| Tuesday, February 20, 2007 |
| The monolith, part 2 |
For decades, this is how people watched TV:
1. Buy a TV
2. Plug it in
3. Adjust rabbit ears
4. Watch
But that was before the era of digital cable and HDTV. It's a whole new ballgame now, baby. A much more complicated ballgame.
Last week, I called to make an appointment with Comcast to come out and install a digital cable card in our new giganto-TV. Yesterday, after our new TV and Series 3 TiVo had been delivered, Joe was looking at the instructions that came with the TiVo and realized that it needs two digital cable cards. So we'd actually need a total of three cards. Joe called Comcast and informed them that the cable guy needed to bring the extra cards. Today when the cable guy arrived, I asked him if he'd brought three cards. No, he'd only brought one. Apparently they print out the work orders far enough in advance that if you call the day before to make a change, you're out of luck.
The cable guy installed the one card in our TV, and we made another appointment for someone to come back on Thursday with the two extra cards. Cable guy says it'll take 30 minutes for the card to be fully activated. He leaves. An hour goes by and it's not working. Joe calls Comcast and is unsuccessful in getting the tech support person to resolve the issue. It is determined that on the Thursday appointment, the cable guy will bring and install all three cards.
At this point, I'm sure people are wondering why we're dealing with Comcast when all the cool kids use DirecTV or Dish. Because we live in an apartment building, and we don't have a balcony or a ledge or anyplace where we could put a dish, we're pretty much stuck with Comcast. Also, our condo association board buys cable in bulk from the company, so everyone who lives here gets it at a reduced rate (the fees are included in our monthly dues). That saves us quite a bit of money every month.
Anyway, we can still use our analog cable with the new TV, but the digital wonderland still eludes us. Will we be able to watch Tina Fey and "30 Rock" in high def on Thursday night? Again, stay tuned... |
posted by 125records @ 10:50 PM  |
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| 6 Comments: |
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I've heard that cable cards just don't work. Or that they have a lot of problems, at least. Good luck!
cprnd! cprnd!
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If the cable cards don't work we'll have to get a cable box. I just didn't want another box cluttering up the place... I have no interest in the pay-per-view type stuff.
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Just emerging from my hole in the ground and scraping off a bit of tallow-candle wax to point out that I have no idea what a "cable card" even is. I know if you say "cable card" really fast, it might be that thing everyone thinks about when they think "San Francisco." No, the other thing.
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I listen to some tech podcasts and they say Comcast is very passive-aggressive about cable cards becaust then they lose the converter box rental money. Keep on them.
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2fs: helloooo, that's why I linked to a Wikipedia article about cable cards...
yellojkt: I wouldn't even have known about cable cards if it hadn't been for the guy at the home theater store. There is no mention of them anywhere on Comcast's web site. I guess they are legally obligated to provide them but they sure don't advertise them.
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"link"? "Wikipedia"? I'm this far away from shaving off my mustache and keeping my beard and eschewing buttons.
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Name: Sue
Home: San Francisco Bay Area, California, United States
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I've heard that cable cards just don't work. Or that they have a lot of problems, at least. Good luck!
cprnd! cprnd!