Um....OK, so I just turned on MSNBC to get the latest news and I get a notice on the screen that says this.
NOT AUTHORIZED To order MSNBC service on channel 114, call 1-800....
What the hell? So I go to channel 114 and it has the same message. At first I thought it was one of those temporary glitches that sometimes happen to cable systems (in this case, Comcast), but then I read this over at TV Newser. Seems that Comcast is starting to drop MSNBC from its basic package in many areas and putting it in the digital package. They're doing it in Pennsylvania, Oregon, and Connecticut, and now it looks like it is affecting Massachusetts, too. Anyone else out there not have MSNBC?
I think we pay approximately $4000 a month for cable and we have a digital package, so I would hope MSNBC would be covered (especially since CNN and FOX News are there). I'm going to get my paperwork and find out why this move isn't included in it. This isn't even remotely Comcastic.
I'm going to hazard the guess that if you are a regular visitor to TV Squad that you, like me, probably watch more television than the average bear. Partly out of good old fashioned curiosity, and partly because I'm paying for all of those channels so I might as well use them, I make it a point to cover as much of my cable TV package as I can when time allows. Doing so, you end up finding some odd and interesting things. After the jump, five things I've learned from my cable TV over the last week or so.
Comcast, Cox, and TiVo have been working on deploying TiVo software on cable company hardware for well over a year now. But while the original goal was to let cable operators flip a switch and automatically send the TiVo software to a customer's box, the reality has been a bit trickier. For the most part, if you've been one of the lucky few people who even had access to Comcast's TiVo service, you probably had to wait for a guy in a truck to roll up to your house and work some magic.
But now TiVo CEO Tom Rogers says the days of auto-flip activation are nearly upon us. This feature will make it much less expensive for cable operators to deploy the TiVo service, which means it's likely we'll see the service expand beyond its current test markets in New England.
Comcast-owned internet media portal Fancast is expanding its content library through a partnership with Viacom. The upshot is that for the first time, you'll be able to catch full length episodes of two of Comedy Central's most popular shows: The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. While you can currently find clips of each show on the program's website, there's no way to watch a single episode from start to finish over the web.
Fancast will also be adding South Park and select content from other Viacom properties including MTV Networks, Nickelodeon, and BET Networks. You can already find a wide range of TV shows and movies on Fancast thanks to partnerships with CBS and Hulu.
I know, I know, we've all heard those words before. It seems that every other show that gets canceled these days has a "could it come back on another network?" addendum, a glimmer of hope that somehow, some way, a show that had a small but loyal following will actually survive. Unfortunately, 9.9 times out of 10 it doesn't happen.
But it could happen to Jericho. According to Brian Stelter at The New York Times, CBS/Paramount execs have been having secret talks with Comcast (yes, Comcast) about doing something with the show for a third season. Now, this might seem like an odd, desperate play for another season if it wasn't for the fact that NBC has already done something very similar to this with DirecTV, twice. First they had a deal with the satellite provider to air Passions, but that was a big bust (sorry, Passions fans), but they have a new deal to air another season of Friday Night Lights. The new season will start airing on DirecTV in October, and then repeats will air on NBC in early 2009.
Want to get your hands on TiVo's top notch PVR software, but don't want to give up video on demand and other services provided by your local cable company? So far your only choice is to move to the Boston area and sign up for Comcast with TiVo service. That's the only market where Comcast or any other cable company is currently offering a set top box with TiVo software.
But word on the street is that Comcast will be expanding its TiVo offering soon. EngadgetHD reports that a Portland, Oregon Comcast customer says two different Comcast cable installers told him that TiVo service would be an option soon, as in this summer.
Keep in mind, you don't get a TiVo box, just TiVo software on your regular Comcast box if you sign up for this service. And you get the privilege of paying $3 extra per month for that software. But if you're tired of staring at Comcast's generic program guide and menu system, $3 might seem like a small price to pay.
Now that Comcast has already begun offering TiVo software on Comcast-branded set top boxes in Boston, it looks like Cox Communication wants in on the action. Both Comcast and Cox have been working with TiVo for the last few years to add the popular PVR-maker's software to their set top boxes. Now Multichannel News reports that Cox is preparing to roll out a limited trial in New England.
