"Can't get any TV" related question
 

wrote:

On Thu, 17 Apr 2008 08:27:18 -0500 Pete C. wrote:
|
| whosbest54 wrote:
|
| In article [email protected],
| says...
|
|
| On Wed, 16 Apr 2008 12:17:44 -0500, whosbest54 wrote:
|
| But what about those who don't want boxes and want to continue to use
| built in tuners as well as their VCRs and DVD recorders with NTSC
| tuners? There are a lot of people like that; I've met them. I see no
| reason why the cable companies can't provide a basic tier of like 20
| analog channels for a decade or so. After that, I can grudgingly agree
| that they should go all digital.
|
| Why should the cable company be restricted to 20 analog channels when they
| could get over 100 digital channels, or 20 HD channels plus 40 SD channels
| from the same bandwidth the 20 analog channels use up? That's just BS. And
| I'm not a cable advocate. I've never had cable or sat and never will, but
| that doesn't change the fact that it's impeding on their business. They
| should be left alone to doi what they want. If the customers don't like
| it, then can go elsewhere for service.
|
| Because they are a regulated monopoly in most locations and the regulations
| have to account for a number of factors, not just their business needs.
|
| Except for the fact that their monopoly status passed away some years
| ago. The governments just don't want to admit it and get their fingers
| and taxes out of it.

It's still a monopoly in almost all areas. And they are still using an
incumbent infrastructure that they got cheap and others have not chance
to get (thus discouraging competition).

FYI: I do not favor taxing it. I do favor regulating it to ensure it is not
abusive as long as it is a monopoly.

It's not a monopoly. Cable directly competes with satellite TV, some
telcos, and mail DVD / Internet content delivery services.

I have no idea what you are trying to say about incumbent
infrastructure, I used to work for a cable company and I can assure you
that we built all our own infrastructure and rebuilt all of it during a
big fiber upgrade.

Perhaps you are thinking of alternate long distance companies which use
the LEC's infrastructure for the last mile connections, or competitive
Internet access providers who use the LEC's infrastructure to deliver
DSL connections.

"Can't get any TV" related question
 

On Thu, 17 Apr 2008 21:01:26 GMT Wes Newell wrote:
| On Thu, 17 Apr 2008 18:26:41 +0000, phil-news-nospam wrote:
|
| | If you decide to junk your set, you should pay for the recycling. |
| Thumper
|
| But if the government decides to junk it, they should at least pay for
| the recycling.
|
| Come on now, the government uses our money. I don't want to pay for you to
| junk your TV. Pay for it yourself. It's your TV.

If you are so much into "the government should not ..." then why not take
the position that the government should not prohibit us from just dumping
the old bube tube in the local trash pile?

I wouldn't be junking the TV if the government had not changed the TV system.
So I see it as their responsibility.

--
|WARNING: Due to extreme spam, I no longer see any articles originating from |
| Google Groups. If you want your postings to be seen by more readers |
| you will need to find a different place to post on Usenet. |
| Phil Howard KA9WGN (email for humans: first name in lower case at ipal.net) |

"Can't get any TV" related question
 

On Thu, 17 Apr 2008 17:58:44 -0400 Thumper wrote:

| The government doesn't make that decision. Why not have the
| government pay for a new TV for everyone who decides to junk their old
| one?

I'm almost tempted to say that is a good idea. But maybe it is better that
the government just shut down TV altogether and buy us all memberships in
the book of the month club.

--
|WARNING: Due to extreme spam, I no longer see any articles originating from |
| Google Groups. If you want your postings to be seen by more readers |
| you will need to find a different place to post on Usenet. |
| Phil Howard KA9WGN (email for humans: first name in lower case at ipal.net) |

"Can't get any TV" related question
 

On Thu, 17 Apr 2008 19:04:28 -0500 Pete C. wrote:

| It's not a monopoly. Cable directly competes with satellite TV, some
| telcos, and mail DVD / Internet content delivery services.

