COX is ripping me off...and what can I do about it?

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before i got hd service officially, i was able to pick up the basic channels in HD as well as dozens of DTV channels with no separate antenna. i had basic cox service on my samsung hdtv. the other weird side effect is i had about 10-15 channels that would play on-demand. ordinarily those channels are blank, but if someone is watching something on-demand i would be able to see it. ppv, hbo, showtime, wwe, skinemax, you name it. i'd also be able to see them control the show such as pause and rewind but obviously couldnt control it ourselves. i don't know if the source is one particular neighbor or its completely random, but my gf called it perv-tv because whenever there's a scene with nudity, or even a bit of cleavage, it'd rewind a few times, sometimes pausing. it'd annoy us to no end especially when its a movie we actually wanted to watch and the person stopped it 2 hours into the movie. it was nice to watch entourage and rome without subscribing to hbo for a few yrs though.
 
<p>Back in the days of VCR tape, the rotating drum with the magnetic pickup heads would keep spinning after the tape transport had been paused. Do it for long enough at the same spot and the tape would begin to wear through and sustain damage.</p>

<p>That explains why Ms. Sharon Stone was obscured by wavy interference.</p>

<p>I had nothing to do with that. It came from Blockbuster that way. </p>
 
IC,





We switched from Cox Digital to DirecTV. Our rates haven't changed much at all over the past three years. You can either buy the equipment or rent them from DTV. We have two of the older DirecTV High Def Tivo's, unfortunately DTV has moved from MPG-2 to MPG-4 codecs which our Tivo can't receive, record, nor decode the newer HD offerings from DTV. DTV has since cut-off their partnership with Tivo, so they have their own developed DVR which I'm not too fond of. There is a $5 per receiver fee for DirecTV, regardless if you rent or own. I have no idea which box is being offered at Costco.





I'm in a wait and see mode right now, I'd love to stay on DTV, but don't like their DVR. I like the new HD Tivo using Cablecards, but Cox offers only a handful of HD channels and it would be more expensive to load up 2 cablecards per HD Tivo plus the Tivo fees. We'll see what happens with Cox offering more channels and if the rumor is true that DirecTV and Tivo are back at the negotiating table.
 
For anyone wanting to save a few bucks...



We have Dish Network and bought their old school DVR/PVR. These have been "grandfathered' in to Dish Network so you can get DVR service without paying a monthly fee. They no longer sell them anymore but you can always find them used on EBAY. We actually bought ours at Radioshack and haven't had any problems with it. There are two models: the 501 holds 30 hours and the 508 holds 60 hours. We saved a few bucks a month anyway...every little bit helps I guess!
 
They don't seem too bright. We had to move our service recently. Asking it to be turned on at new location on Monday and turned off at old location on the next Friday (overlapping the week when we'd be back and forth moving). Well they did it backwards, leaving us with no TV for a week at either place (but still charging us). We expanded our services at the new place and I went to the Cox store to pick up the boxes to do the installation myself and save the $$. They gave me bad boxes. Turned out, the guy in the warehouse was grabbing boxes from the damaged/defective pile and giving them to the stores and service guys to give to customers. They had to have someone come out and swap out the box for one that worked (they tried four to get one that worked) and then charged me for installation and charged me for all the days we had no service because they gave out bad boxes ("but your service was on"). They also decided to charge us for all premium channels when we only ordered HBO and could only access HBO. They gave me a hard time about refunding the costs for the channels we didn't order and couldn't access.





I also don't think we're getting the six month discount we're supposed to get for "new service", but I've been through enough with them already to call them again. We pay:





Limited basic $17.00


Digital Cable 14.95 (for 2 tiers: Digital Cable Tier & Sports/Info Tier). <em>The only channel in both of these we watch is NFL network, but I think you have to buy the basic digital cable tier (12 sucky channels) to be able to get HD -- or something like that.</em>


HBO $10.30


HD Tier $4.95 (for HD ESPN)


HD Digital Receiver Rental $10.50 (for two boxes)


Internet $41.95





Also bugs me that if they happen to give you an "old" box, your channel guide takes up the whole screen (no P-I-P); but the new boxes have the better channel guide that gives you a P-I-P of your show while you're looking at what else is on. Their interface for On-Demand is horribly frustrating and cumbersome compared to Time Warner. I also wish the guide would just gray out or delete the channels that you don't get. I hate surfing through the 1000 channel guide when at least half are channels I don't have. I need to spend the time and set up the favorites...










