Why I think Comcast cable service is a terrible value for our family:
Recently, I bought an HDTV and was anxious to see what
fine art would look like displayed at 1080i on it.
I found that Comcast digital cable here in the Seattle
area has an Free On Demand program from Galleryplayer
which displays art.
comcast.com
So naturally I rushed to the Comcast service center
to pick up a digital HD receiver--which we rent for
$6.50 a month. We also rent a small reciever which
is only $3.80 a month, but until recently, that was
a good value because we were getting free on demand.
But no more! No, Comcast noticed that we subscribe only
to limited cable service ($14) and TV5 Monde (a la carte $10).
So our bill, after misc taxes and surcharges,
came to a grand total of over $40 this past month!
This for local channels and HD and one channel a la
carte, but no more "Free On Demand"! Oh it is free all
right--for a price, ha! (you cannot actually have
free on demand without subscribing to a package...I
checked twice with customer reps, and they would not
let us have it again.
Looks like it is time to hook up the antenna again!!!
That is nearly $500 a year that will not be going to Comcast
after I turn our set top boxes and have Comcast disconnect our
service.
After all, with nearly $500 I can give to my local PBS
station, upgrade Netflix to three discs at at time, and have
enough left over to subscribe to Galleryplayer for our PC--
I will just run a DVI-d cord over to our HDTV.
Goodbye Comcast!
P.S. I had to go to the internet to find out how to
set the digital receiver to output 1080i: Comcast, you
rented it to me set at 480i, nice!
Here is the trick folks need to know...
Leave your TV on and power off the HD cable box (mine is
a Motorola DCT6200 series receiver that I had to indentify
using the www, it is not labeled with anything but the
Comcast logo...)
Anyway, within two seconds of powering off the box, hit
the menu button on the box. An on-screen display will come
up on your TV and you can see if your cable box is configured
to output 16:9 or 4:3 and whether it is sending 480 or 1080
lines of vertical resolution to your monitor. Our YPbPr cord
was only piping normal broadcast resolution (480i) and you
can be sure PBS HD looked a lot better after I switched it
to 1080!
Sure would have been nice to been told that when I rented
the box...
Comcast, I am grading your service a D today. You should
not advertise that FREE On Demand comes free with a digital
cable box rental. But you do exactly that on hour list
of prices and such. And, a cable bill should not come to
$40 a month when all you want to do is let the kids watch
Spongebob once a day, and have access to two channels. |
