It’s no secret that I hate Comcast, although I still use their Internet service. A few months ago, I successfully removed myself from their Digital Voice in favor of Vonage and ditched their severely overpriced cable TV service for DISH.
One good thing about Comcast around Atlanta is that their service coverage area is so large and populated that they are forced to rely solely on contractors for installation and maintenance (this can be very bad too…especially when you have problems). In my case, I don’t pay for any TV, yet the contractors are lazy and don’t trap the line when you’re on Internet service only. This allows for basic TV service which Comcast charges about $12 a month for, if I recall correctly. More importantly, this opens the door for clear QAM signals to pass.
I use an HDHomeRun as my central tuner for all HTPCs. It’s not used much, but does come in handy once in a while. Ever so often, I will run a scan to update the lineup since Comcast changes it fairly regularly. When I say they change it, it must be due to incompetence because today’s scan cropped up a typical 111 channels.
After removing a couple of duplicates, local service channels and OnDemand streams (yes, those are picked up), it settled down to around 80-85 solid channels. This includes channels like Disney, A&E, History Channel, Discovery, TLC, Animal Planet, E!, BET, Cartoon Network, MTV, Nickelodeon, TruTV, Sci-Fi and the list literally goes on and on. Most of those aren’t in HD (480p), but all local broadcast channels (NBC, FOX, ABC, etc.) are. All are digital, nonetheless.
I don’t know how long Comcast will make these available for free to me, but I’m going to enjoy the ride…
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IIRC the FCC requires the cable companies to leave at least the local network feeds hot on all permanent residential connections regardless of subscription status (something to do with emergency broadcast system coverage). I have the same situation with Comcast (it’s Comcraptic!) here in Denver – their broadband service is really the only game in town where I live (so I’m stuck with them until the Verizon Fiber installers can make their way to my neck of the woods), but I also chose Dish over CATV and VOIP (Packet8) over digital voice.
Long story short is that I’ve been getting free basic cable service for about 5 years now – I use it on my TV in the garage to keep up with the local ball game or whatnot when I’m out there puttering around on one project or another. Here’s hoping they never decide to implement a more sophiticated filter for their “dead” lines.
No FiOS here either and predictions do not look good with the investment Verizon would have to put up front to do so. Comcast and AT&T are pretty much it with Time Warner (which is probably even worse) available downtown.
You’d think cities like Atlanta and Denver would be able to provide a choice, but hats off to what we can get for free!
Hey Jon,
You know i never realized you were in ATL, small world :D
I have DISH also and wondering if you have it integrated with Vista Media Center? I currently have it so each HTPC has a tv tuner and receives the S-Video feed from the receiver…the blaster changes the channels for me. This works well but I want recordings available to each of my HTPCs and can be a manual task sometimes.
Having just bought a new house i’m reconsidering how I want to handle TV distrubution and have been really leaning towards MediaPortal and their TV Server, which looks VERY promising.
Basically you install MP TV server on one PC to act a server (which can also have a client installed on it), which will hold all your TV tuners etc and will record and stream live TV or recorded TV to all your clients. This would allow ALL equipment to be stored in one location and the client just accesses the server for all the TV needs.
Media Portals interface is pretty slick as well, i just started playing around with it yesterday and is actually very easy to setup and configure….
Too bad cable doesn’t offer international channels i’m looking for, it would be a LOT easier to setup than Dish and the IR blasters.
Take Care
Yep :) I actually live in Lawrenceville and work right off the Chamblee exit near 285.
Never hooked my DISH up to the Media Center although I guess I could. There’s only a couple of channels I watch that I don’t get with the HDHomeRun, which prompted us to get the DISH. Anything I would record, I get on the HDHR though, so I’m pretty happy there.
I JUST closed the MediaPortal forum before checking in here. I’ve tried it a few times and just always get hung up somewhere and give it up. It’s just one of the itches I can’t ever scratch though. I’m seriously considering putting a new system online and giving it a real run to see if I can’t get somewhere with it. The biggest holdup for me is the library recreation. The automated discovery is decent, but I’m too picky for my own good and the amount of work needed to get things the way I want them make it almost not worth the effort. But then I get that damn itch again. I think if I can get a dedicated system up for it and just leave it as a work in progress, I may actually come out ahead in the end. With Media Browser’s fate uncertain now, I’m going to have to give MP a real look. I do think it’s a better fit for me too though.
I wrote about a DISH plugin for Media Center a few months ago that came out on the heels of DirecTV’s pluing failure. I’ve not heard anything since though. Probably more vaporware :\
Sweet, yeah I pass chamblee everyday on my way to work/home…moving to John’s Creek now though.
Yeah man Media Portal is VERY powerful, this is my first time playing with it and I have it figured out pretty well after only 1 day of playing around with it…
The TV server is what really got me looking into it and although I haven’t tested TV server yet, the Media part of it has me hooked.
The Moving Pictures plugin is pretty solid and it picked up my locally stored images just fine, but it fetched it’s own metadata from IMDb (i really don’t know if it looks for local metadata or not).
The only drawback is the database, which although can be centralized for a multi-client environment, is not supported by the Media Portal team currently.
I still have a lot of reading to do and i have 2 months before i start moving, so that should give me enough time :)
P.S. This is < btw :)
Take Care
The TV part is what gave me the most trouble. I couldn’t get the TV server to start at all and I just couldn’t get my local TV series detected with any kind of regularity. I am pretty certain I’m going to put a build up in the next day or two…just to not let it get the best of me if nothing else :)
Movie detection was top-notch though, I agree and Moving Pictures definitely looks nice.
We may have to start comparing some notes soon :D
I’ll look forward to your writeup about TV Server (if you do) when you get your build up.
Right now i’m wondering how I will handle 4 dish receivers with 4 tuners in the TV server, since each one will require a separate IR blaster…i don’t want to purchase equipment and just have it sit there….
I’ll be posting in the Media Portal forums soon to get my head around this…
As for comparing notes, i’ll be most likely cheating off your notes :D
Take Care