Hotels' new-tech TVs have guests fuming - USA Today

"Charles Tomaras" wrote in message
...

"Bruce Tomlin" wrote in message
...

As I see it, there are only two reasons to have cable/sat TV: either you
live so far out in the boonies that you can't even get all the main
broadcast networks, or you're a sports fan.

CNN, MSNBC, Discovery, A&E, History Channel, National Geographic, CNBC,
the list goes on and on. It's too bad that at least some of these cannot
be offered on an OTA subchannel.

There's far more to television than CSI and Law and Order.


I had DirecTV for 1 main reason, a lovely little channel called TechTV. The
channel then got raped in the a$$ by Comcast and was turned into G4TechTV
and is now just G4. At first they fired all of the hosts that were worth a
damn and started showing programming about gaming 24/7. The problem with
that is that anyone who is a gamer is busy gaming and occasionally going
online to look up cheat codes and walkthroughs and are not watching a TV
show containing them. Now it seems that all G4 is good for is showing reruns
of "Cops".

I do not currently have a pay TV service but I do have my TWiT podcast, a
Netflix sub, and a rooftop antenna plus a couple CM7000 boxes and hopefully
will get a Samsung SIR-TS360.

"Elmo P. Shagnasty" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"Charles Tomaras" wrote:

"Bruce Tomlin" wrote in message
...

As I see it, there are only two reasons to have cable/sat TV: either
you
live so far out in the boonies that you can't even get all the main
broadcast networks, or you're a sports fan.

CNN, MSNBC, Discovery, A&E, History Channel, National Geographic, CNBC,
the
list goes on and on. It's too bad that at least some of these cannot be
offered on an OTA subchannel.

There's far more to television than CSI and Law and Order.

Fortunately:

a) there are only so many hours in the day

b) much of this stuff is available, or will be available, streaming
through venues like Netflix and Hulu et al.

When the full screen quality of Netflix and Hulu approximate the full screen
quality of History Channel HD or Discovery HD on my 58" 1080 television I'll
be interested. Mean time...I'm stuck with a pay provider. Actually I
wouldn't mind paying ala carte for all of it if they were selling the same
visual and audio quality on line. We just aren't quite there yet but I hope
that someday soon IP will make the challenge to the pay providers. Of
course...with Comcast buying NBC etc we can all see the handwriting on that
wall!

On Feb 10, 4:43*pm, Mikepier wrote:
You can add hospitals to that list, too.

I work in a hospital where we are starting to put in flat-panels to
replace the old tubes, but our cable provider does not provide any HD
channels ( even clear QAM) and the STB's are ancient.

Meanwhile we still have our rooftop antenna with an amp that only
serves to provide reception for our main MUZAC FM radio. So I just
simply ran a cable into our shop and we have free OTA HD. Quite nice
if there is a football or baseball game on. Its amazing how many
people have no idea they can get free HD with just an antenna.

How are you doing that? Is that cable? These are the two
questions I get most often when I show somebody OTA HDTV, I blame
this on the cable and dish companies who used the occasion of the
Transition to scare people.

A silly little wire hanging out on the table gets half of my locals!!
A modest
antenna gets everything.

"Sal"

On Feb 12, 10:58*pm, "Daniel W. Rouse Jr."
wrote:
....

So then why create a security risk to begin with, by providing any specific
geolocation data? General area is more than good enough. So in my case, I
won't post my ZIP code, get over it and move on.

The posting ZIP code issue is therefore resolved and closed.

Presuming that wasn't a retorical question... Why provide any
"geolocation" data? So that others can help you. Unless you are in a
zip code with only a couple of houses (are there any?), a zip code
will only narrow you down to 1 in 10s of thousands. To me that risk
is insubstantial compared to the help I might get by letting others
know my location. By the way, I'm in 60504, so stop by and say "Hi"
if you are in the neighborhood. You can see my reception setup and
find out how good digital OTA TV can be.