 
I called Cox again, and went straight to the department that handles "service termination" (I chose the option called "Press X if you are terminating some service, but will continue to reside in the Cox coverage area"). After 2 minutes of talking, the person on the line started looking for discounts and promotions that can be applied to my account. Sadly, the best I could get out of him was "$20 off for 6 months" ($10 off for phone and $10 for internet, nothing for cable).





Some of you might remember the original offer of "$10 off for 12 months". I figured I could always call back after 6 months and ask for another $20 off for another 6 months, so this is a better offer. So I grabbed it, and I imagine you can too.





Thanks to y'all for the indoor HD antenna idea. I got one from Radio Shack today, will report in a few minutes...
 
Good Luck Almon..



Sorry, I didn't read the previous posts, but here are my and a few friends Cox experience..



*As students we applied for the universal low-income discount for the phone service. $5 off service fee. That was nice.



*Some associations INCLUDE basic cable TV. A friend is renting a townhome (University Park area), no cable TV bill.

The landlord says the assoc fee includes cable TV. It was disconnected during mid-year, and them my friend complained to Cox. The tech had to come out and unblock the signal.. the tech over-unblocked the signal and now my friend has the expanded channels.. That's like 40/month right there!



*Moved into apt units where we were charged with additional installation fees. I was like.. what does "Internet ready" mean? The Irvine Company management ended up covering that cost - as they should be.



*Friend moved into apt unit in which the cable TV signal was not blocked (Cox forgot to disconnect after the previous tenants moved out)... That was nice.



*When we moved out, we had to return the box and remote. We made darn sure to keep the batteries from the remote!
 
My journey to stick it to Cox continues...





I was psyched over the indoor HD antenna. We have 2 tv's but only one cable box, so the upstairs tv is mostly used for watching dvd's. We have a gadget from RF-Link that beams the picture from downstairs to upstairs. The picture isn't bad, but you are forced to watch the same channel on both tv's.





So I unpacked the Radio Shack antenna, looks nice enough...Hey wait a minute, how come the cable wire is a coaxial? Isn't that the crappiest quality picture available? No wonder Radio Shack's got a bad rep...Alright, let see how well this works. Let me turn the tv around to get to the plugs...Hey man, my tv doesn't have any coaxial input holes!!! Arggggggghhh, stupid Radio Shack, makes an antenna that receives HD signal, then make sure you can only plug it into a tv that can't use HD. (If I am wrong, my apologies to Mr. Shack)





Time to go to the WalMart website to see what they have. Also CircuitCity and BestBuy too. WIll report again!
 
This one sounds good, but looks...so bad.





But it's out of stock at CircuitCity and Target.





http://www.circuitcity.com/ccd/Search.do?c=1&context=&keyword=PHDTV1&searchSection=All&go.x=0&go.y=0
 
Almon, The antenna has the right connection, a coaxial one. The only way to demodulate the ATSC HD signal is to use an HD tuner. So unless your TV has one built-in or you have your own ATSC stand-alone tuner (Like a samsung T-160) then you won't be able to pickup and decode the HD OTA (Over the Air) ATSC stream. ATSC tuners will allow you to tune to the local HD signals.





The ATSC tuner will have a coax input for a UHF-band antenna (like your radio shack one) and will then output HD via component, DVI, IEEE or HDMI depending on the make/model of the ATSC tuner. If you have one built into your TV then it'll display at whatever resolution the local channels are in (1080i for most, 720p for KABC). Now because it is transmitted via UHF, it requires line of sight to the transmission tower for best reception. Think AM radio. The towers are over pasadena/burbank so aim the antenna in that direction (NW).





Your RF link more than likely will not work with HD signals as the bandwidth needed to display decoded HD content is in the multi gigabits per second.





Yes, you can receive HD over the air for free, however, you need three things, an antenna, a tuner, and a display capable of showing hd content. Now you see why it's just easier to get HD from Cox, plug in box, plug in TV, done. No antennas, no tuner, no aiming the damn antenna since KABC has the weakest signal.
 
Last month I bought the Radio Shack antenna that looks like the Enterprise (spaceship) with two huge rabbit ears sticking out of it like from my childhood. Ugly as sin, but works FANTASTIC. Cost me less than $50 one time,and I get great HD reception on lots of channels (no premiums but that is what Netflix is for). My son watches Qubo every morning now while I'm taking a shower, Theodore Tugboat is his favorite show. And no monthly bills, ever, to cable or satellite. Woo Hooo!
 
<p>OMG too funny eff... </p>

<p>and for all you techies out there, check this set up out <a href="http://www.switched.com/2007/10/31/texas-man-builds-3-4-million-home-theater/">Texas Man Builds $3.4 Million Home Theater - Switched: Gadgets, Tech, Digital Stuff for the Rest of Us</a></p>
 
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