DTV issues

[Howard Glazer]

----- Original Message -----
From: Brian Vita <brian_vita@cssinc.com>

> The problem is that the coupons are for $40 and the tuners are $60 at most
> stores.  I think that there's a perception to wait until they go on sale.
>
> I also wonder what percentage of folks ordered the coupons "just in case"
> but have cable hookups.
>

I had an old analog set (1983 vintage) that I was using hooked up to an
analog cable box. Back in October, Cox decided to kill off all the old
analog boxes without warning -- I was watching a baseball playoff game on
Fox when the screen suddenly switched to the program guide and the box
display read "E4." I went to the Cox office the next morning to find a line
of people already there with their dead boxes. The Cox rep told me they were
just as surprised as we were; regional management in Rhode Island had made
the decision and had not told the people lower down in the food chain until
after the fact. Anyway, I was told there were going to be no replacement
analog boxes and that I had two choices if I wanted to continue with analog
service: order a $40 coupon and buy a tuner or buy a digital-compatible TV
and plug the cable into that. I ordered the coupon, but found out at the end
of the (completely automated) call that it wouldn't arrive for at least
three weeks, so I bought a new TV instead. The coupon arrived in early
November; I still have it and it won't be used.

The digital channels I get with the expanded analog service are an
interesting lot, including TBS, Universal Sports (all Olympic-type sports,
apparently carried on a WVIT subchannel), one NBA League Pass channel that's
apparently been left in the clear (Game 10, Utah-Phoenix is on right now),
and anywhere from one to six channels that carry on-demand programming at
random times. These programs -- usually movies, but I did catch a wrestling
event once -- sometimes skip among channels every few minutes, but I'm
usually able to watch a movie pretty much straight through. Is this the norm
for just hooking a cable up to a digital TV set?

Howard