No NFL Network on TWC!

[festivus]

Just got off the phone with a TWC CSR. She advised that negotiations fell through with the NFL Network so TWC will not be carrying that channel at all for this NFL season.:mad: TWC is going to lose a lot of business over this.

So, I'm looking to switch to satellite, probably dish network. Any ideas on the best way to go about this? Contact Dish directly or go with a local installer? Any recommendations?

I'm dreading going through this process. Taking time off work to be home, educating the wife and kid on the new tools, etc. But TWC is just far too stubborn in negotiating deals. It's been how long with Sinclair? It took how long to get ESPNHD? What's up with TWC's team of lawyers?:confused: I've had it with them.

[Shufflefield]

I hear you... When I only had a 32 inch HD I was willing to live with it, and blame Sinclair for the mess. I just got a 56 inch Saturday, I am seriously thinking of looking at some kind of satellite service or WoW. Problem is, I adore my Roadrunner...

How come there hasn't been so much as peep about what is going on in months? I would at least like some kind of constant update, even if it isn't much, to at least show that they are trying.

[zelig2]

You can drop the cable and still keep your roadrunner. Or you could drop everything and go with the AT&T DSL + DishTV thing. I'm planning on dropping TWC for them quite soon.

[festivus]

TWC's strategy of playing hardball with these guys isn't working out. I blame Sinclair for being idiots but TWC should figure out a way to bundle these channels and let those of us that really want them pay a little more for them. Add them to the ESPNHD package and charge a few bucks more. How hard could that be? Satellite providers and WOW get the deals done somehow.

Got until thanksgiving night until the nfl network starts showing regular season games. However, they're also showing all preseason games that aren't being shown by a major network.

[Shufflefield]

I know I could keep the road runner, but they jack the price up a bit. I am considering WoW with their 6 down 1 up package. It's nice to have everything on the same bill, and WoW doesn't appear to cost anything more than what I am paying now. Don't really want to deal with Satellite and I hate DSL.

Hopefully TW will just relent, it's getting to the point where I just rather pay a few bucks more. How much more could it be? If we talking 5 bucks I don't see the big deal.

[mace]

I call Dish Network directly on a Thursday, ordered everything, paid, and they came out that Sunday and installed evertything.

I must say that I was pretty impressed with the turnaround time. They actually said they could come out the very next day, but like you I didn't want to take any time off from work.

[Timcredible]

i've had tw, directv, and dish, and i like dish a whole lot better than tw and directv. well, actually, i just plain hate tw and directv. tw offers what, 9 hd channels? directv is soooo expensive, that just leaves dish for me (wow is not available here). as for roadrunner, i hate it too ever since they put all of delaware on one collision domain - verizon dsl is much, much better (and much cheaper too). so, i guess i'm saying that i think dish is the lesser of 3 evils. i called the 800 number to install it, the installer came by with the wrong equipment, had to come back a week later, got it right, and service has been good for over a year. i'll see how the upgrade of my receivers goes next week.

[zelig2]

I called AT&T on Thursday afternoon and they were at my house the next morning to install the Dish TV stuff. I'll get the DSL on Monday and be ready to roll. I should be getting the same speed as I was getting on my cable modem. I had been holding onto TWC for 4 years now as they kept saying "we'll have ABC and FOX in HD very soon". Now I've got 25 HD channels on Dish (sure most of them are fluff from Voom). ESPN2HD + HGTVHD adds quite nicely to the house. I used to be completely against satellite tv but I've seen the dark side, and it's a whole lot nicer.

[Timcredible]

glad you like it - you'll like dsl also - no contention for bandwidth with your neighbors.

[nakedeye]

I called AT&T on Thursday afternoon and they were at my house the next morning to install the Dish TV stuff. I'll get the DSL on Monday and be ready to roll. I should be getting the same speed as I was getting on my cable modem. I had been holding onto TWC for 4 years now as they kept saying "we'll have ABC and FOX in HD very soon". Now I've got 25 HD channels on Dish (sure most of them are fluff from Voom). ESPN2HD + HGTVHD adds quite nicely to the house. I used to be completely against satellite tv but I've seen the dark side, and it's a whole lot nicer.


Did you use my code? If you did I'm getting me a steak dinner at outback!

[zelig2]

Then you're getting a steak dinner at outback!!

[Robbiee19]

I would go for Cameron Mitchell or Hyde Park my self.