It's not the same. Internet is not available via satellite from them, so
those are out. Verizon FiOS is the only thing really starting to compete.
But it's still not yet enough.


| I have no idea what you are trying to say about incumbent
| infrastructure, I used to work for a cable company and I can assure you
| that we built all our own infrastructure and rebuilt all of it during a
| big fiber upgrade.

But you would NOT have built one there at all if you didn't already have
the customer base that resulted from having the incumbent system. It's
not about the physical hardware.

What if, before you upgraded the hardware, 4 other cable systems came in
and overbuilt in your area, and started to grab your customers because
their system was better. Your option to retain a likely 20% of what you
had before is to upgrade (a cost about the same as each of the others
doing an overbuild). Would you do that then? I think not because 20%
is not as likely to cover the investment. But then, the others would not
have come in and competed had they not been assured a much larger than 20%
share of the market.


| Perhaps you are thinking of alternate long distance companies which use
| the LEC's infrastructure for the last mile connections, or competitive
| Internet access providers who use the LEC's infrastructure to deliver
| DSL connections.

What I ultimately want is a free market choice of a number of different ways
to access whatever content. Ultimately it will all be digital, anyway. But
if we don't have this competition, then these "captive market" monopolies will
get to AVOID innovations in technology (other than what lets them gouge their
customers even more), and innovations in other offerings like programming.
Most innovations in most markets comes from the smaller businesses coming in
to compete. Certain kinds of business have plenty of competition and that
holds back the motivation to gouge customers. These include things like
banks, restaurants, stores, etc.

It's an even bigger issue with internet providers. Cable and telcos are both
into it, but so far, both are still doing a terrible job at things like the
network privisioning, network management, etc. With enough competition we can
have a truly free market, and all the providers will have to provide a good
service or die.

--
|WARNING: Due to extreme spam, I no longer see any articles originating from |
| Google Groups. If you want your postings to be seen by more readers |
| you will need to find a different place to post on Usenet. |
| Phil Howard KA9WGN (email for humans: first name in lower case at ipal.net) |

"Can't get any TV" related question
 

On Thu, 17 Apr 2008 18:07:00 -0400 Thumper wrote:
| On 17 Apr 2008 19:45:45 GMT, wrote:
|
|On Wed, 16 Apr 2008 13:57:20 -0400 Thumper wrote:
|
|| Do you really think the cable companies should just eat the expense
|| that your ideas will incur?
|
|What additional expense?
|
| You don't think there's an additional expense? I'm not going to take
| the time to explain it to you because you won't believe it any way.

I did not say there was no additional expense. So I assume you are just
not reading the article you are responding to. If you did then you would
see that I actually did address an additional expense of providing free
analog conversion boxes.


| By the way, your whole premise that they can just add stations and
| make more money is baloney. If you have all the programming available
| then you will see that much of it id redundant. There simply isn't
| enough content available.

Given that the full suite of programming available by satellite is MUCH
larger than available by cable, you are clearly in error with that one.
Sure, most of it is standard definition. Lots of HD content is still
working on coming online.

Additionally, more channels available on more systems makes it possible
for more content providers to find enough of a market to start up.

--
|WARNING: Due to extreme spam, I no longer see any articles originating from |
| Google Groups. If you want your postings to be seen by more readers |
| you will need to find a different place to post on Usenet. |
| Phil Howard KA9WGN (email for humans: first name in lower case at ipal.net) |

"Can't get any TV" related question
 

"Barbara" wrote (in part):

From that that terminating connector there lives yet another in-line
amplifier and another splitter (visualize a "Y" output) which feeds a
2 yr. old, small 15" Sharp LED EDTV in an office, and a larger old
analog TV in the living room. I don't think the Sharp EDTV has HD
tuner or capability.

Does the EDTV claim to have any digital tuner at all? If it does, it
should receive the HD channels and display them in 480p, which is
better than what a converter box can do, and you wouldn't need a box
for that set.

If you don't know what the EDTV can do, post its model number so we
can look it up. A quick lookup shows that Sharp has made these both
with and without a digital tuner.

Oh, and I assume that's an LCD, not LED.

