Signifying nothing
Sep. 16th, 2006 10:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
howeirdCable guy showed up at 9:30, which was excellent. The set-top box he brought along is bigger than my DVD player, surprised the heck out of me because I do this sort of thing for a living, and all I expected was a little A/D converter box which would plug into the place I'd been plugging in the antenna. Instead it plugs into component video and optical audio and it gives me a channel guide just like Tivo, which means I need to use the cable box's controls instead of the TV's. This bummed me out until the light went on - I prefer to watch TV via the Tivo, I like having a channel guide.
So I look at the HD broadcast part of my May 2004 channel listing, and it says the football game I want to watch is on channel 184. I punch 184 into the cable box remote and it ignores me. I bring up the channel guide, and there is no 184. In fact, the only broadcast channel in the list is KQED. So I go online and chat with Tina, the Comcast rep, and she says try channel 2. No, Tina, I say, that's an analog channel. Oh, then try 702. 702? Yeah, the HD channels are now on 702-714 or something like that. She points me to an online channel guide, but it's buried many layers deep, and is only accessible after I've given my full name address and phone number. Not incredibly user-friendly, that.
So I watched some football on HD, and some Discovery Channel (which has super quality on its HD shows) and generally surfed the dozen or so channels. It feels like the early days of FM radio or CDs, when the quality was a giant leap upward, but there wasn't much content available. ESPN and ESPN2 on HD are hosed right now - serious transmission problems make them stutter and strobe in and out, and it drives my surroundsound receiver bananas because it has to sync up again each time there's a glitch, and there's one every couple of seconds. ABC's re-transmission was fine, and I'll check again Monday before I complain.
Anyhow, the cats got some serious lap time this afternoon. They both seem to be able to see the HD TV, they never paid attention to what was on the analog one.
Went out for a massage, which was just plain excellent, then dinner at a place in SJ called Pomodoro and was served by a waitress who was stunning and perky and will be packed into a crate at closing time and sent back to her dorm room at the California State Home for the Terminally Cute. A pity, I would not mind spending the rest of my life with her. She would, I am sure.
What else? My paycheck was in the mailbox this afternoon, and this means I will be angrily phoning the contract agency on Monday, because they have had my direct deposit paperwork for three months now, and none of my inquiries via my local rep have gone anywhere. Need to also lambaste them for being a month late getting me my dental insurance info.
Got my new bluetooth ear piece charged and working. Works very well when it's connected, but sometimes my phone forgets to stay paired if I don't use it for an hour or two.
Maybe I'll take a vacation from LJ. I'm writing too much.
So I look at the HD broadcast part of my May 2004 channel listing, and it says the football game I want to watch is on channel 184. I punch 184 into the cable box remote and it ignores me. I bring up the channel guide, and there is no 184. In fact, the only broadcast channel in the list is KQED. So I go online and chat with Tina, the Comcast rep, and she says try channel 2. No, Tina, I say, that's an analog channel. Oh, then try 702. 702? Yeah, the HD channels are now on 702-714 or something like that. She points me to an online channel guide, but it's buried many layers deep, and is only accessible after I've given my full name address and phone number. Not incredibly user-friendly, that.
So I watched some football on HD, and some Discovery Channel (which has super quality on its HD shows) and generally surfed the dozen or so channels. It feels like the early days of FM radio or CDs, when the quality was a giant leap upward, but there wasn't much content available. ESPN and ESPN2 on HD are hosed right now - serious transmission problems make them stutter and strobe in and out, and it drives my surroundsound receiver bananas because it has to sync up again each time there's a glitch, and there's one every couple of seconds. ABC's re-transmission was fine, and I'll check again Monday before I complain.
Anyhow, the cats got some serious lap time this afternoon. They both seem to be able to see the HD TV, they never paid attention to what was on the analog one.
Went out for a massage, which was just plain excellent, then dinner at a place in SJ called Pomodoro and was served by a waitress who was stunning and perky and will be packed into a crate at closing time and sent back to her dorm room at the California State Home for the Terminally Cute. A pity, I would not mind spending the rest of my life with her. She would, I am sure.
What else? My paycheck was in the mailbox this afternoon, and this means I will be angrily phoning the contract agency on Monday, because they have had my direct deposit paperwork for three months now, and none of my inquiries via my local rep have gone anywhere. Need to also lambaste them for being a month late getting me my dental insurance info.
Got my new bluetooth ear piece charged and working. Works very well when it's connected, but sometimes my phone forgets to stay paired if I don't use it for an hour or two.
Maybe I'll take a vacation from LJ. I'm writing too much.
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no subject
Date: 2006-09-17 04:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-18 02:00 am (UTC)TiVo just released an HD converter box which would replace both the analog TiVo and the Comcast box, so you would use TiVo for everything, but at $800 a pop, compared with $5/month for the Comcast converter, no thanks. I'm not that keen on HD that I need to record anything in it. There isn't enough HD content yet to justify it for me.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-18 05:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-18 04:53 pm (UTC)