Dan (Woj...)

In article ,
"Elmo P. Shagnasty" wrote:

a) there are only so many hours in the day

b) much of this stuff is available, or will be available, streaming
through venues like Netflix and Hulu et al.

also

c) much of this stuff gets released to DVD, which can be rented

"Bruce Tomlin" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"Elmo P. Shagnasty" wrote:

a) there are only so many hours in the day

b) much of this stuff is available, or will be available, streaming
through venues like Netflix and Hulu et al.

also

c) much of this stuff gets released to DVD, which can be rented

Well..I'd prefer to just watch or DVR the HD versions of it if I can rather
watch things well after the fact on DVD. I do like the societal aspect of
seeing programs in close proximity to thier airings.

whosbest54 wrote:
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/20...vel09_ST_N.htm

I've been irritated by this too. Why bother with putting in 40 or 42
inch HD flat panels in rooms and only provide 20 SD stations all in
strech mode with a lousy picture?

I've noted a few hotels I've stayed at get a cable feed with some local
stations in clear QAM HD that can be tuned in. That's certainly better
than SD only.

whosbest54

I've stayed in two hotels recently with wide screen sets where some of
the channels with B.S. stretch, but some were actually HiDef.

"Roger Blake" wrote

Those flat things are
just weird and futuristic,
like some sci-fi thing out of the *year 2000* .

That is SO funny!

Where do buy your repair parts for your Stanley Steamer?

"Daniel W. Rouse Jr." wrote

So then why create a security risk to begin with, by providing any
specific geolocation data? General area is more than good enough. So in my
case, I won't post my ZIP code, get over it and move on.

But, you're giving away a hell of a lot more than you think by posting with
your full name.

Use a screen name!

On Sun, 14 Feb 2010 13:28:40 -0600, Bruce Tomlin
wrote:

In article ,
"Elmo P. Shagnasty" wrote:

The old people who are used to OTA and who still use OTA are better off
than the dweebs who think TV costs $100/month.

I have to agree.

IMHO, the reason cable TV ever got as big as it did was because of the
ways in which analog OTA TV sucked. Not that digital doesn't have new
problems of its own, but when you live in the same city as the station,
and your picture has ghosting and other interference problems, and hey,
not only can you ditch the antenna, but you can get movie channels too,
why not get cable?

Then the price of cable steadily grew, like boiling a frog, while much
of what sports used to be on OTA are now cable/sat-only, moved to ESPN
and the like. And people continued to write that check every month for
pay TV. Meanwhile, they forgot completely about antenna TV, and are in
awe when told you can get TV without paying someone every month.

As I see it, there are only two reasons to have cable/sat TV: either you
live so far out in the boonies that you can't even get all the main
broadcast networks, or you're a sports fan. I'm not a sports fan, and
neither am I brainwashed into thinking that it's the only way to get TV,
so I have an antenna. And I've been watching nothing but DTV on that
antenna for six years or so.

We have had cable for decades. Certainly not in the boonies, analog
reception from Mt. Wilson in this community was simply unacceptable.
Analog cable reception is/was not. Now, in our particular case, the
cable channels only serve one member of the household with desirable
programming most of the year but when the Winter Olympics arrived I
just had to get an additional HD-DVR to record *curling* on those HD
channels which are most definitely not OTA. At the end of the games
I'll return the DVR. It will have cost me $10 (half a month's rental
of STB/DVR) to receive more video entertainment hours, which are not
available OTA, than I can get from any other source at many times the
price.

We are also able to receive OTA digital and it is superb reception.
However, TWC cable carries ALL the OTA streams available here. Since
the cable would be here anyway, there's no need to connect the antenna
- which happens to be in the attic - the useless roof antenna having
been removed long ago.

Although the curling coverage in these Olympics was my motivation for
short term rental of the equipment, I'm not a sports fan per se. About
the only other time I'll rent the equipment is for the America's Cup.