by Jonathan Takiff, The Philadelphia Inquirer
Comcast wants your old cable box, demanding it out for a new one that you swap.
Initially, the pitch seems appealing. Would youn't desire the added interactive features, deeper mixture of cable and internet stations, and sound control available nowadays using the X1 platform and cable receivers? To get it, you will need to stop trying your old field – losing your stash of championship game moments, comedy bits, favorite movies, and never-to-be-rerun concert shows.
While tv receiver/DVRs from Dish system and DirecTV enable customers to maneuver or keep programs for an outside disk drive that may be connected to a brand new receiver, that choice isn't available with Comcast Xfinity or Verizon FiOS bins.
Based on a Comcast source, there isn't any option to transfer tracks straight from a vintage model to a brand new one. Nonetheless, just about 5 % of https://besthookupwebsites.net/silversingles-review/ customers continue to have the outdated bins.
There is no legal recourse for the increased loss of past recordings. Consumer agreements which are signed before activating devices hold that the supplier or maker can not be held responsible for a lot more than the price of the equipment if or once the item doesn't perform.
So which set-top boxes are now being targeted? The relatively older people (see below). Comcast's local senior vice president Jim Samaha recently sent a letter to those customers impacted.
Germantown, Philadelphia resident Tom Di Nardo ignored the very first few letters: “I'm always mail that is getting Comcast.” Then this weekend that is past warning messages started turning up on their television every 15 minutes declaring their service had been planning to be disrupted.
“Older containers like yours can not maintain with brand new features and certainly will lose HD networks. So we'd want to offer you a fresh one.”
This removal of high-definition networks on older cable containers is occurring because Comcast changed the method it delivers signals.
Initially, several hundred stations were moved simultaneously through cable lines up to a set-top field, where customers tuned into the people they desired. Now, using the X1 platform and an even more refined MPEG-4 digital compression scheme, just the channel you have chosen is streamed into the cable field being a much smaller file.
That radical change frees up the bandwidth to carry additional HD and Ultra-HD stations and, more essential, faster internet service that Comcast may need to count on in the event that trend to streaming movie suppliers, like Netflix, Hulu, Sling TV, and Amazon, continues. The brand new technology additionally provides much more recordable program storage space, “in the cloud,” that won't disappear in the event that you change bins once again.
East Mount Airy, Philadelphia resident Elayne Bender is mourning the increasing loss of favorite episodes for the Voice and “classic Saturday Night Live bits” that may vanish whenever she swaps out her cable that is current package.
Di Nardo, a longtime traditional music critic and writer, is bemoaning the 18 hours associated with the Metropolitan Opera's Ring pattern – a $16 million homage to Wagner's masterwork – he dutifully recorded on WHYY's Y2 arts channel in hd.
To make certain that all just isn't lost, he is now in the middle of copying those programs via a DVD recorder – something that Toshiba, Panasonic, and Magnavox quit building a few years back but could be present in limited quantities online. “The transfer to video disc is time intensive – this has to be performed in real-time – and also the picture quality is standard definition, not too good,” Di Nardo stated. “But it beats recording the operas with a digicam or a smartphone held up while watching television screen.”
Obsolete Comcast cable package models
DCH3416, DCT6200, DCH3200, DCT6412, DCT3416, DCT6416, DCT5100, DCH6200, DCT3412, and DCT6208. A $60 service fee will be charged if an installer is dispatched to your residence. But, it yourself, you pay nothing and get a free return label for the old box if you can do.
В©2017 The Philadelphia Inquirer Written By Tribune Content Agency, LLC.