Del Mibbler

"Can't get any TV" related question
 

On Fri, 18 Apr 2008 06:02:38 +0000, phil-news-nospam wrote:

On Thu, 17 Apr 2008 21:01:26 GMT Wes Newell
wrote: | On Thu, 17 Apr 2008 18:26:41
+0000, phil-news-nospam wrote: |
| | If you decide to junk your set, you should pay for the recycling. |
| Thumper
|
| But if the government decides to junk it, they should at least pay
for | the recycling.
|
| Come on now, the government uses our money. I don't want to pay for
you to | junk your TV. Pay for it yourself. It's your TV.

If you are so much into "the government should not ..." then why not
take the position that the government should not prohibit us from just
dumping the old bube tube in the local trash pile?

I wouldn't be junking the TV if the government had not changed the TV
system. So I see it as their responsibility.

If it works, somebody wants it. So why junk it at all? if it doesn't work,
then you'd have to junk it anyway.



--
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"Can't get any TV" related question
 

On Fri, 18 Apr 2008 07:16:05 UTC, Del Mibbler [email protected] wrote:

"Barbara" wrote (in part):

From that that terminating connector there lives yet another in-line
amplifier and another splitter (visualize a "Y" output) which feeds a
2 yr. old, small 15" Sharp LED EDTV in an office, and a larger old
analog TV in the living room. I don't think the Sharp EDTV has HD
tuner or capability.

Does the EDTV claim to have any digital tuner at all? If it does, it
should receive the HD channels and display them in 480p, which is
better than what a converter box can do, and you wouldn't need a box
for that set.

If you don't know what the EDTV can do, post its model number so we
can look it up. A quick lookup shows that Sharp has made these both
with and without a digital tuner.

Oh, and I assume that's an LCD, not LED.

Of course it's LCD. I do that all the time when my brain gets a
couple words ahead of my fingers!

This is a Sharp Aquos Model LC-13B6U-S, even smaller than I described.
13 incher! I bought it late 2005, so that's most likely the mfg.
year.

I've seen this model described as HDTV capable, HDTV ready and not.
In the manual specifications page TV mode is described as NTSC-N358
for USA. It has 4 view modes: 4:3 (screen configuration), 16:9, Zoom
and Stretch so that input can be adjusted. The only reference to HDTV
in this whole book is a related note that says, "VIEW MODE settings
are not available when HDTV signals are input. All HDTV programs will
be displayed in letter box format (bars at top and bottom of screen)."
Doesn't bother saying how you "input' those HDTV signals. It also
sports 921,600 dots VGA. It's a great little set.

That's why I said I don't think it has a digital tuner. I'm pretty
sure the larger models in this series (20" and above) did have HTDV
tuners.

--
Barbara

"Can't get any TV" related question
 

On 18 Apr 2008 06:21:44 GMT, wrote:

On Thu, 17 Apr 2008 18:07:00 -0400 Thumper wrote:
| On 17 Apr 2008 19:45:45 GMT, wrote:
|
|On Wed, 16 Apr 2008 13:57:20 -0400 Thumper wrote:
|
|| Do you really think the cable companies should just eat the expense
|| that your ideas will incur?
|
|What additional expense?
|
| You don't think there's an additional expense? I'm not going to take
| the time to explain it to you because you won't believe it any way.

I did not say there was no additional expense. So I assume you are just
not reading the article you are responding to. If you did then you would
see that I actually did address an additional expense of providing free
analog conversion boxes.


| By the way, your whole premise that they can just add stations and
| make more money is baloney. If you have all the programming available
| then you will see that much of it id redundant. There simply isn't
| enough content available.

Given that the full suite of programming available by satellite is MUCH
larger than available by cable, you are clearly in error with that one.

Not at all. I didn't say one couldn't add more channels. I said that
it would be redundant and not provide more income simply because it's
being added.

Sure, most of it is standard definition. Lots of HD content is still
working on coming online.

Additionally, more channels available on more systems makes it possible
for more content providers to find enough of a market to start up.
Nonsense. When an Hd program is added it is usually the same
programming as it' s SD predecessor. Not more content.
Thumper

"Can't get any TV" related question
 

wrote:

On Thu, 17 Apr 2008 19:04:28 -0500 Pete C. wrote:

| It's not a monopoly. Cable directly competes with satellite TV, some
| telcos, and mail DVD / Internet content delivery services.

