How to dump your high-priced cable company for a high-tech alternative
8/5/2009 |
In response to a previous Gripe Line post, "Comcast upgrade renders reader's A/V equipment obsolete," Greg writes in:
Charter Communications has been doing the same thing. I'm now paying $20 a month for converter boxes, so I can get channels that moved from analog to the digital-only area. With the original VCR or DVD recorder, though, I could program it to record one channel at one time and another channel the next hour. There is no way to program the digital box to change channels at specified times. I'm very disappointed. I have a few hundred tapes. I should probably just cut the cable and watch reruns. At 10 hours of TV a week, it will be years before I start repeating. By then, my memory will have failed enough that it will all seem like new material to me.
And Christopher reports, "The situation you describe happened a year ago with Verizon Fios. I had to give up using my second tuner. To get television in my children's rooms, I now have to pay for digital adapters."
[ See the InfoWorld post that kicked off this outpouring: "Comcast upgrade renders reader's A/V equipment obsolete" | Frustrated by tech support? Get answers in InfoWorld's Gripe Line newsletter. ]
I don't usually cover products here on the Gripe Line, but since the price tag on cable service drove me to a work-around years ago, I've discovered that it's possible to vote with my dollars when it comes to entertainment. I can't resist sharing my solution.
I skip the cable company's digital box and DVR service altogether by using a Tivo DVR and TiVo service. I subscribe to only the most basic cable service and use TiVo to create a menu of shows I like from that limited programming. I can easily schedule shows from my TV screen or the Web, and I never worry about what time programs are on. I simply search by the program title and subscribe to a Season Pass. TiVo finds it and records it every time it airs. (I can also use TiVo to stream content from Netflix or Amazon Video on Demand.)
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