After moving into my new apartment last week I realized that the building was not wired for Cable. Apparently the building’s owner has such an anti-Charter bias he refuses to allow them to operate in his building. Convenient for the tenants for sure. I was left to choose between Dish Network and DirecTV for my television viewing.
The satellite guy recommend Dish Network because it was “easier” to setup for him. I really had no opinion either way so I signed off. After having virtually no problems with Charter other than the contractors they employ to install their equipment I was left to learn a new system. Here’s my opinion after one week of satellite service.
HD
I have a large and expensive TV. I have a certain level of expectation when it comes to my picture quality. Charter’s HD was incredible - the picture was crisp and the colors were vibrant. Their biggest problem was the dispute with Belo Corp that prevented CBS to be broadcast in HD. This required me to miss many SEC Football Games in HD. Not good times. I was looking forward to Dish Network’s HD. I knew they had CBS available and they also had many more HD channels than Charter. This of course was before I realized Dish Network recently lost an HD satellite. I’m not sure how that’s affected their HD capacity but the picture is not nearly as crisp as Charter. So far this has been disappointing. By the end of the year they’re supposed to launch the all-HD TurboHD explosion superpack which will bump the HD channels up to 150. Not much benefit if they can’t get the issues with the picture figured out.
Winner: Charter
DVR
With Charter I did not have DVR service because they had onDemand which I loved. Most of the shows I wanted to watch were available the next day on onDemand. Californication, Weeds, and Entourage were there, Music Videos were there, a whole slew of movies were there also. The only things that weren’t there were broadcast stations and sporting events and most of those things were available on Hulu. Now that I have Dish Network onDemand is not an option. Into the murky waters of DVR I now wade. It is a pain in the ass. For one thing you have to remember to record the shows you want to watch. With onDemand they were just there. Plus you constanstly run the risk of not capturing an entire episode of a show if it runs over or is delayed. Again with onDemand this was not an issue.
Winner: Charter
Pricing
With Charter I had all the movie channels, the HD package, and Internet access for about $108. Now with Dish Network I have America’s Top 200, 2 movie channels, and the HD package, and no Internet access for around $90. The lack of Internet access hurts and I have no doubt my bill will be pushed well beyond the $108 it was with Charter if Internet was factored in.
Winner: Charter
Outages
For me Charter’s outages were infrequent. I was once living in an old building and the Internet would go out semi-frequently but that was more of a hardware issue rather than Charter’s fault I believe. With satellite you are constantly at the mercy of the weather. In the first week that I’ve had service we had a severe rainstorm which knocked out service for the evening. When the winter snow season comes I expect further outages.
Winner: Charter
Channels
Due to financial constraints I dropped TMC, Cinemax, and Starz when I went to Dish Network. Those won’t really be missed. I got to keep Showtime and HBO as those are my primary viewing stations. Despite losing those movie channels I did gain several quality stations including ESPNews, ESPN Classic, NFL Network, and Fuse. Picture be damned there are many more HD channels available as well.
Winner: Dish Network
Contracts
With Charter there are no contracts. Cancel anytime. Change service when you want and there will be no fees. This has benefits and disadvantages. Good: If I dislike the service I can threaten to leave (and actually do it) at any point in time. Bad: Charter can jack up the rates whenever they choose (and believe they do it and try to be real sneaky about it). With Dish Network I have a 2 year contract. If I cancel service I will be hit with a hefty fine in the range of $120 or so. Contracts are a pain in the ass but at least you know there won’t be any surprise $50 upcharges on your bill.
Winner: Dish Network
Overall I think Dish Network has a lot of potential and I’m still figuring it all out but Charter did provide me with great service for over 4 years and at this point I still miss them.
Overall Winner: Charter Cable
August 4th, 2008
Last night I was flipping through the channels looking for nothing in particular when I stumbled upon a new show on Spike called Manswers. Now I don’t usually watch Spike in fact I really have no idea what they have to offer besides UFC. If I was programming a channel for men I would just show Wall Street, Road House, and The Search for the next Penthouse Pet (pretty sure I made that last one up) around the clock.
I clicked the info button and the description read something like this: “Self-defense tips for a bar settings, breast sizes and bowel movements are discussed..” Good Lord! This was the show for me! They finally figured out the whole programming for men thing I’ll tell you that.
The show is described as:
Spike TV answers all of the burning questions men have been dying to ask, but never found socially acceptable.
Basically someone comes up with a stupid question, they ask a bunch of people on the street their opinions, and then they have experts answer them. It’s genius! It’s like every discussion you’ve ever had in a bar but on TV!
