the ATV. --Steve
- Les Orchard
  2011-06-14T15:21:40
  
  We get pretty much all of that with a TiVo, though I've been thinking about picking up an AppleTV and/or a Roku box to play with. I've been pretty surprised with the quality of HD over the air, provided that I get the antenna pointed *just right* :)
Slivertoung
2011-06-12T13:35:46

Birghthouse can only do so much, sometimes it takes a little to get the problem solved but trust me they are doing their best to give you the best in service possible at the most reasonable price. I have had Brighthouse for years and have a TiVo and yes at first it took a bit to get the kinks worked out but they came back till it was fixed on their own dime and now its great, other companys charge everytime they send someone out and most don't even bother working with you if you have Tivo becuase they don't support it. You can go with someone else but expect contracts, good deals that last a bit then trap you into higher prices till your contract is up and little to no customer service skills if you have to call in for help. Try it and when you hate it call BrightHouse back and they will be glad to come help you out and get you all fixed up again they will even help you out of you contract if they have to. Just some advice, if you have a problem don't let it just sit their and bother you, do something proactive let them know something is wrong and see if they don't hop to and try and fix it
- Les Orchard
  2011-06-12T17:12:01
  
  Here's the thing: We went through all of the above, a few years ago, just to get the TiVo working in the first place when we started service with Bright House. They apparently only have "the guy" who knows how to work with TiVo and CableCARDs, and we're "lucky" to get him. And, that was *before* the SDV transition started here. It's not my job to be proactive about their service. We're paying them, not the other way around. They knew something was wrong, because they knew enough to send us letters about breaking our service. They could have been proactive themselves and called us to schedule an appointment with "the guy" to get us hooked up with a tuning adapter before we started losing channels and reception quality. And, when we *did* finally call them, they sent the wrong guy to install the wrong stuff. Sure, we could let them come back and try again, but we've played this game before. We're not going with anyone else - we've cancelled cable altogether.
neilio
2011-06-14T15:24:01

Nice write up, and your experience basically mirrors ours, except replace "Brighthouse" with "Rogers|Bell" (our two major providers). We recently went 100% OTA, supplemented with Netflix and Hulu (via a geofence busting service). It's great, and seeing the pure, uncompressed OTA HD signal is a minor revelation.
- Metaksan
  2011-09-01T12:07:55
  
  Absolutely right..

yahoo TV refreshed

2006-11-30T23:02:20+00:00

I'm a little annoyed that the Yahoo! TV refresh last night broke my bookmarks. We're luddites who've rejected Digital Cable and On-Screen Guides for the last few years - and Yahoo! TV has been our solution for that. But, oh well. I've got a new TV guide bookmark now, and all better.

On the other hand, I'm a bit impressed and entertained that the TV guide grid uses an AJAX-ian pagination approach like this one.

Of course, on the other other hand, it's pretty slow now. I found that if I scroll down the the bottom of the page, really really fast, everything gradually loads up. That seems somewhat suboptimal.

Archived Comments

Michal Migurski
2006-12-01T01:00:30

I'm surprised that the new site breaks old links - seems like having Del.icio.us within the company should underscore the importance of permanent URLs.

So long, and thanks for all the Stargate

2006-08-22T04:20:36+00:00

SCI FI Channel confirmed that it will not renew its record-breaking original series Stargate SG-1 for another season, but will pick up its spinoff series Stargate Atlantis for a fourth year. SG-1 aired its 200th episode on Aug. 18, and the SF series is the longest-running SF show on American television.

Source: SCI FI Wire | SG-1 Ends Run; Atlantis Back

This makes me a bit sad, but I pretty much figured the show was over 2 seasons or so ago, before the additions of Ben Browder and Claudia Black to the cast. Practically all of the show's accumulated loose ends from the past 10 years had been tied up, the major enemies defeated, most of the mysteries solved, and a number of central characters retired or gone. The new seasons were pretty much a reboot, with even bigger baddies - but we've been through all this before. And that, in turn makes me doubly sad, because I was a hardcore Farscape fan as well.

At any rate, I'll miss the show terribly - and Stargate Atlantis is a pitiful replacement in my opinion. But, you can't say that this show wasn't given a full opportunity to explore every facet of its universe and round out almost every story that could told within its bounds. Very few scifi shows have gotten this opportunity.

