Those Swine At Comcast

[Lord Jim]

So, we missed the season opener of The Closer... (a fantastic show btw...except for Brenda Lee's needy whiner husband Fritz, but I digress)

We haven't done the Tivo thing, but not to worry, Comcast has a built in on demand system that allows you to bring up pretty much any new or recent show on most networks and watch it whenever you want, so last night we decide to settle in for an evening of television viewing, and we cue that up....

And before the program comes on, an announcement comes up that says "Fast Forwarding Has Been Disabled For This Program"....

WTF



I'm paying big bucks for this cable "service," (we have five TVs) and these evil bastards are now going to stop me from fast forwarding past the commercials? This is even worse than with regular TV, because when your in the "on demand" mode you can't switch the channel while the commercials are running; the damn thing holds you prisoner...Somebody needs killing....

So at first I'm thinking that maybe this is a TNT thing... (The Closer is a TNT show)...

But after watching this program, we plug in a House (a FOX show) episode we missed....

No announcement, but also disabled fast forwarding... (Damn that Rupert Murdoch!!! Where's my apology? )

But then after that, we plug in an episode of In Plain Sight (another excellent show) and we can in fact FF the commercials...(Kudos to USA Network...though I'm sure it's just a matter of time....)

So apparently the Fascisti at Xfinity have decided to pad their bottom line even further by now offering the networks, (for a hefty fee I'm sure) the option of holding their high paying customers prisoner to their commercials...

Time for Tivo....

[dales]

Five televisions?

[Lord Jim]

Five televisions?

You say that like it's a bad thing...

One in my downstairs office, (I usually have one of the news channels on in the background while I'm working, like a lot of people would have a radio on) One in the living room, one in our bedroom, one in Tati's bedroom, and one in the kitchen....(we haven't set one up in Jimmy's bedroom yet, but that day will come)

Just a typical American family....

We also have two more in the garage that aren't hooked up but are in perfect working order if you need one....

[Joe Guy]

Are they all HD tv's or are you still living in the 20th century?

[dales]

CATV is the work of the devil.

[Lord Jim]

Joe, I'm embarrassed to admit that they are not HD, (I've looked into it, and it seems like there are still a lot of issues with the technology...like dealing with sunlight)

Eventually we'll upgrade at least the living room set to HD, (But never the one in my office...I seriously doubt that high def would do much for Andrea Mitchell....)

[Joe Guy]

Can you even buy a non-hdtv anymore?

I believe the 'issues' with HDTV have been resolved for at least a couple of years. I wouldn't buy a 3D model yet, but The HD's are great.

[Gob]

We used a hard-drive DVD recorder for all our viewing, and about 50%+ of all we watch is stuff which we have recorded, so adverts are always skipped there.

We have two TV, one in the living room, one in the spare room, Hatch could have the one in the spare room in her bedroom if she wished, but she's never asked for it. The the spare room TV is where I get exiled to watch the rugby or cricket, if Hen and Hatch have something else live that they want to watch. In other words it doesn't get much use.

We're thinking of getting a massive HDTV for the living room, but have other priorities. When we were back in the UK last we stayed with relatives of mine who had the biggest TV on earth, it had fantastic quality picture (they are very rich, so it was probably the best you could buy at that time.) We saw some cricket on it, I fell in love. But I couldn't help wonder what porn would be like on it too.

[The Hen]

I would not want the Hatch to have a telly in her bedroom. I am not a "telly in the bedroom" kinda gal as I don't think it is conducive for excellent sleep.

I don't mind having a massive motherfucking HDTV in the future, but I am fairly sure I have no desire for a 3DTV, ESPECIALLY for porn.

Those money shots might be a bit much to take in 3D

[rubato]

Television makes you stupid.

Each television in your house reduces your effective IQ by 50%.

I never owned a television until 1989 and since then have owned two, total.

Having said that, HD is far better (and we don't have it). We also have the cheapest cable package possible because we both have demanding jobs and commute so why pollute our brains with trash?

yrs,
rubato

[Sean]

3DTV is a failing technology. My advice would be not to buy one unless you want it to end up in the garage with your betamax player, laserdisc and DCC players.

There are just too many issues which cannot be resolved... both technical and health issues. If anybody is thinking about buying one say the word and I can post a list of the reasons why you shouldn't.

[Crackpot]

Failing? There are people getting surgical implants so they don't need the glasses. THat being said you'd still be a real early adopter at this point and I'm still a little disappointed I bought my blu-ray player 4 years ago instead of waiting a few more months when they started loading a hell of a lot faster.

OLED seems to be the next big thing tho.

[Sean]

I hadn't heard about the surgical implants CP. I'll have to look that up as I'm not sure how they could work. It seems to me that they would have to stop each eye processing certain colours which doesn't sound like a particularly good idea to me...

The biggest health issue is the convergence/focus problem. When we look at an object our lines of sight converge at the object and our eyes focus at that point. This is how we see in 3D. With a manufactured 3D image our eyes are being asked to converge and focus at different points. The smaller the distance to the viewing plane the harder our eyes have to work. So it's not such an issue in a movie theatre but is a real issue in your living room. This is bad enough for 3D programmes which have been honed for many hours in post-production but when there is a 'live' broadcast with 3D imaging done 'on the fly' then the convergence/focus gap is constantly changing. This has been shown to cause headaches, eye strain and in some cases seizures.

Thye technology itself is too young and comes with a myriad of issues. How many of us watch TV whilst eating, reading, working on a computer, writing etc? You can forget about that! You would have to take the glasses off to view anything outside of the TV area to avoid severe strain. It's worth remembering that these are not the same as the 3D glasses we have become used to from the movies. The viewing plane is much closer when it's our TV so the glasses' effect needs to be much more radical.

3D movies are this decade's fad. TV manufacturers are trying to jump on the bandwagon but they are doing so without due consideration for the consumer.

I would have to agree about OLEDs (once they can make a decent sized screen at a non-exhorbitant price of course). They are the first technology since CRTs which can display an actual black! That alone will guarantee their success.

[Crackpot]

New 3d works on polarized lenses rather than eliminated colors

[rubato]

New 3d works on polarized lenses rather than eliminated colors

3d from 30 years ago worked on polarized lenses.

How is that new?

yrs,
rubato

[Sean]

Both new and old 3D works that way. The polarisation eliminates certain colours. The principle is the same as the old red and blue lenses.

[Sean]

BTW I've done a quick search for the surgical implants you mentioned CP but all I've found so far are people sarcastically saying that this is what the future holds for us. As I said, I can't imagine how such an implant could work. For a 3D effect to be visible the whole procedure needs to take place in front of the eye...

[Crackpot]

I heard about it on the news being done at the "experimental" level. (though it is possible that the news agency was taken for a ride). What I'm saying about the lenses now is that they work on the principle that made monochrome LCD displays visible in that they are using non (or barely) visible spectrum to filter out imagery through one side of a pair of polar opposite lenses. In current 3D what you're getting is a much higher frame rate (nearly double IIRC) of images half of which are polarized for one lens the other half being polarized for the other crating the illusion of two slightly different perspectives. The lenses just filter (by making one image dimmer) what one eye is seeing at any given point in time

[BoSoxGal]

One of NPR's April Fool's Day pieces this year was on 3D surgical implants. Wonder if that is the 'news' piece to which you refer, CP?

[Crackpot]

Could be If so It was rather convincing.