Oddball Update

Okay, I’ve never been a proponent of digital cable, despite never using it. I always was of the opinion that satellite TV services were far superior and that cable was crap. While it may be true that satellite gives you some advantages (depending on how well equipped your local cable outfit is), I am happy to say that I am really enjoying Comcast’s digital cable — and we don’t even have the high definition service yet.

One of the big advantages is the picture quality — it’s dramatically improved on every channel. The digital-only channels look the best, but even the analog ones are much clearer than before. Part of this is due to the new signal amplifier we had installed on the main line in the attic. During the install, one of the techs noted that our home’s signal levels were so piss-poor, one of the cable boxes wouldn’t even work. Now, even on the pure analog TVs in the house, the picture quality is stunning. (Hopefully this will eliminate the random Internet drop-outs, too.)

By far, though, my two favorite things about digital cable are the free Encore movie channels and the On Demand service. Encore is basically a multiplexed set of movie channels that play a wide variety of stuff, old and new. They have a couple of “primary channels” as well as channels dedicated to action films, mysteries, love stories, dramas and westerns. I believe Comcast is one of the few cable companies who offer the entire Encore multiplex for free to digital cable subscribers — in other words, they’re included with our service. Which is great, because I hate paying $15 a month for a set of HBOs, in the off chance that something good might be on once in a while.

On Demand is something else entirely. It involves a huge array of networked storage, centrally located at your regional cable office, filled with movies, TV shows, specials and other video content. Using your cable box, you can request any of that content at any time, and it streams right to you. It even has built-in, DVR-like features such as rewinding, pausing and fast-forwarding, even if you don’t actually have a DVR box from the cable company. It’s really quite cool.

Still, I never thought I’d use On Demand at all — because I thought it was like pay-per-view, in that you have to pay extra for each piece of content you request. Not so at all. In fact, most of what’s available through Comcast On Demand is totally free. And it’s not just movies, either. They’ve got a huge array of TV shows, concerts, specials, how-tos, local video, even karaoke, most of which costs zero dollars. In fact, they have the entire current season of Battlestar Galactica (or what parts of it have already aired, anyway) available whenever you want it, and I believe the new episodes go online 24 hours after they air on Friday nights. Some of this content is also offered in high definition, for those so equipped. And the video quality is typically superior to what gets aired live on the networks. So yeah, now I see why Comcast always plays up On Demand in their marketing, and why everybody raves about it.

But tonight, it wasn’t On Demand that I was watching. It was Terminator 2 on the Encore channel. And then after that, Die Hard with a Vengeance. And like premium movie channels, there are no commercials, and all the filthy language is left in. Because as I joked earlier, “It wouldn’t be a Bruce Willis movie without the filthy language.”

The only snag so far have been the cable boxes themselves. I’d heard that our area typically provides Scientific Atlanta hardware, while most Comcast markets use Motorola boxes. However, when the installers showed up, they had neither — instead, they gave us two antique-looking Pace 510s. Seriously, they looked just like the box my grandmother used to have in the early ’90s, back when there was only one HBO channel. The first thing we learned about the Pace 510 is that it takes forever to change channels, particularly digital ones. I wasn’t happy, but I kept my mouth shut because other than that, they seemed to be working well enough.

Until today, that is. That’s when the box on Apple’s TV promptly went on the fritz. The signal went dark, the box would not respond to commands and the front panel display simply flickered “0000″ over and over endlessly. So, after a quick call to tech support, I went down to the Comcast office on US 41 to trade it in for a new unit. What did they give me? A beautiful Scientific Atlanta Explorer 2100. This made both of us immensely happy, because here is a box that you can actually surf channels with (it doesn’t take five seconds to change), and it’s also a much better-built unit with a broader range of support resources available online. I’ve still got a Pace box on my big TV, but that’s fine because eventually I’ll get a high-def DVR and those are all made by Scientific Atlanta anyway.

So, our first foray into next-gen (heh, more like current-gen) television technology has been a resounding success. Now I just gotta make sure it doesn’t affect my productivity.

Categorized as Media, Media/Television