The questions I can recall from last night:
How many beers will kill you?
They said 18 would give you alcohol poisoning but they based that on a 160 lb man. I’m around 220 lbs and I’m pretty sure I’ve had over 30 beers once or twice while in college. I’m still alive. I suffered some rough mornings and woke up next to some ugly women but nothing worse. They need to revise this one. Is the average man 160lbs? Really? Sounds tiny.
Which animal is most like a female to sleep with?
Um, yeah. It wouldn’t be a men’s show if you didn’t talk about having sex with something you aren’t supposed to. The manswer was the Dugong, a sea cow like creature. Apparently sailors used to sex these things when they got lonely. I guess their anatomy is closest to that of a female human. That’s about all I’m going to say about that subject.
How do you stop your GF from being a mega bitch?
The manswer was to have unprotected sex with her. Of course then you run the risk of getting her pregnant which would seem to have the exact opposite effect you were going for.
I’ll be tuning into Manswers again. It has a lot of potential. Season 2 starts September 17.
July 17th, 2008
Last night I finally received my newest toy, the Roku Netflix Player. After waiting almost two weeks for backordering and Fedex’s slooooow ground shipping to get here I came home after work and there it was. A tiny black box roughly the size of a paperback book (if that book is the Bible) that I could watch my Netflix movies on! No more waiting for the mail to get here! I was excited. Then I tried to set it up which turned into a major pain in the ass.
The contents of the box were simple. The player, a remote, and cables. Easy enough. I hooked up the Roku to my TV via HDMI and plugged it in fully expecting it would detect my wireless network and be on it’s way. Not so fast. It found my network alright but it refused to let me connect. After unhooking and reconnecting wires and restarting modems and routers I still had nothing. I was pissed and a little sweaty.
I logged on to the Roku support website where I was told to hook the player up through a wired connection “just to get it started”. Apparently there was a software update that needed to be installed which would greatly improve the networking capabilities of the box. Now how I was expected to know that a product that was just released two weeks ago needed a software update I’m not sure but I decided to give it a try. I dug out my 25ft ethernet cable and hooked it directly into the box. Everything finally worked. The software installed and I was viewing my queue in seconds. I wasn’t quite prepared to be tripping over ethernet cable for the next 6 months however so I gave the wireless route another go.
Of course that didn’t work. Same error as earlier. I was seriously about to smash this POS with a hammer. I took a deep breath and tried it one last time. Unhooked and power cycled everything then said a little prayer to Jeebus Cripes. And what do you know….it worked! Estimated time of install = 2 hours.
Making up for all the hassle is the interface. It is slick! The videos are near DVD quality and after adding a movie to your instant queue it appears in about 15 seconds on screen. Netflix has done it once again.
There are, of course, some areas for improvement:
Selection Only about 10,000 of Netflix’s 100,000 movies are available for instant watching. They need to work hard to increase this selection. Most TV shows seem to be there so that is a plus.
Blu-Ray All the videos are standard def. It would be nice to have a few HD choices in there as well. Like I said the majority of videos I tested were DVD or near-DVD quality but a few looked like they were on the edge of VHS quality.
DVD Menus/Controls I understand the nature of the Internet and the effect that it has on video but I would like the full DVD controls to be available on these videos. FF/Rewind/Next/Previous/Extras etc. Right now there is a rudimentary FF/Rewind functionality.
More than Netflix One of the biggest drawbacks is that this box only plays Netflix videos. I realize that’s the point but I would like to see it incorporate content from other sites. If they add Hulu, DailyShow.com, and South Park Studios I don’t think I would ever leave the house. Mp3 and XVid would be gravy.
I would like to personally thank George W. Bush for the economic stimulus which allowed me to purchase this $99 box. Thanks Bushie this almost makes up for the time you cock-blocked me back in 2004 (that’s a story for another post).
June 5th, 2008
On May 28, 1998 comedian Phil Hartman was shot in the face by his wife Brynn as he slept in their Encino, CA home. The world lost the “glue” of so many Saturday Night Live skits. He played SNL’s Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer, Bill Clinton, and Frankenstein’s Monster. He was NewsRadio’s Bill McNeal and a slew of Simpson’s characters most notably Troy McClure and Lionel Hutz.
This leaves me with only two conclusions. Either I should never get married or never marry a woman who might one day mix a Zoloft/Alcohol/Cocaine cocktail and keep a loaded revolver in the house.
RIP Phil. We still miss you.
May 28th, 2008
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