Recent Comments:
Is Hollywood Afraid To Be 'Anti-Polanski'? {Cinematical}
Oct 7th 2009 12:51PM In 1978 when Polanski was arrested, it was argued that Polanski was European and European culture views things differently. But then so do Kentucky hillbillys..
But a 13-year old girl is still a 13 year old girl. And Hollywood and the U.S. media of which it is part, have been demonizing crimes such as Polanski's as pedophilia lately. It just seems a bit hypocritical that now they appear okay with it in Polanski's case.
Still. the main issue is fleeing to avoid the legal consequences of his actions. Polanski simply needs to deal with that like a mensch.
Only 443,000 CableCARDs deployed into consumer's equipment {Engadget HD}
Oct 3rd 2009 8:56AM I was referring to the pairing of the cable cards and the 3rd party hardware. When I got my first cable cards for my TiVo HDs, it took me two weeks and over three trips to two different Comcast locations to get the cards and get them paired up. Six months later, one of them spontaneously un-paired and I had to contact Comcast again. Six months after that Comcast decided they didn't want to use the Motorola cards any more and I had to go exchange them for SA cards and get those paired up again -- luckily that only took one trip and 5 days of calling in the numbers and waiting 48 hours to see if they took (with the Comcast reps usually asking for the wrong numbers).
The cable company provided hardware is pre-installed with the cable cards and those are delivered to the customer pre-paired. If a rep calls in, it is just to make sure the right account is being billed for any pay-per-view et al ordered from the box. (btw, I turned in an SA DVR after getting my TiVo HDs and started getting billed for pay-per-view movies because they forgot to change that info. The next guy who go the box was getting free movies for the first couple months -- and getting that cleared up is another horror story.)
Only 443,000 CableCARDs deployed into consumer's equipment {Engadget HD}
Sep 30th 2009 10:20PM Since TiVos are not allowed (because the whole cable card agreement was that they are receive only) 2-way communications, they cannot be automatically configured. Cable company equipment comes pre-configured and are allowed two-way, they are plug and play. The cable companies make the configuration of cable cards something like pulling teeth. Tru2way allows two way communications, but as far as I know, still does not allow automatic setup.
This is monopolistic practice by the cable companies and contrary to the Telecommunications Act of 1996. But it is the FCC that screwed up here by not forcing the cable companies to play fair and in agreeing to the whole cable card one way 'compromise' in the first place.
Poll: What's the most you'd pay for a quad HDTV tuner with CableCARD? {Engadget HD}
Sep 14th 2009 1:17PM $50 is a bit on the high end for me. I would probably be putting it in a $500 - $700 computer making the 2xTiVo option a better deal.
Sexiest Female TV Teachers {Inside TV Blog}
Sep 7th 2009 5:44PM The sitcom "Teachers" didn't get much of a chance a couple years ago (only 6 or 7 episodes were aired), but they had two of the hottest teachers ever, Sarah Shahi (Tina) and Sarah Alexander (Alice).
Western Digital 1TB DVR Expander pre-orders up at Amazon, Apricorn add-ons get a face lift {Engadget HD}
Apr 13th 2009 2:04AM J&R Music is showing the WDG1S10000N as in stock and with a lower sticker price than Amazon.
Poll: Are you waiting for a Tuning Adapter? {Engadget HD}
May 25th 2008 12:30AM I will probably get some tuning adapters when they come out. But they sound like they may be just another hassle.
Hands-on with the Motorola Tuning Adapter MTR700 {Engadget HD}
May 19th 2008 12:05AM In the pictures it looks like the coax from the MTR700 to is connected to Antenna in on the TiVo HD. And the TiVo's cable in has its own coax. Hope this is is just an artifact of the way they did the demo and not something we will need to worry about.
Also, I will be very disappointed if the tuning adapter ends up degrading signal strength.
BTW, I have 4 TiVo HDs, I used to rent Scientific Atlanta (SA) DVRs from Comcast. The reliability, capabilities and ease of use of the TiVos so far exceeds that of the Comcast SA boxes, it is like night and day. Same goes for the TiVo customer support.
Poll: Have you been affected by over-compressed HD feeds? {Engadget HD}
Apr 5th 2008 12:56PM Earlier this week I started to see a lot of signal noise; pixelation, audio drop out, screen garbage etc on my HD channels. Also, I had three or four cable cards lose their pairing this week. I called up Comcast to re-pair those cable cards and they mentioned that VoD was currently being put in my area.
The VOD implementation could include the increased HD channel compression as part of the plan, the changes for VoD, itself, may have temporarily impacted signal quality/cc pairing, or the video/audio quality problems I have been seeing on HD channels may be completely unrelated (sun spots, anyone?).
However, Comcast is allegedly cramming three HD channels into each QAM, I see compression problems as the more likely suspect -- at least for the video issues. I have not heard that this may affect cable card pairing, but that is also a possibility.