Cox provides cable service in Rhode Island and parts of Connecticut, so it looks like Cox and Comcast won't be going head to head in Boston.
No word on what kind of premium Cox will charge customers for the TiVo software or when the software will be publicly available. We assume Cox will roll out the software upgrade much the same way that Comcast has, meaning you won't need to call your cable company and request a new box. Rather, the company should be able to deliver a software upgrade over your cable line.
TiVo released its quarterly financial results yesterday and the company reports narrower than expected losses. And buried in CEO Tom Rogers' statement was this little nugget: TiVo is working on a standalone set top box that will support Tru2Way, the standard once known as OCAP.
What that means is that one day you'll be able to buy a TiVo box that has support for advanced digital cable functions like switched digital video, video on demand, and pay per view. Right now, the closest you can get is a Motorola box from Comcast that runs TiVo software. If you happen to live in the Boston area, that is. For folks in the rest of the country, you have a choice: TiVo, or video on demand. You can't have both on the same set top box.
Of course, by the time TiVo gets this new box to market, Comcast and Cox may have already rolled out TiVo software outside of New England.
Recently, TV Squad reported that NBC has added all kinds of classic TV shows to their online outlets. Now comes the announcement that CBS is also bringing a variety of well-loved TV dramas to the web. CBS Interactive is raiding the CBS Library, which is "one of the largest television programming libraries in the entertainment business," to present TV series online across the CBS Audience Network.
Like the NBC fodder, the CBS offering is gangbusters: full-length episodes of classic Star Trek, Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone, MacGyver, Hawaii Five-O and Melrose Place. CBS plans to add more programs and clips in the coming months, including sports and other kinds of entertainment.
In every generation there is a chosen key combination. It alone can stand against the commercials, the boring bits, and the forces of TV darkness. It is the hidden 30 second skip button on the TiVo remote control.
Now the button with the right arrow under the fast forward button will advance 30 seconds whether you're watching live, recorded, or on-demand programs.
Sure, it's been over a month since we started hearing reports that Boston area Comcast customers have been able to sign up for TiVo software on their Motorola set top boxes. But now TiVo and Comcast have gone and made the whole thing official-like by issuing a press release (not yet available on either company's web site) and getting the news in the papers.
The advantage of getting TiVo service from your cable provider is that you get the TiVo program guide and services like Season Pass, WishList, and search while hanging onto services from your cable provider like video on demand. Comcast currently offers 10,000 On Demand titles, including 1300 movies.
On the other hand, you don't get some of the features that make standalone boxes like the TiVo Series2 or Series3 attractive like TiVoToGo or online media.
Comcast will bill customers $2.95 per month on top of their regular DVR and cable fees. The service is currently available only to customers in the greater Boston area, but is expected to roll out in other parts of the country soon.
I can't decide. The new AnyPlay portable PVR from Comcast and Panasonic is either brilliant, or about as good an idea as screen doors on a submarine. On the one hand, we all spend a lot of our time on the go, and there's nothing I love more than a way to take my recorded TV shows and movies with me. On the other hand, you kind of want your PVR to be sitting by your TV 24/7 to make sure you never miss a show.
Here's how AnyPlay works. You set it up by your TV and it works as a regular HD personal video recorder. But you can also unplug it from a docking station and take the AnyPlay with you to use as a portable video player with an 8.5 inch LCD screen and 60GB of memory.
I guess we can hope that the docking station functions as a sort of second PVR and continues recording shows when the P-DVR is unplugged. But really, wouldn't it be a lot easier just to add a USB port or flash card slot to your existing set top boxes to let users copy shows to removable media for viewing on an iPod or other portable device?
There's good news and bad news on the Comcast TiVo front. The good news, as you may have heard, is that Comcast is finally letting users sign up to receive TiVo software for $3/month over the cost of the cable company's regular PVR unit. The bad news is that while you'll get some of the same features a regular TiVo unit sports, you don't get everything.