[tenja]

I have had about enough of this crap from TWC. The least they can do is be upfront with their customers or maybe even take a poll to see what we are willing to pay to get the extra channels (ESPN2 HD, NFL Network, Sinclair HD's). The way I look at it they are third right now in the market as far as HD is concerned. If they don't do something before football season I am going to satellite.

[Timcredible]

third? i think dish, directv, wow, and insight all have more hd content than tw, which would put them dead last. however, i have to thank tw for giving me crappy tv and internet service, if they hadn't, i would never have found out how good satellite tv and dsl are.

if you like football, i don't see how you can live without abc, fox, and espn2hd.

i just noticed the ad below my post is for tw - that's funny.

[festivus]

Since I have so many tv's I decided to give wow a call. Of course, they don't serve my area in southern delaware county. The TWC monopoly lives on! No wonder they don't worry too much about poor hd selection and poor customer service.

My biggest issue with satellite is the need for mulitple receivers. I need 2 separate dedicated feeds into my HDTV alone. Need it to use the split screen pip that the TV provides. It's great when 2 good college football games are on at one time. I use it a lot. Then I need at least 4 or 5 other feeds for my other TV's. Satellite providers want to charge me an arm and a leg for the equipment that I would need. Dish wants $199 up front just for the HD dvr. I'm afraid to ask how much $$$ for 3 more receivers.

Looks like TWC has me. No NFL network, no ABCHD, no FOXHD, no ESPN2HD.

[zelig2]

Are all your other tvs SD? Do you ever have something different on each tv in the house?

I just signed up with Dish and got the HD-DVR. Sure it was $199 up front but they gave me $20 off each month for 10 months so it's basically free. I've then wired up all the other tvs in my house to run off that dvr. It's a great system. I'm not sure if you've heard of it but it uses the coax in your house to deliver a signal. Then you use a RF remote to change channels. It uses the second tuner in the HD-DVR to deliver the content. So you only get SD on all the other tvs. Works great for me.

[festivus]

That's a great point. How often do I really have 6 tv's all on different channels? Not one time that I can think of. Often though, we do have 3 different channels going so I would then need only one other receiver. All my other TV's are SD.

In wiring your other TV's to the second (SD) tuner in the HD DVR, do you simply send that signal into the basement and split it to the receiving TV's? Did you do this yourself or did Dish do it? I like to do that stuff myself. What is the distance limit for the RF remote? Can it travel through walls and make it about 40-50 feet? Does the DVR funtionality work through the second tuner?

Sorry for all of the questions.

[zelig2]

I did all the wiring myself. Since the house was wired for cable to begin with it wasn't too hard, mainly just finding which lines I wanted to connect up. I've easily gone 25 feet and through a few walls on the remote. I imagine I could go further but haven't had the time to test that out yet. I will soon as I've connected up another tv in my house to use that same system. They only give you two remotes. One for the main tv and a second RF remote. I'd hope you could get more remotes activated but I'm not sure about that.

The second tv has access to all the DVR content and recording capibilities that the first tv has.

[rossl]

I just looked over the WOW web site. I found no mention of cablecard or how much the extra HD channels cost.

Anyone know if they have cablecard support? I'm about ready to dump Time-Warner.

[bullwinkle]

WOW does have cablecards and the last I heard they were free to rent. These are the HD channels included.

201 CBSHD
203 NBCHD
204 UPN HD
205 WOSU HD
206 ABC HD
208 FOX HD
221 Sports Time Ohio HD

The HD Pak is $10/mo. extra.

209 TNT HD
210 Discovery HD Theater
211 ESPN HD
212 HDNet
213 HDNet Movies
214 Wealth TV HD
215 NFL Network HD
216 HGTV HD

[Scott]

TW responds:

http://www.nflgetreal.com/

:rolleyes:

[rossl]

TW responds:

http://www.nflgetreal.com/

:rolleyes:


TW responds. TW tries to make the NFL Network look like the bad guy. But when I run the numbers, I look at my TW cable + RR bill and compare to the bill I would get if I switched to WOW cable and 4 meg internet. WOW offers all the locals in HD and the NFL net, and still charges less money. I may wait a few more weeks to see what happens, but my days as a TW customer may be over soon.

Thanks to bullwinkle for the info.