It's not the same. Internet is not available via satellite from them, so
those are out. Verizon FiOS is the only thing really starting to compete.
But it's still not yet enough.

In most locations you have some combination of the following choices:

Video TV / entertainment service - Cable, DVD by mail, Internet
delivered content, OTA, satellite, Telco
Internet service - Cable, DSL (telco and other), Satellite, MDS
Voice service - LEC, Cable, Cell / PCS carriers, satellite

There are few areas were you don't have at least two choices in each
category. Cable is simply not a monopoly, it's just one of many options
for a delivered entertainment service.


| I have no idea what you are trying to say about incumbent
| infrastructure, I used to work for a cable company and I can assure you
| that we built all our own infrastructure and rebuilt all of it during a
| big fiber upgrade.

But you would NOT have built one there at all if you didn't already have
the customer base that resulted from having the incumbent system. It's
not about the physical hardware.

Huh? The "incumbent system" you're referring to is called a city or
town. The telcos wouldn't have built there unless there was a city or
town, nor would the electric utility, gas utility, water, sewer, roads,
etc. To claim that a city or town is somehow an "incumbent system" is
absurd.


What if, before you upgraded the hardware, 4 other cable systems came in
and overbuilt in your area, and started to grab your customers because
their system was better. Your option to retain a likely 20% of what you
had before is to upgrade (a cost about the same as each of the others
doing an overbuild). Would you do that then? I think not because 20%
is not as likely to cover the investment. But then, the others would not
have come in and competed had they not been assured a much larger than 20%
share of the market.

Satellite TV (little dish) came in and is in full competition for every
home passed by the cable system. Telcos in some areas are in full
competition for every home passed by the cable system. Internet
delivered content is in full competition for every home passed by the
cable system. This has not stopped cable systems from upgrading their
physical plant as well as the services they offer, it's called
competition. If any of the competitors ignores their infrastructure and
services they will eventually fail.


| Perhaps you are thinking of alternate long distance companies which use
| the LEC's infrastructure for the last mile connections, or competitive
| Internet access providers who use the LEC's infrastructure to deliver
| DSL connections.

What I ultimately want is a free market choice of a number of different ways
to access whatever content.

This free market is there now and has been for a number of years, you
just need to take your blinders off and look at it.

Ultimately it will all be digital, anyway. But
if we don't have this competition, then these "captive market" monopolies will
get to AVOID innovations in technology (other than what lets them gouge their
customers even more),

Nearly all innovations in technology that cable companies have embraced
have been to increase system reliability and offer more service.

and innovations in other offerings like programming.

Cable was the one of the first innovators in programming. Cable expanded
the handful of OTA stations in a given market and added dozens of
specialty channels. Cable was the first to offer digital music channels.
Cable was the first to offer high speed Internet access to the general
public. Cable was one of the first sources of HD programming.

Most innovations in most markets comes from the smaller businesses coming in
to compete.

Not true in any of the examples cited above.

Certain kinds of business have plenty of competition and that
holds back the motivation to gouge customers. These include things like
banks, restaurants, stores, etc.

Hardly. Banks move very much in lock step with each other, what
competition you might see is superficial. A large percentage of
restaurants are owned by a small number of mega corporations. There
might be eight different restaurants in a shopping center, but chances
are there are only one or two owners of all of them.


It's an even bigger issue with internet providers. Cable and telcos are both
into it, but so far, both are still doing a terrible job at things like the
network privisioning, network management, etc. With enough competition we can
have a truly free market, and all the providers will have to provide a good
service or die.

I have both cable Internet and DSL Internet service and have had them
for a number of years. In that time I have had virtually no service
issues aside from the sub hour outages a few times a year when some line
gear fails. Every time I have done any speed testing I have found my
speeds consistent with what is provisioned. I don't currently use
satellite Internet but I have associates who do and they report no
issues either. Someone else I know has Internet via a MDS system and
report it works fine as well.