Are You Being Cheated by Digital Cable?

Lauren Weinstein writes "Even though your cable company may claim that a channel is in a digital tier that you're paying for, they may be sending it to you in analog form, with associated negative effects. Surprise! Are You Being Cheated by Digital Cable? 'You're paying for digital, you should get digital. Outside of the lower video and audio quality that can be present on many analog feeds, third-party devices (like cableCARD TiVos) which could otherwise record a digital signal directly, will be forced to re-digitize an analog signal, with inevitable quality loss in the process. But how to know for sure if a channel is digital or analog as received?'"

Comments

Shove that up your advertising-hole, Adelphia.

[Jenerick]

Disadvantage: cable.

Re:Got cable, but slowly transitioning...

[jotok]

First, you need to learn the difference between "theft" and "violation of access controls."

Second, I pay for cable and regularly download shows that I miss.

Think about it: You pay for Comedy Central. They show South Park. You missed it last night, but you can just download it from somewhere. Comcast is not losing revenue, especially since I also paid for their internet service to download the episode.

Now, they believe that what I'm paying for is the right to view shows on their schedule. This is bullshit, and I see nothing wrong with going elsewhere for content for which I've already paid (read: I may get the DVD for the sake of convenience or to support a show I like, but otherwise, yeah, I'm going to go "steal" it).

Re:Got cable, but slowly transitioning...

[evilviper]

Honestly, I'd rather pay a la carte for shows we like than deal with the cable mess.

What? dada21 for once forgot to tell us how libertarianism is going to magically solve this problem, and force companies to give you what you want.