[Falcon]

Does WoW get ESPN2 in HD? I've about had it with TW and their inability to get these things worked out

[zelig2]

That site will do as much good as myfreehd.org from Sinclair. Money talks here, doing something for the common good won't happen. If NFL Networks lowers their price for TWC then they lose since all other sources will complain and want a newer rate (even though they wont lower the price for their customers).

[tenja]

That website really pisses me off. TWC, you officially have 60 days to keep my business. If not, I'm switching elsewhere. THis may happen sooner if I confirm WOW is available in my area.

[rossl]

http://images.nfl.com/images/nflnetwork/schedule_2006_450x460.gif

[bullwinkle]

Does WoW get ESPN2 in HD? I've about had it with TW and their inability to get these things worked out

No and I don't see them adding ESPN2 HD in the near future. ESPN charges an arm and a leg for their programming.

[Roadwarriors]

I have enjoyed getting information about Columbus HD from this forum, so I decided to finally join.

I also just jumped ship from TWC to WOW. I was happy when I found out WOW was available.

I was able to get 2 HD DVRs, full channel lineups, which included Starz and HBO, and all of the HD Channels they offer along with their 6mb down/1mb up cable modem service all for less than I was paying for with TWC (Which was giving me less).

There are defintely pros/cons with WOW, but for me the Pros outweighed the Cons. Pros are defintely the channel selection (they even just added Food Network HD) and price. So far the biggest CON for me is the quality of the lower (analog) sd channels. The quality is acceptable, but not as good as TW for those channels under 100 (This could be a low signal issue, that I might have them look at). However, channels above 100 and all of the HD channels are very good quality and on par with TWC or over the air. Some other cons that are not that big of deal are the bland DVR interface and no on-demand channels. Their SA8300HD boxes just use the base SARA interface that comes with the box. Main thing it is missing over TW is search functionality. However it seems to give you greater control over recording.

Hope this information helps anyone else considering making the switch.

RW

[festivus]

I wish that I could get WOW, but I can't. TWC has a monopoly in my area. If they don't get something done about tghe nfl network soon, it's Dish Network for me.

Has the Dispatch covered this story yet? Has anyone contacted them? If not, could we, as a group, ether ask them to do a story or submit an editorial? I think that most of the public won't know what hit them about the nfl network (or sinclair) until they can't watch a game on t'giving night.

[rswank]

"However it seems to give you greater control over recording."
Can you elaborate?
Also considering WOW but have heard bad things about the GUIDE.
Have you noticed any annoyances or shortcomings with WOW's guide vs. TW's?

[Roadwarriors]

"However it seems to give you greater control over recording."
Can you elaborate?
Also considering WOW but have heard bad things about the GUIDE.
Have you noticed any annoyances or shortcomings with WOW's guide vs. TW's?
The SARA Software on the WOW guide gives you more options when setting up recordings. When you choose to record something, it allows you to change the start and stop times in the same interface and also allows you to specify exactly when to delete the program.

Also, when setting up recording for a series, it allows you to specify how many episodes to keep before overwriting.

The main issues with the guide are:
1. If you try to watch a recording in progress, it does not start from the beginning, it starts from the point it is recording and you have to rewind.
2. If you are watching a recording in progress, once the recording finishes, it kicks to live tv and then you have to restart watching the recording and FF or Skip to End and Rewind.
3. No search
4. Not as visually appealing

However, I contacted WOW and they sent me a new firmware upgrade (1.89) that is testing phase and it corrected all of those Issues, except for Search. In addition this new firmware added some other cool features like listing if a show is "HD" in the Guide grid. It also now lists whether show is new or repeat.

Not sure if you read my posts in the WOW info thread, but I am actually cancelling my WOW service due to some un-ethical billing practices. I was quoted a certain price and discount when I signed up for WOW, but when I got my first bill it was considerably higher and they are not willing to give me the price I was quoted or even come down at all. So I am switching back to TW, which interesting enough has provided me a huge discount since I am switching from WOW and I got that discount in writing.

I will miss the extra channels WOW was providing, but I never really had any issues with TW other than the lack of channels.

I am not a big fan of Satellite, I have just seen it go out way too much due to weather. This may not be an issue anymore, but I still hear that it can be.

I can only hope that TW will pick up NFL network. I can get Fox / ABC HD over the air, so it is not too big of deal not getting those channels right now with TWC.

Once last thing with WOW I noticed was the SD channles below 70 were very poor quality compared to TW, but that might just be my connection.

RW.