Let's get serious!!

[Dan Berndt]

OK, I guess I'm going to be here a while. Let's get serious with this form.

I was with Charter for years. I use to email them at least once a week when HD first started coming out. After years with no replies to my emails and no HD I finally left Charter.

Within months after I left Charter to go to DirecTV, Charter finally started up HD in my area. That was two and a half years ago. I went with VOOM in November 2003.

I think the VOOM forum here at satelliteguys accomplished a lot of great things, foremost for me was it gave me an outlet for my comments and I here the discussions from others. I never had that from DirecTV or Charter. I hope we can do something similar with this Charter forum that we accomplished with the VOOM forum.

Here is a list of things I want to know about Charter;

1. When is Charter going to quit broadcasting analog signals?

2. How may SD and HD channels can the Charter equipment support?

3. Can and/or when will Charter convert to MPEG4?

4. Charter has a press release stating that it's going to start broadcasting TNT-HD. When and what other channels HD channels is Charter planning in the future? When is Charter going to pick up VOOM?

5. How can we recruit Charter subscribers to our forum?

6. How can we get Charter executives to come to our forum to read our posts.

7. Or, if we can't get Charter to come here, how do we get our comments to Charter?

My Charter isn't actually getting reinstalled until next Saturday. I'm sure I'm going to have many more questions as time goes on.

Trying to communicate with Charter before was always like beating my head against a brick wall before. I'm sure I am going to have many complaints and comments about Charter. It's going to be great to be able to share those with that actually read them and respond.

Goodbye VOOM Charter, I'm back

 

[oby]

What is very frustrating is the fact that some Charter markets like Reno, Nevada have a very good HD lineup; whereas other markets like St. Louis, have a very poor lineup. For example, here in St. Louis: Fox, CBS, NBC, and WB-11; Showtime HD, HBO HD, HDnet, HDmovies, and ESPN Hd.

Reno: Fox, CBS, NBC, ABC, PBS; Discovery HD, TNT HD, Cinemax HD, Starz HD; in addition to SHowtime HD, HBO HD, HDnet, HDmovies, and ESPN HD.

So, Reno has at least four more HD channels. In addition, Unversal HD is on some Charter systems, but not Reno or St. Louis.

Its a cluster-f#$k.

 

[jbcheshire]

Which is just almost stupid since St Louis is where Charter is headquartered... You'd think they have the best here where the uppity-ups are living...go figure..

 

[Dan Berndt]

What is very frustrating is the fact that some Charter markets like Reno, Nevada have a very good HD lineup; whereas other markets like St. Louis, have a very poor lineup. For example, here in St. Louis: Fox, CBS, NBC, and WB-11; Showtime HD, HBO HD, HDnet, HDmovies, and ESPN Hd.

Reno: Fox, CBS, NBC, ABC, PBS; Discovery HD, TNT HD, Cinemax HD, Starz HD; in addition to SHowtime HD, HBO HD, HDnet, HDmovies, and ESPN HD.

So, Reno has at least four more HD channels. In addition, Unversal HD is on some Charter systems, but not Reno or St. Louis.

Its a cluster-f#$k.

This actually good news to me. If Reno has TNT HD and Starz HD that means the rest of us will get these channels eventually. After all the anticipation I had to go through with VOOM, may anticipation tolerance is pretty good.

Do you know what area has Universal HD?

 

[Dan Berndt]

I've got some more questions about Charter;

Charter must be using a satellite. Where is this satellite located in the sky and what is the name of it? Does Charter own this satellite or are they just leasing use on it?

Also, what about the up link? Does Charter own the uplink or is there some kind of service that sends up all these channels and Charter justs pulls them down like any other satellite customer?

How many transponders does Charter pull satellite signals off of and how much spare capacity is there?

How are we going to find answers to all these questions?

 

[Dan Berndt]

This link is the best access to back door information on Charter I have found so far:

http://www.cableadvisorycouncil.org/index.htm .

It's for the Cable Advisory Council of Charter Communications a steering group for Charter in the CT area.

 

[cableman265]

Here is a quick list of some answers for you.

1. Charter will quit broadcasting analog when they are required to. Right now they broadcast analog because it is required by many franchise agreements so that people dont have to convert to digital. In the next month or so, if you have digital then you will not have anymore analog, but analog will not go away anytime soon until the government starts requiring digital.
2. They can support many SD and HD channels. It is not unlimited space, but there is a lot of room there for many more channels, plus new technologies freeing up more space. But analog channels take up a lot of space, so as soon as they can dump those much more space will be available.
3. I dont know, havent heard but i will ask around.
4. There are numerous HD channels in the works right now. The problem is not receiving the channel, its getting the lawyers and bean counters for both Charter and the channels to come up with a contract that lets them show the channel. Its all about the money. More channels makes your bill go up, and thats what most people care about.
5. I think word of mouth is the best way to get people to a forum of this type. The people are coming, but its hard to just target Charter people.
6. Wont happen unless somebody below them reads something interesting and sends it along for them to read. And by interesting I mean some wild crazy rumor, or some type of slanderous attack against them personally. They just dont have the technical knowledge to answer any common everyday questions.
7. I dont know, on their website you can send emails for problems and stuff, I dont know if you can send other stuff. Wouldnt matter anyways.

 

[oljim]

What a joke, Charter has no HD here, and no plans.
SC

 

[Dan Berndt]

OK, here is a very important question;

Currently most televisions can receive all the Charter analog channels without a converter box. All the new televisions are coming out with digital over the air receivers. Will the new televisions be able to receive the Charter digital signals that replace the under 100 channels?

Another part of that question is will all the local channels that broadcast in HD over the air be available as HD when the under 100 channel digital conversion takes place?

And that brings up another question that maybe I can get a real answer to; Can the current digital local channels Charter broadcasts be picked up by an over the air digital receiver? Any of you that have Charter and an over the air digital receiver should be able to plug the cable into the receiver to see if you can pick up the locals.

If Charter does not support the digital receivers coming out in the new televisions and forces all owners that have digital receivers to pay rental for digital cable boxes but allows the same analog signals to be received without a box for free, I think Charter will have real trouble with customers.

 

[cableman265]

Not all locals over the air will broadcast when digital conversion takes place. All they are doing is converting the analog signals on existing channels to digital so that the box can display all digital channels. The channels will not change. The digital channels cannot be viewed with an OTA receiver, because they are not in the air, they are in the cables coming to your house. I imagine you are talking about the digital cable cards that some TVs are capable of using. Those are being used now, and dont require a digital box.

 

[pauljk]

Another part of that question is will all the local channels that broadcast in HD over the air be available as HD when the under 100 channel digital conversion takes place?

No. Charter has to have licensing agreements in place to carry locals in HD. Where I live, I can get about 10 different HD locals OTA from the 2 markets I live between, but Charter currently gives me only 2 of those in HD! It's very frustrating and very slow getting more added. That's why I originally went to Voom in the first place.

At least with the OTA antenna now, I can watch the others, but they don't go through my Charter DVR.