But, alas, after this season, I'll have one less reason to have cable TV. And that's really not a small thing, since I can count the remaining reasons on less than one hand. Like Brad Choate, we might soon be pulling the cable plug.

Archived Comments

Mark
2006-08-22T11:44:44

So much for the thought that we would get a Stargate / Farscape crossover! I would have gladly seen Stargate finish two seasons ago if it meant getting Farscape back, but ah well. The end of Sci-Fi in the mainstream has come (or is there something out there for scapers that I haven't heard of?)
Jim Renaud
2006-08-22T15:48:33

It's not a stargate, it's a fargate!
Mad William Flint
2006-08-22T17:12:24

I was never a stargate fan particularly. I assume it's just due to lack of exposure.

But then I unplugged the cable box from the TV 2 years ago and had salvation army come get the big old tubey thing and have had a cable box sitting on my living room floor since.

Were it not for my net connection...
Alex Schröder
2006-08-24T18:51:19

I recommend an unplugged TV. I only use it a few times a month to watch DVDs or play on my consoles. TV is too boring compared to the Internet!

Serenity is a Big Damn Roller Coaster

2005-10-16T05:35:46+00:00

I've just finally seen Serenity. So, if you're concerned about spoilers, bugger off now—if you cared about spoilers, you should've already seen the big damn movie.

Some quick, fully spoiled thoughts:

I'm fairly certain it was the best science fiction movie I've seen in about 10-15 years. I'm only just about to turn 30 this month, so I'm not old by any stretch—but I've watched a lot of sci-fi in my time. Probably too much sci-fi.

In any case, this was the first movie I've seen in at least a decade that had me wanting to walk out, go straight to get another ticket, and watch it over again. Like I remember doing a few times with roller coasters when I was little.

Many classic snips of Whedonesque dialog. If they aren't coming out now via geeks with recorders in theaters, they'll be out in soundboards by December when the DVD arrives.
"Dozens of planets, hundreds of moons"? Well, I guess a single solar system alleviates the need for any sort of faster-than-light travel loopholes—but damn, that makes our solar system look sparse.
River as a psychic, having mentally scooped up state secrets from visiting politicians gave a very nice and sensible motivation to everyone after her.
I missed the men with blue gloves. They were creepy. The operative seemed like part 2 of the last one they'd left drifting in space, only maybe more finely honed. He was rather fearsome, but didn't give me the willies.
The operative's total psychological conversion to the mission as a "believer" was a great concept, though. I could imagine some future tech being used to tickle the "God spot" or something in a Pavlovian/Skinnerian approach to bind a person to an objective.

I am surprised that the truth managed to snap him out of it, though. Religious zealots seem very rarely turned by the facts. It was a good admission at the end though, having failed the mission, when he said "there's nothing left to see".

When the Shepherd died, I wasn't too choked up. I mean, he was a good character, had a crapload of mysteries worth exploring, but he was ultimately an outsider and a passenger on the ship—maybe because of all those mysteries.

And, of course, in the movie as independent from the series, the Shepherd wasn't given much story to become a central concern. But, he got his dying scene and a fairly closure-rich exit.

The landing on Miranda and the subsequent explanation of the Reavers struck me as a bit of classic Star Trek done right—done better. And, having demystified the Reavers—from victims of spaaaaace madness down to better living through government chemistry—did nothing to make them any less scary.
Does anyone out there remember when they used to play 3-D movies on TV? They'd have a signal at a certain point, when you were meant to don the glasses.

When that spike nailed Wash and he died without a few minutes' scene of melodramatic, coughing last words—that was the signal for, "In this next fight? They're all fair game. Start worrying."

He was just gone, like people really go when they're not characters in a story enjoying the benefits of deus ex machina. It's a very rare story where the author's gutsy enough to do permanent damage to the fictional universe itself in order to raise the stakes.

I'm sad and pissed, but this was a hell of a lot better than wrecking the Enterprise. Hell, they did wreck the ship, but Serenity already got rebuilt by the end of the movie. There will be no Wash 1701B.

Archived Comments

Roger Benningfield
2005-10-16T05:59:32

My wife and I were both deeply disappointed by Serenity... and part of it is was the treatment of Wolver-- I mean, River. To my mind, her character was completely trivialized as Joss recycled yet another plotline from 70-80's X-Men stories.