There's no TiVoToGo, no Amazon Unbox, and no Real Rhapsody. And it's not like any of the features are likely to come in the near future. That's because Comcast's Motorola set-top-boxes don't have a way to connect to the internet or your home network. Therefore, there's no easy way to move videos from your set top box to a PC for archiving, and there's no way to download or stream internet content. There's also no eSATA support for adding an external hard drive.
On the other hand, since Comcast offers TiVo service on top of its existing platform, you do get a few things with a Comcast TiVo that are unavailable on standalone TiVo boxes. For example, you can watch video on demand programs. And, well, that might be about it. Well, that and you don't have to pay $250+ up front to get a set top box.
Sure, it's great news that Comcast is finally rolling out set-top-boxes to New England customers who sign up for TiVo service. But it would be nice if these new boxes actually worked the way they were supposed to.
Blogger Steve Garfield, who we've already pointed out is one of the first non-Comcast employees to get TiVo service on a Motorola box shot a little video to show off some of the differences between a Comcast TiVo and a regular TiVo that you would buy from a store. For example, the Comcast remote has a couple of extra buttons for controlling online features like filtering programs by category. Want to see just movies? No problem. Just kids programs? Easy. How about only HD content? Umm, yeah.
It took a whopping 53 seconds for Garfield's TiVo to filter out all of the non-HD programs. He reports that he has contacted Comcast and they're aware of the problem and working on a fix. But you'd think this would be the sort of thing they would have addressed before deploying the software.
Now that Comcast is making TiVo software available to the general public (and by general public, I mean a handful of people in Massachusetts), blogger Steve Garfield decided to sign up. And lucky for us, he's documented his ordeal so you know what to expect.
OK, that's not fair. Odds are that thanks to the guinea pigs early adopters like Garfield, Comcast will have some time to work out the kinks by the time it makes TiVo software more widely available.
But right now, getting TiVo service on your Comcast box isn't exactly what I'd call easy. Garfield says first he got an email letting him know that service was available, but he couldn't find any way to sign up online. After calling Comcast support and chatting with a rep online, he was still getting nowhere until an executive called him out of the blue to confirm an appointment Garfield hadn't actually made. He was told that they would be installing a new box, and he would be able to keep his old box until he watched his recorded programs. This was just flat out wrong. What Comcast actually did was download new software to his Comcast box to provide TiVo service. No recordings were deleted.
Long story short, Garfield's service is working. And thanks to his noble sacrifice, there's a good chance that if you're in a supported area, Comcast agents might actually have a clue what you're talking about when you call to request TiVo service.
Um....OK, so I just turned on MSNBC to get the latest news and I get a notice on the screen that says this.
I'm going to hazard the guess that if you are a regular visitor to TV Squad that you, like me, probably watch more television than the average bear. Partly out of good old fashioned curiosity, and partly because I'm paying for all of those channels so I might as well use them, I make it a point to cover as much of my cable TV package as I can when time allows. Doing so, you end up finding some odd and interesting things. After the jump, five things I've learned from my cable TV over the last week or so.
Comcast, Cox, and TiVo have been working on deploying TiVo software on cable company hardware for well over a year now. But while the original goal was to let cable operators flip a switch and automatically send the TiVo software to a customer's box, the reality has been a bit trickier. For the most part, if you've been one of the lucky few people who even had access to Comcast's TiVo service, you probably had to wait for a guy in a truck to roll up to your house and work some magic.
I know, I know, we've all heard those words before. It seems that every other show that gets canceled these days has a "could it come back on another network?" addendum, a glimmer of hope that somehow, some way, a show that had a small but loyal following will actually survive. Unfortunately, 9.9 times out of 10 it doesn't happen.
Want to get your hands on TiVo's top notch PVR software, but don't want to give up video on demand and other services provided by your local cable company? So far your only choice is to move to the Boston area and sign up for Comcast with TiVo service. That's the only market where Comcast or any other cable company is currently offering a set top box with TiVo software.
Now that Comcast has already begun offering TiVo software on Comcast-branded set top boxes in Boston, it looks like Cox Communication wants in on the action. Both Comcast and Cox have been working with TiVo for the last few years to add the popular PVR-maker's software to their set top boxes. Now Multichannel News reports that Cox is preparing to 
TiVo 
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