Massillon Cable TV Digital Douchebaggery
I feel a little stupid for not realizing this before, but it just hit me this morning. Among the myriad of problems we will be facing with Digital TV, is the neutering of all home-built DVRs.
I spent a lot of money building up my refurbished Media Center computer to be able to record television shows while I am at work.
NOW, my local cable company is shifting to ALL DIGITAL, using the broadcast changeover to justify their decision to screw everyone. I’ve seen their digital feed, and pixellating images are the order of the day with their sub-par service. The picture freezes, fits, and starts are not welcome here. They also have raised the price!
I almost have to have their crappy digital cable because I need internet access. There is AT&T DSL available, but I canceled my phone service through them because of their bullshit opposition of net neutrality, and didn’t regret it in the slightest when I heard about all the warrantless wiretapping. I refuse to give them any money when they actively seek to censor the internet, and spy on American citizens.
The cable company too, is now skating the edge of losing their funding with my hard earned dollars. If you want to have internet access, without paying the $55 a month for ‘basic’ cable tv, you are assessed a $10/month “line accesss charge,” which is complete bullshit. The only way around it is to pay $21.75/month for “welfare/ghetto” cable (you know, just channels 2-22, the major networks plus local access, and c-span, and the spanish channel. Only about 5 of those are decent channels and that includes the PBS). The only funny thing is that you can add HD and Internet packages onto the Ghetto Cable service, thus keeping your bill somewhat reasonably priced.
I think I’m stuck getting one of their stupid converter box things, then leaving the box on all the time, and switching it to the channel I want to record on, before I head off to work. Then, even though I’ve got a DUAL-TUNER PC card, I would almost bet 1 trillion dollars that the f-digital converter box only does one f-channel at a f-time!
I’m just a little bit pissed, can’t you tell?
Fuck you, Massillon Cable TV.
Edit: Now that I did a little bit more research, I’ve found that they do make dual tuner digital PCI cards, so I’m going to Massillon Cable in the very near future and requesting a service credit of over $100 so that I can buy a new TV tuner card that decodes digital signals. Wish me luck.
Did you end up getting a digital PC tuner that worked? I thought I’d be safe with my analog/digital dual tuner card but after the transition went down I tried to have it scan for the new digital channels it only found 3 or 4 channels (none with audio). I asked around some forums and it sounds like it was the tuner’s fault (no up-to-date drivers) but I don’t want to have to keep buying/trying/selling a ton of tuners just to find one that works with MCTV. If you did find a model that works I’d love to find out whick one you got. For the record, my old one was an Asus My Cinema-PE9400 Combo TV Tuner…
Yes, I did find a digital tuner that works, but I’m having a hard time adapting to the software.
I was using Windows Media Center to record all the series I watch, and the occasional movie.
I got the Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-2250, dual tuner card, and it works sort of fine with Massillon’s digital feeds. I eventually figured out their scanning to find all the channels, and they are there, but I have to manually set the recordings (I can set them to record weekly). But the video program threw up an error this past thursday when I went to record burn notice and some other shows.
I have to work on it when I have time, but I like the Hauppauge dual tuners…
i realize this is an old post, but i’m trying to set up wmc in windows 7 using massillon cable clear picture (live in wooster) and having issues finding all the channels. when i scan i get some of the channels but missing many, and some of the info in the guide isn’t correct either. i’m assuming finding the correct way to scan for the channels could solve this. i see you were able to scan and find all the channels. can you tell me how u did this? thanks
I had trouble with scanning the channels initially when I got my digital card (a Hauppauge dual tuner top of the line, don’t remember model # off the top of my head). Anyway, I don’t have Windows 7, and I have to use Hauppauge’s included program WinTV7 to record TV. I do know that ONLY the regular channels are broadcast in ClearQUAM, so if you’re trying to get HBO or any of the package/pay channels above 78 or whatever the normal top # is for the Extended Basic cable, you won’t be able to, it’s encrypted.
You should join HTPC forums (HTPC stands for Home Theatre PC) here: http://www.htpcforums.com/. They are VERY helpful over there, and you can make a post asking for help in the Windows forum, and you should be able to get it figured out in a couple of days or so.
I hate digital TV. The images freeze and pixellate and are NOTHING like the quality we used to get with analog cable. Massillon Cable TV did the switchover at the time the broadcast stations were required to so they could blame the government was forcing them to switch to this sub-par service. They can cram 6 low-quality digital channels down the same pipe as 1 analog channel, and it allows them to expand their on-demand big moneymaking offerings.
We need net neutrality or these cable operators are going to be able to cap your downloads so that if you subscribe to Netflix, you have to pay $100 per month just for your internet, or more. Because video files are big. It’s anti-competitive, not to mention the fact that Massillon Cable TV is a monopoly. Until I can get 3 or 4 different choices of cable tv providers over Massillon Cable TV’s lines, where they actually compete on price and quality of service, then we ARE under the thumb of a Monopoly! Sorry for the rant. Good luck, I hope you get your problem fixed soon, and I’m glad other people realize that paying $5-10-15 /month for DVR service is ridiculous, when you can use your home computer and a TV tuner card and get the same features for around $100.