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There's a question for the LiveJournal brain trust at the end of this entry.
We need to install cable service in the new TV room. We had an electrician in anyway for something else and asked him to just do that too, but it didn't work and he's not returning phone calls. Rather than put up with the extension cords across the hall forever, we decided to just get the cable company to do it.
The popular wisdom seems to be that you order digital cable service for a month, which forces them to upgrade the wiring and not just use whatever crap is lying around, and then if you don't really want digital cable you just cancel it. This is ethically (and halachically) quite iffy, and were it not for the "try it! you'll like it! really1 we'll even give you the first month free if you stick around!" stuff plastered all over their web site, I might hesitate.
But they're pushing it in the way I just described, so I've just ordered it. My goal is to have installation happen on one of the days when Dani will be home from work anyway (next week or the week after); they're supposed to call to confirm.
I think this is going to mess up our VCR setup, but I am naive in the ways of cable. We do not currently use any sort of special cable box; the wire comes out of the wall, plugs into our "surge protector", and goes out from there to the VCRs and TV (via splitter). The web site seems to be saying that you can't get any signal without the converter box (which they'll supply). It used to be that cable service came with an A/B switch, so you could at least plug the bands into different VCRs if that helped you resolve a conflict. No more, I gather.
My question is about simultaneous recording from a single cable feed -- our problem is Wednesday nights, when we currently record "West Wing" on one VCR and "Twilight Zone" on another. I gather that this will not be possible with a converter box. Is that right? Is there a solution other than renting a second converter box?
This, and price, have actually been my barriers against getting "real" cable service for years. I get almost everyhing I need for $12/month and no box; getting the Sci-Fi channel (and some others) would be worth some boost in cost, but not if the converter box limits me in that way.
We need to install cable service in the new TV room. We had an electrician in anyway for something else and asked him to just do that too, but it didn't work and he's not returning phone calls. Rather than put up with the extension cords across the hall forever, we decided to just get the cable company to do it.
The popular wisdom seems to be that you order digital cable service for a month, which forces them to upgrade the wiring and not just use whatever crap is lying around, and then if you don't really want digital cable you just cancel it. This is ethically (and halachically) quite iffy, and were it not for the "try it! you'll like it! really1 we'll even give you the first month free if you stick around!" stuff plastered all over their web site, I might hesitate.
But they're pushing it in the way I just described, so I've just ordered it. My goal is to have installation happen on one of the days when Dani will be home from work anyway (next week or the week after); they're supposed to call to confirm.
I think this is going to mess up our VCR setup, but I am naive in the ways of cable. We do not currently use any sort of special cable box; the wire comes out of the wall, plugs into our "surge protector", and goes out from there to the VCRs and TV (via splitter). The web site seems to be saying that you can't get any signal without the converter box (which they'll supply). It used to be that cable service came with an A/B switch, so you could at least plug the bands into different VCRs if that helped you resolve a conflict. No more, I gather.
My question is about simultaneous recording from a single cable feed -- our problem is Wednesday nights, when we currently record "West Wing" on one VCR and "Twilight Zone" on another. I gather that this will not be possible with a converter box. Is that right? Is there a solution other than renting a second converter box?
This, and price, have actually been my barriers against getting "real" cable service for years. I get almost everyhing I need for $12/month and no box; getting the Sci-Fi channel (and some others) would be worth some boost in cost, but not if the converter box limits me in that way.