RE: the guys with the blue gloves... see the Serenity prequel for more on them.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1593074492
Roger Espinosa
2005-10-17T00:31:06

Heh --- it was your post about "pulling an Enterprise-D" that I was thinking about when we saw Serenity last week. I thought "They're doing it! They're wrecking the ship!" and then that harpoon came and for once I really wanted someone to find the Deux Ex Machina switch that'd turn back time. Sniff.
Joe Brockmeier
2005-10-17T19:25:23

I feel the same way - the first movie, perhaps since Star Wars, that I wanted to watch again as soon as it was over the first time. I think Wash's death traumatized some of the Firefly fans (one guy I talked to asked "why would you do that to yourself?" when I told him that I planned to see it again) but it's what makes Whedon's stories believable -- people actually die, in pointless ways that make the stories more real. Sadder, perhaps, but more real.

Based on its box office performance, I'm not optimistic that there will be a Serenity II -- but if not, it was a very suitable way to close the book on those characters.
rick
2005-10-20T21:27:32

I too wanted to see the Blue Gloves. I thought the prequel story was weak closure on that thread.

If there is a Serenity 2, they better find someone to fill Wash's void. He was my favorite of the series...

I am a leaf on the wind
John Manoogian III (jm3)
2005-10-23T13:39:44

hate to say it (well, not really i don't... :-), but: told you so.
Mike
2005-10-24T02:21:34

I remember a theatre director once telling me that you shouldn't have a gun on stage because everyone knows it's not going to go off. I thought of this when Wash was killed (after my heart broke) - the gun went off this time. And then I had the same thought you did: Damn, they might all die. Mal may lose, after all this. You have to respect that lack of conceit, that unwillingness to be precious, on Whedon's part.

But, sadly, I think it was also a signal to all the fans: There will be no encore.

Threshold, the sci-fi with 5 blades?

2005-10-07T02:50:44+00:00

I'm starting to get into CBS' Threshold tonight, having gotten 4 episodes of it. Seems like network TV goes through sci-fi cycles, and this must be the latest. This particular show looks like it might shape up to be combination sci-fi slasher and forensic drama. But, still, I find myself comparing it to a podcast.

Also, what's up with "triple-helix DNA"? Is this a concept that's popped up somewhere—other than being an early guess at our own DNA's structure—like, on UFO conspiracy boards and whatnot? Or is it just double-helix-plus-one so as to be extra spooky alien? (Kinda like a 5-bladed razor?)

Double helix DNA, I think I understand: It's very convenient in copying. Unzip it, dunk it in a soup of free-floating spare parts, agitate, and you end up with two self-assembled copies. But how the hell would a triple-helix work?

On the upside, I do really like the Blit-like concept involved in the "bioforming sound signal" which mentally and genetically alters those who hear it.

Yeah, I think about this crap too much sometimes. Whenever I get around to writing the stories I keep meaning to write, I want to avoid these things.

Archived Comments

Bob Aman
2005-10-07T16:55:05

In a particularly bad episode of "Walker: Texas Ranger", Chuck Norris had to do battle to the death with a genetically-enhanced thug who had triple-helix DNA. He was all bullet-proof and big and stuff, so Chuck tossed him out a window into like a pile of welding tanks and then he blew him up! Or something like that. I wasn't paying attention.

Then Walker went back to kicking normal unenhanced thugs in the head like usual.
l.m.orchard
2005-10-07T17:22:25

That almost sounds like Walker had Real Ultimate Power, though last I knew, he wasn't a Ninja.

The Scene and geek cinéma vérité

2005-09-24T17:46:15+00:00

A coworker introduced me to The Scene last night, and this morning I started grabbing the 12 episodes produced so far. I'm watching the first one right now, on the living room TV via my XBMC-enabled XBox. (At some point, describing this sort of thing will seem so quaint: In the future, of course, everyone will be watching video on demand from the net.)

At any rate, so far this show seems promising--at least to someone comfortable with following the story as presented as a screencast in IRC and instant messaging windows, with the occasional voiceover. Call it a sort of geek cinéma vérité.

The main character is a key part of a pirated movie distribution group, who starts off the story opening a package with a screener DVD of the movie Alexander. Shortly thereafter we seen him in IRC and instant messages, directing the encoding and release of the film with other members of his group.

But, as messages fly in through various chat windows, we start to see other parts of his real life intrude--school, a sick father, friends, a girlfriend. And, soon, someone from another IM network appears... offering pretty significant money for his pirated releases.

I'd recommend it so far.